The first person who deserves UX is me…or in your case, you

Imagine this: You’re in an airplane getting ready to push back from the gate and the flight attendants are giving the pre-flight instructions. When they get to the part about air masks, who do they tell you to put the mask on first, you or your child? You, of course. Why is that?

As UXers, we spend a lot of time trying to understand our users so we can create the most efficient, effective and delightful products ever. But as we’re expending all this empathy, are we forgetting someone? As they say in every relationship book ever written, we need to take time to take care of ourselves. UXers should spend at least some of our efforts choosing the work we do and how we do it. If Lean and Design Thinking practices are good for our clients, are they not also good for us? I say “Yes!”

“You cannot serve from an empty vessel.”

-Eleanor Brown

“Lean” is for UXers too

A few years ago I was assigned to a project staffed with developers who understood and valued UX. They were moving an app from a PC-based thick client to a web presentation and wanted help with the user experience. After reviewing the state of the app and the team’s backlog I typically would have created a dynamic prototype to communicate my vision of the design.

But, after getting to know the team I noted two important things:

• The UX of the application was pretty good already. Yes, it needed the edges polished, but it was clear the development team cared about UX.
• The UX programmer was a fast coder and was very interested in iterating the design with me.

Because the team was already hip to UX and could discuss UX ideas with little more than simple wireframes for guidance, I skipped the interactive prototype and presented all my concepts in PowerPoint storyboards. Recognizing and trusting the culture and talents of the dev. team has saved us many weeks over a traditional UX approach.

This is only an example, but it illustrates how thinking Lean about my work saved me time and effort, endeared UX to my project and made my job soooo much more enjoyable.

“It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?“

— Henry David Thoreau

Example Lean questions for UXers

• Am I spending time on design work that makes a difference (or for that matter, will ever see the light of day)?
• How can I avoid falling in love with solutions before discovery is complete?
• Am I creating the deliverables I think users should have or ones customers will actually use?
• Are there UX patterns out there I can reuse instead of being “creative”?
• Am I willing to figure out a way to get along with (or get around) that difficult coworker?
• Am I willing to challenge the project manager’s (not so useful) pet feature?

The list goes on.

Almost anything goes better with a little Design Thinking

Like our clients and customers, UXers don’t work in a vacuum. We’re told to view project teams as our “clients.” We would do better to look at our teams as “systems” to which we can apply UX skills. The standard questions we ask in any project are:

• Who are the users?
• What are their tasks?
• What is their context?

These apply just as well to our collaborative work and deliverables as they do to the products we design.

“The highest form of knowledge is empathy.”

— Bill Bullard

Applying Design Thinking to our work processes

How can we apply Design Thinking to our work processes?

EMPATHIZE: Designers must see the world through the users’ eyes. A successful design and development process is no different. What does the world look like from the product managers’ and engineers’ points of view?

DEFINE: Create hypotheses about the barriers preventing acceptance and implementation of great UX.

IDEATE: How can we increase the acceptance of our recommendations and designs? Propose ways to reduce or eliminate the hurdles to understanding the UX point of view and the designs that come from it.

PROTOTYPE & TEST: Put in place approaches for honing and presenting ideas and deliverables, note the level of acceptance, ask for feedback, and iterate.

How this works in practice will, of course, differ from company to company, and work group to work group. Here is the point — apply the same skills and experimentation to our work methods as we do with clients.

“No time” is no excuse

What keeps us from improving how we work? The typical refrain is “who’s got the time?” Take that response for what it is, an assumption about what’s possible. We tell our teammates to question their assumptions and so should we. We also tell our clients and coworkers that time spent on UX pays big dividends. Why shouldn’t we get our share?

A little “me” time

Consider giving yourself some “me” time. When we make our own work delightful, we’re better able to do the same for our clients, users and companies. See if Design Thinking, journey mapping and other UX practices can improve the way you do your work.