UXLx 2017 — Talk Day — Things to remember
For me, this year talks were mostly about connections. I am not sure if UXLx folks planned this or if I just strengthen this feeling with my workshop selections. I saw this “red line” almost in all of the talks.
What I mean with “connections”? It’s not about great opportunities to network with other people from all over the world. It is more about how is the technology connected to humans. It is about how our role is connected to other people and to the business. And of course — it was a lot about the connection to our users or customers.
So, what I want to remember from talks? It’s a quite a long list.
- If we are overloaded, we fail. We have limited memory. So do our users. Think about that before you show the user a lot of functions or content at once.
- There is no right way to solve the problem. There are good and bad ways, but no right.
- Try to put more “you” in the work you create.
- Don’t try to make your product by 10% better. Make it disruptive.
- Jobs to be done is not a task.
- “Jobs to be done” discussion is same as we have as UX Designer but from a business perspective.
“People don’t want a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.” — Theodore Levitt
- We are too focused on tools and technology. We should more focus on value. The goal of our customers is simple. They are just trying to get their job done.
- Users shouldn’t feel demotivated or dumb. Even in the cases when you’re giving them bad news.
- Fitbit is designed for positive reinforcement. Their goal is no screen with all red values.
- Be careful with sandwich feedback, it shouldn’t look like “I like you. You did all wrong. But I like you.” 🍞💩🍞
- People’s reaction to work you’ve done is very often not on you personally. Don’t take it like that.
- Talk positively. People will more likely listen to what you want to say than trying to defend themselves.
- Don’t focus so much on things that don’t matter.
- Be open to ideas of your stakeholders. They can have a lot of domain knowledge and all ideas should be taken into consideration.
- Tell people where they are, where they need to go next and how they journey will look.
- If you aren’t anticipating people’s needs, then you’re not doing UX.
- Meet your users half way. Know when to make decisions for them and when to let them make decisions.
- Do not chase the trend.
- Build trust with every action. Create a system of giving and take.
- Design like you’re right, test like you’re wrong-
- Users don’t ask themselves “How will I increase ROI of app I am using?”
“The problem with ideas is that everyone has them. And most of them sucks. Another problem is that we don’t know which but we’re confident that our’s don’t.” — Jeff Patton
- Good design solves the problem, is easy for users and is supported by everyone.
- The first step to recovery is admitting that you’re not in control.
- The story is saying who you are in the world.
- Stories are how we understand the world, but how we shape it too.
- Create totems and artefacts which are reminding you what you want to achieve. Visualize your future identity.
- Popular is not always factual.
- We are describing humans with technology but we are the technology.
- The way product looks like and feels is as important as the technology behind it.
- We like being human. We are attracted to humanness. We want to be with another human.
- Social awkwardness is more important than to have internet attached to your face.
“The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.” — Peter Drucker
Well, that's all from 3rd day of UXLx. You can check my notes from first two days of conference, or you can just press the little heart for recommending this article!
UXLx also provided sketch notes from all talks (hopefully, they'll publish more of them in near future).
I attended awesome workshops on Friday — User Story Mapping with Jeff Patton and Articulating Design Decisions with Tom Greever. There was a lot to share and I will publish my notes in a few days. If you don’t want to miss them, subscribe to the Product Unicorn publication or follow me on Twitter.
