3 Things I Learned About UX This Year
When you open your phone and hail a ride, or book a night at a person’s home for a discount rate off the beaten path, you might think the people who built these things are geniuses, or possibly robots. But the fact is, nobody’s born a designer. I have been doing UX for a few years now, but every day feels like Day One.
One of the biggest lessons I have learned over time is that design is a way of thinking. Design success can be achieved by following a thought process, which means it can be learned, which means it can be taught. Like anything in life, design thinking takes work, training and perseverance. To quote Sir Isaac Newton, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”
These giants, if you will, have been the people that have inspired me to refine my craft along the way. Some I’ve worked with, some I admire from afar.
1. Give Your Design Away
Andrea Sutton, VP Digital Design and User Experience AT&T
“There is no room for design dictatorship,” she said to the small room of designers. And she was serious. “We are not here to dictate design. Period.” There was a hush that fell over the room as people started trying to discern the meaning of this.
“If you want to succeed, you have to give your design away.” This lesson comes from Andrea Sutton, my former boss, who taught me that to succeed in design is to collaborate, to give ideas away and to receive them graciously. Design success is collaboration. There are lots of things you can do alone, but if you want to make an impact, you’re going to have to be willing to negotiate.
Learn more about Andrea sutton by checking out @dezinechops
2. Start with Why
Simon Sinek, an unshakeable optimist
“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe.” You don’t need to have all the answers, but you do need to start with WHY and hold onto it with a fierceness. I learned that this year by reading the work of Simon Sinek who gives an amazing Ted Talk.
“Those who forget WHY they were founded show up to the race every day to outdo someone else instead of to outdo themselves.”
We have, as a business culture lost sight of who the most important competition is in the game: ourselves. As design thinkers, we must be ready and willing to tell transformative stories about our customers, their challenges, and WHY we want to solve those problems.
Learn more about Simon by checking out Simon Sinek
3. Cover and Move
Fred Ritch, Associate Director of User Experience Research
This simple principle is something Fred says often. He encourages people to fail fast, and move faster. Inspired by a book called Extreme Ownership he describes how the SEALS have a principle called ‘Cover and Move’.
Cover and Move means extreme teamwork. Teams have to work together to accomplish the mission. The mission is a failure if any one part of the mission fails. Everyone is there to support the other and sees the failure of one as the failure of the whole.
Contrary to the way teams often work in corporate America: There’s no room under the bus. Teams, departments, and supporting assets must always Cover and Move — help each other, work together, and support each other to win. There is no victory without teamwork. In UX, this means no finger pointing. We have to find creative ways to work together.
If the development team can’t implement something, we have to see that as mission critical to our approach before we get to the end. If the product team can’t see WHY a design decision makes sense, it’s our responsibility to understand their concerns, and invite feedback as part of our design process.
We have to create a common understanding of success at the beginning of projects, working together. Good design is not an ivory tower exercise, rather it is the culmination of a team willing to work together effectively at every step.
To do the work we do means to be qualitatively different from business as usual. We believe in customer needs as a way to shape our plans.
We believe in a world where software at any scale of business is effective. We believe in a world where people matter, and that shapes the way we work. We believe Design is an effective answer to the fog-of-war plaguing software design.
Imagine a customer’s story penetrating the board room and shaping how a company designs. Imagine a world where companies base their decisions on how people react to their applications instead of their marketing. The experience is the product.
User experience means we are not in the business of Hail Mary’s, we are in the business of delivering on shared understanding of our customer.
Those are three things I learned this year. Have any thoughts?
