Do you struggle with handling a large volume of UX projects? Do you find yourself doing repetitive housekeeping tasks instead of putting your energy where it really matters? In this session, you’ll learn to operationalize your UX process so that you can speed up and streamline the “admin” side of the house. Give yourself and your team time back to focus on high-value UX work and rinse away the grunt work, distractions, and mindless tasks that eat up your productivity. After applying these lessons, you’ll be able to tackle more projects, help onboard new designers to your team quicker, and minimize or delegate away time-consuming tasks that don’t bring results. You’ll improve your team’s velocity, reduce time spent in unnecessary status meetings, and have a well-oiled UX team that can perform with a predictable, high-quality process that makes the most of their skills.

1. Rinse and repeat
Automate your UX process
Spend more time on the work you love
Jessamyn Edwards
Senior UX designer, AWS Backup
June 2023
Photo by Cristian Palmer on Unsplash

2. About me, my career, and my role
• Jessamyn Edwards
• Amazon Web Services (AWS) 2018-present
• Senior UX designer (manager / lead)
• 50+ launches across 5 AWS services
• Co-host podcast “Surviving UX” with Meg
Cramer, Sr. UX designer at Adobe

3. What you will learn
in this talk
• The “rinse and repeat” mindset to
create your own mechanisms
• Tools to give your projects
operational rigor
• A sense of empowerment to
automate your research, design and
handoff process
Photo by Zac Ong on Unsplash

4. “Rinse and repeat”
• “Bank” your deliverables and processes
• Template
• Tracker
• Toolkit
• System
• Process
• Make it reusable, repeatable, sharable
• Set the standard
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

5. Bike shop story
• Broken bike
• Mechanic starts working
• Boss interrupts
• Frees customer to leave
• Creates a contract
Photo by Manny Becerra on Unsplash

6. Problems and solutions
Real issues faced by our team and what we’ve done about it
Photo by Engin Akyurt on Unsplash

7. Starting from scratch
• Project intake process undefined
• UX kickoff too casual (email, Slack,
offhand request)
• Designers jump in and start designing
without a plan
• No time budgeted for user feedback
• No milestones striving toward
• Difficult to hand off
Photo by Sepehr Zahedi on Unsplash

8. Get started right
• Create project intake rituals and
documents
• After the request, you take the lead
• Set up expectations to the team of
what to expect from you
Photo by Adam Kring on Unsplash

9. UX kickoff meeting
• Hold 30-60 minute kickoff meetings
• UX owned and driven
• Fill out project template together
• Get details “about the project”
• Don’t get into design details yet
Photo by John Thomas on Unsplash

10. UX Kickoff meeting agenda
Project name
Who’s who
Timelines
Milestones
Requirements
Meetings
Documents

11. UX Brief template
• Stakeholder-facing
• UX-focused document for project lifespan
• Project name and details
• Who’s who – stakeholders and roles
• Milestones and timelines
• Requirements – epics and stories
• Resources and deliverables
• Meeting index / meeting notes
Photo by Forest Simon on Unsplash

12. Topic Story Status Owner
Activation Download Not started
Create In progress
Connect Completed
View Blocked @thatGuy
UX Requirements

13. Cutting corners
• Project doesn’t get any feedback
beyond team’s bubble
• “No time” to do user research
• Good feedback goes unaddressed
• Lorem ipsum mockups
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

14. In-flight project
routines
• Give yourself permission to set high
standards
• Be transparent about progress
• Face conflict head-on… through
writing
• Keep track, keep count, keep tabs
• Get everyone excited about the end
goal
Photo by Noah Usry on Unsplash

15. Design reviews
• Record every piece of feedback, good
and bad
• Add a screenshot
• Check it off when addressed
• If not addressed, add a reason
• Works for reviews of mockups or demos
• Builds trust and credibility with your
team
Photo by Forest Simon on Unsplash

16. Topic Feedback Screenshot Status Updated
Create Description
unclear
✅
Edit Missing section
for role
Won’t fix -
Design review

17. Decision document
• Be opinionated about a controversial design
• Offer a recommendation & alternatives
• Share the do-nothing version as a control
• Present the document to stakeholders
• Document the final decision
• OK to get rejected – document that too
Photo by Shifaaz shamoon on Unsplash

18. Decision doc
Background
Option 1 (recommended)
Option 2
Option 3
Decision

19. Research study template
• Recruitment techniques
• Participant list
• Tasks and scenarios
• Notes and top takeaways
• Findings summary and share out
• UX updates made
• Research turnaround 3 months to 3 weeks
Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

20. User research study
Background
Findings summary
UX updates
***
Participants
Introduction
Tasks
Notes & takeaways

21. Research tracker
• One spreadsheet per year
• List user feedback studies and owners
• Number of participants
• Internal vs external
• Use to influence best practices
• 2021 7 studies; 52 internal / 30 external
• 2022: 11 studies; 71 internal / 5 external
• 2023: 7 studies; 34 internal / 30 external
Photo by Sooz . on Unsplash

22. User research tracker
Topic Date
Internal
participants
External
participants
Findings report /
notes
New feature March 2023 3 2 Summary
Enhancements June 2023 5 1 Notes
TOTALS 8 3

23. Design is never done
• Poor post-design communication
between team
• Designers unsure how to participate
in process after handoff
• Unexpected implementation
surprises
• Design continues to evolve after it’s
“final”
Photo by Gavin Van Wagoner on Unsplash

24. Project handoff
• Document and standardize the
process for handoff
• Collect data on what the team wants
• Visualize your ideal process
Photo by John Thomas on Unsplash

25. Help text document
• Everyone’s least favorite job
• Reviewing and refining is painful
• Writers are over-extended
• “I don’t like to write”
• Use “info” as a crutch
• Moved off of writer’s plate to UX
• Moving to peer-review model
Photo by Sakura on Unsplash

26. Help panel text
Screen Section Screenshot Title Content Link
Create Summary Getting
started
This
feature
allows
you to…
Learn
more
about
creating
Name Role Reviewed
PM No
Designer Yes

27. Handoff process ritual
• Surveyed UX and Engineering teams
• Wrote a proposal and reviewed with
managers and teams
• Document handoff best practices
• Hold a handoff meeting
• Passed accountability to front-end
engineers
• Cross-trained engineers on scheduling
and running design reviews
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

28. UX handoff process
Background
Proposal
• Handoffs should occur in a meeting
• Planning large projects
• Project deliverables from UX
• FEE project ownership
• Requesting reviews
• When to escalate
Appendix
• Review training
• Survey responses
Training
References
Objectives
• Evaluate UX deliverables
• Review with team
• Deal with feedback
• Schedule formal reviews
• Demo to reviewers
Tasks
• Visit wikis
• Request review
Completed
• Name

29. Takeaways
• Create rituals and processes for UX
• Routine, routine, routine
• Reclaim your time for the work you love
Photo by Max Kleinen on Unsplash

30. Connect with me
• survivingux@gmail.com
• solongsweetlime@gmail.com
• LinkedIn: jessamynedwards
• Surviving UX podcast