Main takeaways: - Learn the basic tenets and functional areas of User Experience Design - Explore the push-and-pull balance of Product Management and UX Design - Discover some tips for incorporating UX into your day-to-day work, as well as interfacing with UX Designers

1. www.productschool.com
Balancing Product and UX Design by
Babylist Sr Product Designer

2. Join 40,000+
Product Managers on
Free Resources
Discover great job
opportunities
Job Portal
prdct.school/PSJobPortalprdct.school/events-slack

3. CERTIFICATES
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Product Leadership
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Management Certificate™
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4. Corporate
Training
Level up your team’s Product
Management skills

5. Jess Huang
T O N I G H T ’ S S P E A K E R

6. Balancing Product
and UX Design
Jess Huang
Sr Product Designer • Babylist
Product School • July 17, 2019

7. Balancing Product
and UX Design
Jess Huang
Sr Product Designer • Babylist
Product School • July 17, 2019

8. Balancing Product
and UX Design
Jess Huang
Sr Product Designer • Bain & Company
Product School • July 17, 2019

9. In case you didn’t stalk
my LinkedIn…
I’m Jess Huang
● UX/Product Designer since 2010
○ Starting at Bain & Co ADAPT next week
○ Formerly from Babylist, Degreed, HandUp,
GoPro, Playhaven, Socialcast/VMware
● Former HTML/CSS Specialist (YP.com)
● UX Design Instructor (General Assembly)
● UX Design Mentor (Andreessen-Horowitz)
● “Pretty cool but also a weirdo” - my
husband

10. Agenda
1. What is UX and why should I care?
2. Balancing the 3-legged stool
3. Working with UX Designers
4. Incorporating UX into your day-to-day Product work

11. What is UX?
And why should I care?

12. UX is “the design of
anything independent
of medium or across
media, with human
experience as an explicit
outcome and human
engagement as an
explicit goal.” - Jesse James Garrett, @jjg
(cofounder of Adaptive Path,
author of The Elements of User Experience,
guy with cool hair)

13. Let’s break that down a little...
● The “user experience” encompasses a user’s interactions with all
aspects of a product or service
● In the tech world, this usually means a person’s interactions with
the computer used to access a digital product
● The idea of UX is very broad and always evolving, just like the
technology that is supporting it

14. UX Is everywhere, not just on the web

15. When the user asks,
“Does this website give me value?
Is it easy to use?
Is it pleasant to use?”
User Experience Design is all about
striving to make them answer
“Yes.”
Source: Smashing Magazine, “What is User Experience Design?” - http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/10/05/what-is-user-experience-design-
overview-tools-and-resources/

16. BUT WAIT!
If it looks good, isn’t that
enough?
(hint: no…)

17. The UX Iceberg
Visual Design
Interaction Design
Interface Design
Usability
Content Strategy
User Research
Information Architecture

18. What UX Designers Do
(Some UX Design Deliverables)
● User Personas
● User Flow Diagrams
● Experience Maps
● Storyboards
● Competitive Analysis Reports
● Moodboards
● Sketches
● Wireframes
● Prototypes
● Quantitative Surveys
● User Research Synthesis/Analysis
Big lists: https://uxplanet.org/a-complete-list-of-ux-deliverables-d62ccf1de434 / https://uxdesign.cc/ux-design-methods-deliverables-657f54ce3c7d
● Content Audit
● User Task Analysis
● Heuristic Analysis
● User Interviews
● Focus Groups
● Card Sort Exercises
● Style Guides/Pattern Libraries

19. ● Specialists
○ Visual Designer
○ Content Strategist
○ User Researcher
○ Prototyper
○ Copywriter
○ Information Architect
○ UI Designer
○ Interaction/Motion Designer
UX Job Titles
● Generalists
○ Product Designer
○ UX Designer
○ UX/UI Designer

20. So, why should I care?
Source: Fast Company “Dollars And Sense: The Business Case For Investing In UI Design” - https://www.fastcompany.com/1669283/dollars-and-sense-
the-business-case-for-investing-in-ui-design
+14.4%
Customers’ Willingness
to Pay
-15.8%
Likeliness of Switching
Brands
+16.6%
Likelihood of
Recommending a Product

21. Balancing the 3-Legged
Stool
Keeping the User Experience in mind

22. Lateral Team Design
Source: DesignBetter by Invision, “Lateral Design” - https://www.designbetter.co/principles-of-product-design/lateral-design
Product, Design and Engineering all shape the
overall User Experience
When Product, Design and Engineering work
together well, we have the greatest impact

23. The Three-Legged Stool
Source: First Round Review, “Defining Product Design: A Dispatch from Airbnb's Design Chief” - https://firstround.com/review/defining-product-
design-a-dispatch-from-airbnbs-design-chief/

24. The Three-Legged Stool
Source: First Round Review, “Defining Product Design: A Dispatch from Airbnb's Design Chief” - https://firstround.com/review/defining-product-
design-a-dispatch-from-airbnbs-design-chief/

25. Keeping the Balance
Strategy, Experience and Feasibility
weighed against each other:
● What should we build?
● What can we build?
● When should we build it?
Easiest way to do this?
Have. A. Conversation. E
D
E
E
SM E
D
P
E
GoPro’s “Ascot” Design System
Team

26. We need to
increase our
activation rate to
hit our revenue
goals
Here’s why users
aren’t activating
Here are some
things we can do
to increase
activation
PM
UX
ENG
We can spend 2
sprints on
activation
Here’s what we
can build in that
timeframe
Here’s what we
need to in order
to build that

27. Sprinting together
(a simplified diagram)
Sprint 1 Sprint 2 Sprint 3
Sprint 1 Sprint 2 Sprint 3
Sprint 1 Sprint 2 Sprint 3
Sprint 4
Sprint 4
Sprint 4
Sprint 1 Sprint 2 Sprint 3 Sprint 4

28. Working with UX
Designers
For fun and profit

30. Overlapping Roles
Source: UX Planet, “UX & product management: What’s the difference?” - https://uxplanet.org/ux-product-management-whats-the-difference-
ac295a0282f1?gi=87c85b5aac9f

31. UX + PM = BFFs 4EVER
Things to do together:
● User Research
● Usability Testing
● Brainstorming
● Design Sprints →
● Requirements Gathering

32. Even BFFs need their space...
UX Responsibilities:
● Visual Design
● Interaction Design
● User Journey Mapping
● Information Architecture
● Persona Creation
Product Responsibilities:
● Product/Market Fit
● Roadmap Planning
● Budget/Resource Analysis
● Cross-Team Communication
● Change Management

33. Wait, what if I don’t have
a dedicated designer?!

35. kidding.

36. How to incorporate UX
Design into your Day-to-
Day Work

37. Methods:
● Upfront user research
● Usability testing
● User Recordings
● Heat Maps
● A/B Testing
Users Always on My Mind...
Tools:
● Invision
● UserTesting.com /
SoundingBox.com
● HotJar / Inspectlet
● Optimizely
● “Guerilla” User research/testing

38. Remember:
It’s not (just) about how it
looks.

39. An Architectural UX Parable

40. It’s about how it works
for the user.

41. A UX Success

42. “Does this give me
value?
Is it easy to use?
Is it pleasant to use?”
Source: Smashing Magazine, “What is User Experience Design?” - http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/10/05/what-is-user-experience-design-
overview-tools-and-resources/

43. www.productschool.com
Part-time Product Management Training Courses
and
Corporate Training