Changing the UX mindset

CHANGING THE UX MINDSET
Gaining influence through collaboration
UX India | October 2014
Sarah Bloomer
SarahBloomer & Co | UXIndia 2014
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@boolie
@boolie

You are here
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Culture
Collaboration
Capability Maturity
@boolie

Acceptance of UX involves change
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Skepticism
Curiosity
Acceptance
Partnership
Stop battling for acceptance and get strategic
Ehrlich & Rohn, 1994
www.useit.com/alertbox/process_maturity.html
@boolie

What we are told:
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“You need an Executive Sponsor”
“Invite everyone to observe usability testing”
@boolie

We tend to get busy with UX
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@boolie

…when you need to look beyond
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Working with colleagues
Negotiate the UX role
Build awareness
Be strategic
@boolie

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Techniques
Design process
Design principles
Tools
Development process
Coding constraints
UX is part of the whole
Soft Skills Communication
Promoting UX
Domain expertise Marketing Finance eComm etc
Essential
Leadership
Management
Other skills
Writing
Facilitation
Divergent thinking
@boolie

What do UX practitioners need to succeed?
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The Hardest Soft Skills Mia Northrop @mnorthrop
Creative thinking Communication Problem solving Analytical thinking Active listening Collaboration Interviewing and observation Persuasion and influence Planning and organization Teamwork
Soft skills
UXers
Senior managers
Product managers
Facilitation
Critiquing Consensus building
Building trust
Client management
Negotiation
@boolie

CULTURE
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@boolie

Organization types
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Software
Enterprise
Creative Agency
The software is the business
Software to support the business Website or web apps to deliver services
Work with software companies and enterprises to help them design user experiences
@boolie

Each situation is unique
Business goals / drivers
Product(s) & Team
Process
What
How
Who
When
and
and
Constraints
Company culture
The sum of the parts will give you help determine the best approach
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@boolie

Start with your culture
•Culture drives the values and norms that drive actions
•Cultures that deliver great experiences are:
•Adaptive
•Accepting of (reasonable) risk
•Accepting of (reasonable) failure
•Committed to quality
•Willing to prioritize
•Other-focused
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K. Goodwin: Leading UX
UX London, April 2011
@boolie

Cultural values and myths
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Actual company values are the behaviors, attitudes and skills that are valued in fellow employees. Myths are beliefs that reveal those values Users don’t know what they want, we can design for ourselves
Companies create corporate values that they aspire to
1.Deliver WOW Through Service
2.Embrace and Drive Change
3.Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4.Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5.Pursue Growth and Learning
6.Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7.Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8.Do More With Less
9.Be Passionate and Determined
10.Be Humble
Zappos.com
@boolie

Another angle on culture
Design centric
Engineering centric
Paul Sherman. Changing Processes and Cultures. Nov ‘07
Creative approach to design
Tend to design for designers—visually oriented
Technology driven Have always owned the user interface
Believe they know their customers
Features over usability or user experience
Sales & Marketing centric
Find ways to collaborate that match the values of the culture
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@boolie

Apply your design research skills
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Get to know your co-workers
Field studies To understand your co-workers and their context of work
Personas
To enable you to design an effective process
Rich picture
To identify attitudes and behavior
@boolie

Field studies
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•Interview and observe the people you work with: product managers, analysts, quality engineers, scrum team colleagues.
•Interview stakeholders to understand their goals and beliefs.
•Be a product owner.
Storytelling:
How do they feel? What do they say? What do they complain about? What do they boast about? What are they proud of? Who do they admire in the company?
@boolie

Create personas of colleagues
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Jen Fabrizi, 2013
@boolie

Rich picture
SarahBloomer & Co | UXIndia 2014 18
Competitors
Product
Owner
Business Analyst
Testers
Architect /
Tech Designer
Developers
UX Architect
Enterprise
Architect
Business
Analyst
Senior
Leadership
Teams
Customers
Which
company
do I trust?
What are people
like me doing and
saying?
What do
customer
s want?
What are our
competitors
doing?
Will it be on
time and on
$$??
Gotta block
for my
team!!
Do they get
what I want?
What do I
want?
They want
what, when?
Scrum Master
External
Pressures
In-Group
Pressures
Internal
Pressures
Scrum
Team
The
Enterprise
PO Cabinet
LEGEND
Mental
Models
Ideas
Let’s visualize it
together!
Use rich pictures to
“reason about work”;
(Monk & Howard,
1998)
J. Fabrizi, 2013
@boolie

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operational model
capability
model
user research
interaction design
information architecture
usability engineering
visual design
content writing
front-end development
process
model
UX meta model
user- centered taxonomies / ontology
knowledge in-flows & out-flows
capability interaction touch points
attitude & behavior model
waterfall
agile
leadership
logistics
staffing
sponsorship
funding
personas
scenarios
rich pictures
storyboards
Fabrizi, 2013
Modeling the user experience practice:
a unified story
@boolie

FINAL TIPS
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@boolie

Be a leader to drive change
•Communicate all the time
•Keep a learner’s mind
•Build trust in all directions
•Give credit where it’s due
•Stay out of the weeds
•Value your team
•Make time to mentor and coach
•Shut up and listen
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@boolie

Collaborate in all directions
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Adjacent teams
Colleagues
Allied teams Beneficiaries
Upper management
Stakeholders
Your UX team
Other beneficiaries
@boolie

Build communities of practice
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Build relationships within your organization through Communities of Practice. Promote cross-functional collaboration. Cross-functional teams drive ongoing research, design and evaluation.
Customer research
Customer facing experience
Product Strategy
Branding
Marketing
UX Team
Product Strategy
Personas
Field studies
Analytics
Sales
Stores
Customer service
Tech support
Training
Personas
Stories
Customer feedback
Voice of the Customer
Sales Marketing UX Team Tech Support Product Development
Usability test results
Tech support issues
Release plans
@boolie

Tips to move up the maturity model
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Learn about your culture:
Build trust: within your team, with your peers and your stakeholders
Show you value co-workers: support them, help them succeed, give them the information they need
Get to know your co-workers: Spend time with product managers, scrum team colleagues, senior management.
Share: UX is most effective when it is influencing and enabling other groups.
Find allies: Learn how other groups are measured.
Identify myths & values: Find what’s preventing you from moving forward. Also barriers & opportunities.
Communicate in all directions: Within your team, next to your team, above your team.
Be a leader:
Design your team:
Be tactical: Choose activities that will be accepted within your culture. Align your UX goals to bigger goals.
@boolie

It won’t happen over night
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http://johnnyholland.org/2010/04/planning-your-ux-strategy/
@boolie

You’ll get there
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Culture
Collaboration
Capability Maturity
@boolie

Changing the UX mindset

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