Keep the Ugly UX
Keep the sharpies away from your new shirt, though, Sammie.
UX used to be fun…
nothing matches the excitement of starting a new UX/UI design project. A team of thinkers huddled together (physically or virtually) trying to make sense of their collective ideas without losing a single point.
And they manage to put it all down. A whiteboard filled with sketches, sticky notes, colors and magnets and …a photo of a user story written on someone’s jean-clad shin in lipstick?…why not🤷🏻♀️
Those were the good ol’ days when UX was messy, creative and fun.
Behold, the age of photoshopping personas
People nowadays care about the font they use for a persona’s name more than the reason they actually need personas.
I can’t count the times I have seen people actually putting in hours for designing persona cards.
➡️ UX deliverables are tools, not final results.
they are the way a designer communicates the results of a UX activity to the designer who will use these results in the next UX activity.
So as long as they’re understandable, what does it matter how they look? You should have seen my sprint boards on miro. Hideous.
It’s when clients ask to see this stuff that designers start caring how UX Deliverables look. They launch Photoshop and waste so much time making something like a user story look nice. And different. For every client. why?!
➡️ Unless it’s wireframes, present them exactly the way they are
Take photos of your whiteboards, scan the papers, download the miro boards, export the sketch board…however they look, present them just the way they are. It’s behind the scenes work. The gory stuff. You client should understand that.
Except wireframes. It’s tough trying to decide whether the CTA on screens 2 & 3 are of the same importance when the wireframe gives me no indication.
Other than that who cares what colors you use for mind map bubbles? does food taste better in gold plates?
➡️ People who worked with me will think I’m a fraud for writing this…
and I understand why they should. I’m a planner by nature. I’m the one always creating templates for UX activities. But I only did it once per activity to save time. It will be unfortunate if we have to come up with a different design for a user journey for every client. We already wasted time making one template, just use it again. Not because it’s pretty, but to save the time required to make a new one.
But if you have to design some, don’t panic
if you have to do it to wow a potential client, for example, and you’re no graphic designer (UX designer? researcher?), don’t worry. I’ve got you.
There are some awesome products to help UX designers quickly design a killer looking UX Deliverable regardless of their graphic design skills ⬇️
Canva
anyone not using Canva yet? regardless of how good a designer you may or may not be, simply pick a template and go!.
the thing about canva is that it saves you the pain of starting from scratch and gives you confidence since it offers so many elements that are predesigned by real graphic designers. It’s really fun.
Miro
Miro is an online whiteboard for collaboration. I rave about it so much to anyone who would listen. There are predesigned templates for most UX activities. Simply fill in the actual data. You’re welcome!
Snappa
Snappa is very similar to Canva but you have only 5 downloads a month on the free plan.
And seriously there are so many web-based graphic design solutions now, you can keep trying until you find one you’re comfortable with.
👉🏻 But seriously, don’t waste any time designing them unless you really have to. Or really like to..
because UX should be the fun part. Go to town! No restrictions.
