As a UX Pro, I've dealt with clients for 15 years doing user research and product design. Some clients are a dream while others can be sheer nightmares. We all develop strategies to cope and to CYA (Cover Your Apples). In 2014, I became an entrepreneur and "The Client." I discovered a whole new world of Baloney Sandwiches that vendors were trying to feed me. Talking to other Product Owners and CEO's, I discovered some trends when working with designers, consulting firms, agencies, and dev houses. I realized that my consulting practice was guilty of some of these no-no's too. This talk will go over Dos and Don'ts for working with clients. We'll cover things like visibility, process, milestones, work products, and more.
This document provides guidance on product management techniques for discovering user needs and developing product ideas. It discusses how to understand users through interviews and observation to identify pain points. It also outlines a three-step process for proposing product changes: 1) deeply understand the problem, 2) identify an ideal solution, and 3) scope a practical solution. Additionally, it covers how to create clear product specifications that consider functionality, layout, text, and avoid issues that could complicate development. Examples of mockups, user flows, and other tools for visualizing and specifying products are also presented.
How to Prepare for and Survive a Technical InterviewPerl Careers
This document provides advice on how to prepare for and survive a technical interview. It begins with an introduction of the author and their relevant experience. It then discusses that interviewers have no real idea what they are doing and the goals are to see if candidates can demonstrate their claimed skills and experience, maintain composure, and be likable.
The document provides tips such as doing research on the company and interviewers, preparing for different types of technical challenges by practicing explanations and showing work, focusing on being interesting rather than just providing right answers, and preparing responses to common technical and non-technical questions. It emphasizes practicing answers out loud and prioritizing based on the job requirements and one's own strengths.
Landing an Executive Level Job -- Middletown5 Tool Group
You are either moving up, nowhere or out. To get to the top, you have to be a business "ninja" warrior moving from one obstacle to the next difficult obstacle till you get to the top.
To land an executive level job, you have to think, speak and act like an executive.
If you need help landing an executive level job, please contact me at joza@winningspeechmoments.com.
You can watch the presentation that goes with this on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/y7Nh9fkfHLs
Get Paid More: The Anatomy of a Technical Hiring ProcessPerl Careers
The document provides advice on negotiating a higher salary during the technical hiring process. It explains that understanding how the process works and having knowledge about the different stakeholders involved, like hiring managers and budget controllers, can help maximize salary. It recommends clearly communicating salary expectations to recruiters before interviews so the expectations are correctly set before a formal offer is made. Setting an early salary review after starting can also help address a small difference in agreed upon salary.
This document provides an overview of project management and leadership. It discusses the roles and responsibilities of a project manager, including working with stakeholders, translating requirements, managing expectations, and communicating status. It introduces common project management frameworks like waterfall and agile methodologies. It emphasizes the importance of vision, managing expectations through the triple constraint of scope, time and cost, and focusing on people over processes through effective leadership and communication.
How Prototyping Helps You Design a Better ProductUserZoom
Sarah Doody, a NYC based independent User Experience Designer, explains why we must prototype, the prototyping process, tips to prototype fast & furiously, how to use prototypes effectively in your product design process to improve clarity and collaboration with your team.
This document provides guidance on product management techniques for discovering user needs and developing product ideas. It discusses how to understand users through interviews and observation to identify pain points. It also outlines a three-step process for proposing product changes: 1) deeply understand the problem, 2) identify an ideal solution, and 3) scope a practical solution. Additionally, it covers how to create clear product specifications that consider functionality, layout, text, and avoid issues that could complicate development. Examples of mockups, user flows, and other tools for visualizing and specifying products are also presented.
How to Prepare for and Survive a Technical InterviewPerl Careers
This document provides advice on how to prepare for and survive a technical interview. It begins with an introduction of the author and their relevant experience. It then discusses that interviewers have no real idea what they are doing and the goals are to see if candidates can demonstrate their claimed skills and experience, maintain composure, and be likable.
The document provides tips such as doing research on the company and interviewers, preparing for different types of technical challenges by practicing explanations and showing work, focusing on being interesting rather than just providing right answers, and preparing responses to common technical and non-technical questions. It emphasizes practicing answers out loud and prioritizing based on the job requirements and one's own strengths.
Landing an Executive Level Job -- Middletown5 Tool Group
You are either moving up, nowhere or out. To get to the top, you have to be a business "ninja" warrior moving from one obstacle to the next difficult obstacle till you get to the top.
To land an executive level job, you have to think, speak and act like an executive.
If you need help landing an executive level job, please contact me at joza@winningspeechmoments.com.
You can watch the presentation that goes with this on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/y7Nh9fkfHLs
Get Paid More: The Anatomy of a Technical Hiring ProcessPerl Careers
The document provides advice on negotiating a higher salary during the technical hiring process. It explains that understanding how the process works and having knowledge about the different stakeholders involved, like hiring managers and budget controllers, can help maximize salary. It recommends clearly communicating salary expectations to recruiters before interviews so the expectations are correctly set before a formal offer is made. Setting an early salary review after starting can also help address a small difference in agreed upon salary.
This document provides an overview of project management and leadership. It discusses the roles and responsibilities of a project manager, including working with stakeholders, translating requirements, managing expectations, and communicating status. It introduces common project management frameworks like waterfall and agile methodologies. It emphasizes the importance of vision, managing expectations through the triple constraint of scope, time and cost, and focusing on people over processes through effective leadership and communication.
How Prototyping Helps You Design a Better ProductUserZoom
Sarah Doody, a NYC based independent User Experience Designer, explains why we must prototype, the prototyping process, tips to prototype fast & furiously, how to use prototypes effectively in your product design process to improve clarity and collaboration with your team.
Introduction to Kanban for Creative AgenciesWilliam Evans
This is an introduction to Kanban. Creative agencies, like most organizations that do knowledge work, are defined by the projects they deliver that (hopefully) delivers value for the clients. Most agencies also struggle with multiple competing stakeholders, multiple client engagements, tight deadlines and long hours – it’s amazing any creative work happens at all. Most projects – brand campaigns, websites, landing pages, social, pr, direct, everything, can be viewed as a process - a series of steps or tasks that achieve some desired result – delivery of the project, a happy client, drinks in Tribeca. There are all kinds of processes - simple and complex, individual and team, quick and time-consuming. Sometimes large or over-arching processes consist of a series of smaller processes.
Kanban is a tool for managing the flow of materials or information (or whatever) in a process. Not having the materials, whether it is a part, a document, or customer information, at the time you need it causes delay and waste. On the other hand, having too many parts (too much design, creative briefs, design assets, code) on hand or too much work in process (WIP) is also a form of waste. Kanban is a tool to learn and manage an optimal flow of work within the process. It can also (potentially) make working in agencies a more human, and humane, place to do one’s best work.
Will Evans explores the convergence of practice and theory using Lean Systems, Design Thinking, and LeanUX with global corporations from NYC to Berlin to Singapore. As Chief Design Officer at PraxisFlow, he works with a select group of corporate clients undergoing Lean and Agile transformations across the entire organization. Will is also the Design Thinker-in-Residence at NYU Stern's Berkley Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Will was previously the Managing Director of TLCLabs, the world's leading Lean Design Innovation consultancy where he has brought Lean Startup, LeanUX, and Design Thinking to large media, finance, and healthcare companies.
Before TLC, he led experience design and research for TheLadders in New York City. He has over 15 years industry experience in design innovation, user experience strategy and research. His roles include directing UX for social network analytics & terrorism modeling at AIR Worldwide, UX Architect for social media site Gather.com, and UX Architect for travel search engine Kayak.com. He worked at Lotus/IBM where he was the senior information architect, and for Curl - a DARPA-funded MIT project when he was at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science.
He lives in New York, NY, and drinks far too much coffee. He Co-Founded and Co-Chaired the LeanUX NYC conference, and is the User Experience track chair for the Agile 2013 and Agile 2014 conferences.
CONNECTWorking 2019-09 - Jumpstart to get a jobBC Talents
It's Back-to-School! It is time to build the foundations for your job search and career. In order to get your dream job, your resume must be clear, your cover letter convincing, and you must be able to present yourself in a concise and striking way.
Every month, BC Talents finds the best speakers to help you achieve the career of your dreams and thrive in your professional goals. This month we will host Tyler Yang, Talent Growth Specialist chez Shopify, who will share his secrets to build a strong resume, cover letter and Elevator Pitch, as well as what HR are looking to see.
On September 3rd, come meet Tyler and the BC Talents team to talk about you and how you should present yourself in Canada to be remembered. You are your own brand, and it is essential to know how to sell it.
The document outlines a plan to set up a successful game studio within 12 months. It discusses staffing the studio with a small initial team of 7 people in roles like producer, developers, media techs, artist, and quality engineer. It provides guidance on hiring staff and sample interview questions for each role. It also establishes a timeline for the first year that includes fully staffing the studio, completing the first game, and having additional games in development and pitching phases.
Samuel Fielden has been working on creating various advertisements for an energy drink product called Target as part of a project. This included designing billboard advertisements, packaging designs for the drink cans, posters, social media ads, and a video advertisement. In his reflections, he discusses the successes and challenges of each element, and how he plans to improve or expand the project in the future steps. The main tasks completed included practicing new skills like using green screen effects and layering designs. His next steps are to finish the video advertisement and develop a presentation displaying the full advertising campaign.
Building Startups and Minimum Viable Products (NDC2013)Ben Hall
Ben Hall is a hacker in residence at Cornershop and founder of previous startups. He discusses his approach to starting new ventures, which focuses on rapidly validating ideas by building minimum viable products and releasing early to test assumptions and learn from customers and metrics. Some of his key advice includes failing fast when ideas don't work, focusing on acquisition metrics over features, and prioritizing speed of delivery over perfect code in the early stages. The presentation emphasizes learning through quick iteration and putting products in front of customers as soon as possible.
The ROI Of User Experience: Consider, Calculate & Measure SuccessUserZoom
We’ve all heard that providing a better user experience can help your organization improve performance, increase exposure, gain more credibility, reduce the resource burden and ultimately increase sales, but as nice as these goals are, how are they truly being measured?
Join us in a webinar with Dr. Susan Weinschenk as she dives into the trending topic of User Experience ROI (Return On Investment) – Should you spend all this time and money on user experience research and design? Is it worth it? How do even go about figuring out the ROI of UX?
Key concepts Susan will discuss in the webinar:
-When and why to consider the ROI of UX
-How to measure the ROI of UX
-The biggest mistakes to avoid in calculating the ROI of UX
Breanna Hughes discusses how agile and lean product management approaches can help keep teams focused on building the right features. She emphasizes starting with validating key assumptions through small tests before building minimal viable products. Prioritizing the highest value user flows and shipping imperfect products early allows teams to iterate quickly and improve based on user feedback and analytics. Rinsing and repeating this process helps product managers continuously refine their understanding of users' needs.
In this file, you can ref interview materials for product such as types of interview questions, product situational interview, product behavioral interview…
How to Build Software If You Can't Write CodeRussell Wallace
This document provides guidance for non-technical founders on how to build a startup software company without being a software engineer. It explains that the product manager (PM) role is key for non-technical founders. The PM makes decisions about what to build, when, and what to include or leave out. They approve progress and handle administrative tasks. The document outlines an agile scrum methodology using user stories organized in a task tracking tool like Pivotal Tracker. Stories are grouped into one-week sprints with daily standup meetings to review progress and address any issues.
The document provides tips for making a good impression at a new job or in any workplace interactions. It recommends focusing on conciseness, acknowledging outstanding items, asking for help when needed, taking initiative to learn new skills, and proactively seeking feedback to improve performance. The overall message is that managing perceptions and small interactions can help people view you positively over time.
I gave this presentation as part of my talk at Product School in New York. It's primarily intended to help engineers that are transitioning to product management or new product managers. It also includes some lessons I have learned through my journey as a product manager.
The document provides instructions for putting existing work into a presentation format to meet specific requirements. It outlines that the presentation should include 8 slides: a title slide, intro slides on general and specific skills, and slides on individual skills already completed and a new third specific skill. It advises deciding what information goes on each slide and in the notes section, and ensuring the presentation looks professional. It also provides feedback that a third specific skill is needed, more detail should be added to the notes section than on the slides, and notes about non-verbal communication methods for the presentation should be included.
This document provides guidance on handling objections, opinions, perceptions, and beliefs from prospects during the sales process. It discusses how these perspectives act as "messages" from the prospect about what needs to be addressed for the sale to move forward. The document recommends listening to the prospect's perspective, asking clarifying questions, thinking about the underlying reason, replying in a way that addresses any gaps or concerns, and agreeing with the prospect that resolving the issue will allow the sale to move ahead. The goal is to uncover any real objections or dealbreakers and demonstrate how those issues can be addressed.
Words and the design process - InVision design talks webinarBiz Sanford
The document discusses using content strategically throughout the design process. It recommends sketching with specific words, defining content elements and hierarchy, writing realistic placeholder content for low-fidelity wireframes, and polishing the content in high-fidelity mockups. The goal is to improve content fidelity gradually and get feedback from stakeholders and users on the content earlier in the process. Developing content with the same care as visual design elements can help create a well-designed user experience.
User experience (UX) design is important for indie developers. As an indie, you must own the user experience even if you are not a professional designer. To improve your UX skills, manage your fears, develop a vision for your product, and cultivate feedback through iterative testing. Follow a lean process of rapid prototyping and testing assumptions with real users. UX involves visual thinking - use sketches, stories and drawings to explore design ideas before coding. Constantly test your designs and gather feedback to refine the user experience.
The document provides an overview of a UX interview workshop for a travel app. The workshop includes an introduction to questioning techniques and mock interviews. Effective questioning techniques involve thanking participants, explaining the purpose is to test the product, being conversational, having a list of points to cover, asking users to explain their thought process, using open-ended questions, and waiting for responses instead of asking yes/no questions. Participants will do mock interviews in pairs to practice these techniques.
This document contains information about various IT trainings, certifications, and negotiation techniques. It includes:
- Details of IT English trainings provided by Kubasova English Training Centre, including types of trainings offered, number of students, price, and contact information.
- A list of certifications held, including in project management, Scrum, and business training.
- An overview of different types of negotiations, key negotiation concepts like BATNA, reservation price, ZOPA, and value creation.
- Techniques for saying no in negotiations, including using reasoning, clarification, recognition, negotiation, coaching, postponement, and authority approaches.
- Vocabulary and phrases
UX Circuit Training - Delivered at Fluxible 2013 and the KW Girl Geek DinnerKate Wilhelm
Many UX practitioners learn by doing and researching on the fly. This approach can also help those who want to develop their careers, who feel stuck in a narrow role when job postings seem to be looking for unicorns. Kate draws on her own experience and that of her peers.
Fast Prototyping Customer Development Mock Ups 2014Serdar Temiz
The document discusses various techniques for developing business ideas and prototypes, including:
- Creating mockups and paper prototypes to test concepts with customers before building fully functional software.
- Building minimum viable products (MVPs) and landing pages to validate assumptions and pivot or change aspects of the business idea based on customer feedback.
- Using prototypes to explain ideas more effectively than specifications and to get early feedback before large investments are made.
The document emphasizes the importance of testing ideas with customers, pivoting based on learning, and adopting processes like customer development and agile development.
Presentation given at User Experience Edmonton meetup in January 2015. Gives an overview of how you can sell User Experience design methodologies to your boss or company. Talks about starting small, return on investment and not asking permission.
Introduction to Kanban for Creative AgenciesWilliam Evans
This is an introduction to Kanban. Creative agencies, like most organizations that do knowledge work, are defined by the projects they deliver that (hopefully) delivers value for the clients. Most agencies also struggle with multiple competing stakeholders, multiple client engagements, tight deadlines and long hours – it’s amazing any creative work happens at all. Most projects – brand campaigns, websites, landing pages, social, pr, direct, everything, can be viewed as a process - a series of steps or tasks that achieve some desired result – delivery of the project, a happy client, drinks in Tribeca. There are all kinds of processes - simple and complex, individual and team, quick and time-consuming. Sometimes large or over-arching processes consist of a series of smaller processes.
Kanban is a tool for managing the flow of materials or information (or whatever) in a process. Not having the materials, whether it is a part, a document, or customer information, at the time you need it causes delay and waste. On the other hand, having too many parts (too much design, creative briefs, design assets, code) on hand or too much work in process (WIP) is also a form of waste. Kanban is a tool to learn and manage an optimal flow of work within the process. It can also (potentially) make working in agencies a more human, and humane, place to do one’s best work.
Will Evans explores the convergence of practice and theory using Lean Systems, Design Thinking, and LeanUX with global corporations from NYC to Berlin to Singapore. As Chief Design Officer at PraxisFlow, he works with a select group of corporate clients undergoing Lean and Agile transformations across the entire organization. Will is also the Design Thinker-in-Residence at NYU Stern's Berkley Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Will was previously the Managing Director of TLCLabs, the world's leading Lean Design Innovation consultancy where he has brought Lean Startup, LeanUX, and Design Thinking to large media, finance, and healthcare companies.
Before TLC, he led experience design and research for TheLadders in New York City. He has over 15 years industry experience in design innovation, user experience strategy and research. His roles include directing UX for social network analytics & terrorism modeling at AIR Worldwide, UX Architect for social media site Gather.com, and UX Architect for travel search engine Kayak.com. He worked at Lotus/IBM where he was the senior information architect, and for Curl - a DARPA-funded MIT project when he was at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science.
He lives in New York, NY, and drinks far too much coffee. He Co-Founded and Co-Chaired the LeanUX NYC conference, and is the User Experience track chair for the Agile 2013 and Agile 2014 conferences.
CONNECTWorking 2019-09 - Jumpstart to get a jobBC Talents
It's Back-to-School! It is time to build the foundations for your job search and career. In order to get your dream job, your resume must be clear, your cover letter convincing, and you must be able to present yourself in a concise and striking way.
Every month, BC Talents finds the best speakers to help you achieve the career of your dreams and thrive in your professional goals. This month we will host Tyler Yang, Talent Growth Specialist chez Shopify, who will share his secrets to build a strong resume, cover letter and Elevator Pitch, as well as what HR are looking to see.
On September 3rd, come meet Tyler and the BC Talents team to talk about you and how you should present yourself in Canada to be remembered. You are your own brand, and it is essential to know how to sell it.
The document outlines a plan to set up a successful game studio within 12 months. It discusses staffing the studio with a small initial team of 7 people in roles like producer, developers, media techs, artist, and quality engineer. It provides guidance on hiring staff and sample interview questions for each role. It also establishes a timeline for the first year that includes fully staffing the studio, completing the first game, and having additional games in development and pitching phases.
Samuel Fielden has been working on creating various advertisements for an energy drink product called Target as part of a project. This included designing billboard advertisements, packaging designs for the drink cans, posters, social media ads, and a video advertisement. In his reflections, he discusses the successes and challenges of each element, and how he plans to improve or expand the project in the future steps. The main tasks completed included practicing new skills like using green screen effects and layering designs. His next steps are to finish the video advertisement and develop a presentation displaying the full advertising campaign.
Building Startups and Minimum Viable Products (NDC2013)Ben Hall
Ben Hall is a hacker in residence at Cornershop and founder of previous startups. He discusses his approach to starting new ventures, which focuses on rapidly validating ideas by building minimum viable products and releasing early to test assumptions and learn from customers and metrics. Some of his key advice includes failing fast when ideas don't work, focusing on acquisition metrics over features, and prioritizing speed of delivery over perfect code in the early stages. The presentation emphasizes learning through quick iteration and putting products in front of customers as soon as possible.
The ROI Of User Experience: Consider, Calculate & Measure SuccessUserZoom
We’ve all heard that providing a better user experience can help your organization improve performance, increase exposure, gain more credibility, reduce the resource burden and ultimately increase sales, but as nice as these goals are, how are they truly being measured?
Join us in a webinar with Dr. Susan Weinschenk as she dives into the trending topic of User Experience ROI (Return On Investment) – Should you spend all this time and money on user experience research and design? Is it worth it? How do even go about figuring out the ROI of UX?
Key concepts Susan will discuss in the webinar:
-When and why to consider the ROI of UX
-How to measure the ROI of UX
-The biggest mistakes to avoid in calculating the ROI of UX
Breanna Hughes discusses how agile and lean product management approaches can help keep teams focused on building the right features. She emphasizes starting with validating key assumptions through small tests before building minimal viable products. Prioritizing the highest value user flows and shipping imperfect products early allows teams to iterate quickly and improve based on user feedback and analytics. Rinsing and repeating this process helps product managers continuously refine their understanding of users' needs.
In this file, you can ref interview materials for product such as types of interview questions, product situational interview, product behavioral interview…
How to Build Software If You Can't Write CodeRussell Wallace
This document provides guidance for non-technical founders on how to build a startup software company without being a software engineer. It explains that the product manager (PM) role is key for non-technical founders. The PM makes decisions about what to build, when, and what to include or leave out. They approve progress and handle administrative tasks. The document outlines an agile scrum methodology using user stories organized in a task tracking tool like Pivotal Tracker. Stories are grouped into one-week sprints with daily standup meetings to review progress and address any issues.
The document provides tips for making a good impression at a new job or in any workplace interactions. It recommends focusing on conciseness, acknowledging outstanding items, asking for help when needed, taking initiative to learn new skills, and proactively seeking feedback to improve performance. The overall message is that managing perceptions and small interactions can help people view you positively over time.
I gave this presentation as part of my talk at Product School in New York. It's primarily intended to help engineers that are transitioning to product management or new product managers. It also includes some lessons I have learned through my journey as a product manager.
The document provides instructions for putting existing work into a presentation format to meet specific requirements. It outlines that the presentation should include 8 slides: a title slide, intro slides on general and specific skills, and slides on individual skills already completed and a new third specific skill. It advises deciding what information goes on each slide and in the notes section, and ensuring the presentation looks professional. It also provides feedback that a third specific skill is needed, more detail should be added to the notes section than on the slides, and notes about non-verbal communication methods for the presentation should be included.
This document provides guidance on handling objections, opinions, perceptions, and beliefs from prospects during the sales process. It discusses how these perspectives act as "messages" from the prospect about what needs to be addressed for the sale to move forward. The document recommends listening to the prospect's perspective, asking clarifying questions, thinking about the underlying reason, replying in a way that addresses any gaps or concerns, and agreeing with the prospect that resolving the issue will allow the sale to move ahead. The goal is to uncover any real objections or dealbreakers and demonstrate how those issues can be addressed.
Words and the design process - InVision design talks webinarBiz Sanford
The document discusses using content strategically throughout the design process. It recommends sketching with specific words, defining content elements and hierarchy, writing realistic placeholder content for low-fidelity wireframes, and polishing the content in high-fidelity mockups. The goal is to improve content fidelity gradually and get feedback from stakeholders and users on the content earlier in the process. Developing content with the same care as visual design elements can help create a well-designed user experience.
User experience (UX) design is important for indie developers. As an indie, you must own the user experience even if you are not a professional designer. To improve your UX skills, manage your fears, develop a vision for your product, and cultivate feedback through iterative testing. Follow a lean process of rapid prototyping and testing assumptions with real users. UX involves visual thinking - use sketches, stories and drawings to explore design ideas before coding. Constantly test your designs and gather feedback to refine the user experience.
The document provides an overview of a UX interview workshop for a travel app. The workshop includes an introduction to questioning techniques and mock interviews. Effective questioning techniques involve thanking participants, explaining the purpose is to test the product, being conversational, having a list of points to cover, asking users to explain their thought process, using open-ended questions, and waiting for responses instead of asking yes/no questions. Participants will do mock interviews in pairs to practice these techniques.
This document contains information about various IT trainings, certifications, and negotiation techniques. It includes:
- Details of IT English trainings provided by Kubasova English Training Centre, including types of trainings offered, number of students, price, and contact information.
- A list of certifications held, including in project management, Scrum, and business training.
- An overview of different types of negotiations, key negotiation concepts like BATNA, reservation price, ZOPA, and value creation.
- Techniques for saying no in negotiations, including using reasoning, clarification, recognition, negotiation, coaching, postponement, and authority approaches.
- Vocabulary and phrases
UX Circuit Training - Delivered at Fluxible 2013 and the KW Girl Geek DinnerKate Wilhelm
Many UX practitioners learn by doing and researching on the fly. This approach can also help those who want to develop their careers, who feel stuck in a narrow role when job postings seem to be looking for unicorns. Kate draws on her own experience and that of her peers.
Fast Prototyping Customer Development Mock Ups 2014Serdar Temiz
The document discusses various techniques for developing business ideas and prototypes, including:
- Creating mockups and paper prototypes to test concepts with customers before building fully functional software.
- Building minimum viable products (MVPs) and landing pages to validate assumptions and pivot or change aspects of the business idea based on customer feedback.
- Using prototypes to explain ideas more effectively than specifications and to get early feedback before large investments are made.
The document emphasizes the importance of testing ideas with customers, pivoting based on learning, and adopting processes like customer development and agile development.
Presentation given at User Experience Edmonton meetup in January 2015. Gives an overview of how you can sell User Experience design methodologies to your boss or company. Talks about starting small, return on investment and not asking permission.
UX Field Research Toolkit - A Workshop at Big Design - 2017Kelly Moran
Workshop Description:
Looking for practice with in-depth user-experience research methods? You may have read about techniques in the past, but methods must be practiced to be understood. projekt202 has been employing these methodologies with great success since 2003. This workshop is your opportunity to try these tools in a structured environment without pressing deadlines or looming stakeholders. Our experienced research and design professionals will share industry tips and tricks that will help you put theory to practice.
The workshop will be hands-on and interactive; instructional elements will be reinforced with stories of impact to real projects. We will not only cover methods of gathering user data, but the importance of spending time internalizing and analyzing the data through activities such as affinity diagramming. Participants will gain exposure to these important practices in a low-pressure atmosphere and with the guidance of experienced professionals.
Fast prototypes and customer development for start upsSerdar Temiz
This document discusses using prototypes and customer development in the startup process. It emphasizes testing assumptions with customers from the beginning rather than relying on predictions. Prototypes like mockups, paper prototypes, landing pages, and working prototypes allow startups to get early feedback before fully developing an idea. The presentation argues for an agile process that pivots based on learning through prototyping and customer development. It provides examples of companies like Twitter that pivoted successfully and cautions that failure can be avoided through this approach.
Getting into UX: How to take your first steps to a career in user experiencePhil Barrett
Want to work in UX but can't get a job without experience? Here are a few ideas about how to break into the UX business, make a portfolio, win at your interview and design assessment - and whether UX is the right career for you. You can start doing UX in the job you already have, then build a portfolio from that.
The document provides tips and best practices for interns in various roles such as project management, client services, creative work, and general workplace advice. Some of the key points include: always double check work for errors, respond to communications in a timely manner, build relationships with clients, manage expectations, think about how to elevate creative work, do research before starting projects, and overcommunicate status and issues. Communication, managing expectations, building relationships, attention to detail, and continuous learning and improvement are emphasized across roles.
Top 10 Things To Do If You Want To Get Fired Over A WordPress ProjectWilliam Bergmann
A rundown of 10 of the most common ways to wreck a WordPress project, along with tips to avoid them for Project Managers on both the Client and Agency side.
Writing Great Requirements and Effective User InterviewsJohn A. Guber, MBA
The document provides guidance on writing functional requirements and conducting effective user interviews. It discusses the purpose of functional requirements, outlines 11 rules for writing requirements, and reasons why software projects fail such as changing requirements. Effective user interviews involve open-ended questions, paraphrasing responses, and making interviewees comfortable to obtain honest feedback.
Within 5 days, the document describes how to:
1. Apply the Design Sprint methodology to quickly test ideas and identify which to pursue, 2. Use storyboarding and paper prototyping to make ideas more concrete, 3. Obtain feedback from real users on a digital prototype to determine if the initial idea is good and worth developing further. The process enables identifying the right solution to a problem with limited resources in a short timeframe.
"It just doesn't feel right". "It needs to pop more". "I just don't like it, I can't explain why." One of the best ways to get a designer to roll their eyes and probably ignore you is to give terrible, non-specific feedback on their designs. You don't have to attend design school to learn how to give good feedback on designs (although, it doesn't hurt). This talk will provide basic principles to follow to give (and receive) great design feedback. Learn do's and don'ts to ensure that your feedback can be understood, respected, and responded to appropriately. We'll discuss different formats for giving feedback and ways to make sure that your feedback is benefiting the people that really matter - your users. Whether you are a designer, developer, or product owner, you'll leave with tools tips to communicate better with your team - and develop better products because of it.
Framework Thinking - 7 Frameworks To Skyrocket Your CareerSean Johnson
Discover how to leverage frameworks to become more effective and gain influence in your organization.
Learn more about Framework thinking here: http://www.sean-johnson.com/framework-thinking
Scoping and Estimating WordPress Projects as an AgencyJohn Giaconia
WordCamp Los Angeles 2016. Scoping and Estimating WordPress Projects as an Agency. Presentation video available here: http://wordpress.tv/2016/09/25/john-j-giaconia-and-kara-hansen-scoping-and-estimating-wordpress-projects-as-an-agency/
Scoping and Estimating WordPress Projects as an AgencyKara Hansen
The document provides an overview of how to scope, estimate, and manage WordPress projects as an agency. It discusses the importance of understanding scope through discovery, estimating projects by breaking work into discrete tasks, and managing customer expectations through clear communication and documentation of assumptions. Continuous improvement is emphasized through retrospective reviews of past projects to refine processes.
Too busy to learn UX methods that can save you tons of time?
Wondering which UX techniques are most likely to provide useful results all along your project? Let's talk about some tactics we tried. Success stories and epic fails of methods we have tested to build digital products and interfaces consumers love to use.
Agile Topics - Explained Simply - Practical Agilist.pptxBrian Link
This document provides an overview of various agile topics that are explained simply by Brian Link of PracticalAgilist.com. It covers running effective standups and understanding agile roles, writing user stories and estimating work, maintaining a product backlog, having valuable sprint reviews and feedback loops, facilitating retrospectives, and connecting strategy to delivery through OKRs and roadmaps. The document emphasizes building trust within teams and cultivating an iterative, learning-focused agile mindset. It provides contact information for Brian Link and mentions his free book on 21 common agile misconceptions.
- The document discusses various business development processes including subtraction, multiplication, division, task unification, and attribute dependency change as ways to modify a product. It then discusses prototyping and getting customer feedback as important parts of the development process. Specifically, it recommends creating minimum viable products and landing pages to test assumptions with customers before fully developing ideas. The key messages are that business plans should evolve based on customer feedback, prototyping allows early testing of ideas, and pivoting a business model based on learning is normal.
Client Vs Good design - strategies for avoiding conflict (brought to you fresh from the field)
At some point it’s inevitable: you will be working on a great project when you are asked for changes which can potentially turn a great project into an OK one. Being a good UX’er or designer makes you care about the design outcome, so this kind of situation might present some challenges.
In this talk I present some strategies for keeping designs good, techniques for conflict avoidance, and why your “soft skills” and not just your design skills matter.
Similar to Cut the Baloney Sandwich - Jacqueline Stetson Pastore (20)
UXPA 2023: Start Strong - Lessons learned from associate programs to platform...UXPA International
Imagine creating experiences for your rookie designers’ first couple years that are rewarding, enriching, and full of learning — without taking all your time or energy to manage. We’ll share techniques any team leader can put into practice using real-life examples from associate programs, apprenticeships, and internships.
Topics include onboarding, varied work challenges, developing multiple capabilities, buddy systems, group sharing, guest speakers, time with executives, and mentorship. We’ll also share how to operationalize learning, soft skills like communication and collaboration, setting boundaries, time management, achieving deep work, and more skills we all wish we were explicitly taught early on.
We’ll focus on modern-day associate programs, but even if you can’t create a full-fledged program, you’ll leave this session with ideas to use with your fledgling professionals. The benefits go beyond efficiency; it’s a foundation for culture, camaraderie, autonomy, and mastery.
UXPA 2023: Disrupting Inaccessibility: Applying A11Y-Focused Discovery & Idea...UXPA International
Digital advances are being made at a rapid-fire pace, yet disability inclusivity continues to fall short of the digital revolution. As the number of people living with disabilities rises, the time to take digital accessibility to the next level is now. Let’s disrupt inaccessibility together! Come hear about a multi-part discovery research and ideation project informing foundational UX designs for our customers. You’ll get insights from our unique study, which are widely applicable across industries, and walk away with tips and inspiration to kick off your own accessibility-focused discovery and ideation. Only YOU can prevent inaccessibility – are you in?
The document discusses the role of user experience (UX) in helping organizations score well on the environmental component of their ESG score. It provides examples of UX practices that can improve an organization's environmental impact, such as advocating for renewable energy sources, optimizing interaction designs to reduce data usage, shortening journey maps to minimize data transmission, using vector graphics instead of heavy file formats, loading content on demand to reduce page load size and emissions, and publishing reports on sustainability practices and carbon emissions.
UXPA 2023 Poster: The Two Tracks of UX Under Agile: Tactical and StrategicUXPA International
The document discusses two sub-tracks for UX under Agile: tactical and strategic. The tactical track focuses on quick tasks and improvements from sprint to sprint, reaching delivery quickly. The strategic track takes a mid-to-long term view through exploratory research to inform product vision and objectives. It recommends doing both tracks simultaneously when possible and prioritizing strategy to balance short-term delivery and long-term planning.
User experience can be drastically elevated by combining data science insights with user-based insights from research. Data analytics on its own can make themes and correlations difficult to explain and to provide accurate recommendations. For example, themes identified via large global surveys and usage data can be better understood with UX insights from focused user research, such as user interviews and/or cognitive walkthroughs. This presentation will highlight the complimentary nature of data science and UX and will focus on the benefits of bringing the two disciplines together. This will be buttressed with practical examples of enterprise projects and applications that combined data and skills from the two disciplines, guidance on how the two disciplines can better work together, and the skills needed to improve as a UX professional when working with data science teams.
UXPA 2023: UX Fracking: Using Mixed Methods to Extract Hidden InsightsUXPA International
Users do not always accurately describe what they mean or feel. There are many reasons for this, ranging from politeness to poor introspection, to lack of sufficient technical vocabulary. Fortunately, UX researchers have tools in their trade to deduce what was really meant. We call this UX Fracking, a mixed methods approach that is optimized for extracting hidden user insights. We will illustrate the dangers of inadequate, superficial research, and how this may lead to outcomes incapable of addressing the users’ core issues. We will explore ways to avoid these pitfalls by leveraging mixed research methods to test hypotheses about the users’ intent and needs. This starts with a thorough understanding of who the user is, their goals, and how they work today, to an approach that combines surveys, interviews, and comment analysis with behavioral observation, and finally, validating the newly discovered user insights with the users themselves.
UXPA 2023 Poster: Are virtual spaces the future of video conferencing?UXPA International
Virtual spaces are simulated environments that can range from VR to 2D interfaces, touted as the future of video conferencing. However, they may pose accessibility issues and not be preferred over traditional non-spatial platforms. While virtual spaces could enhance social connection, their complexity risks excluding some users. A combined platform allowing choice of interface could provide an improved experience while maintaining inclusiveness.
UXPA 2023: Learn how to get over personas by swiping right on user rolesUXPA International
This session walks through the concept of user roles as an alternative to personas as a means to generate and disseminate user insights for product development teams. We will describe the tools and methods used to create a research database organized by user roles, along with examples and short exercises to help attendees think through user roles within their own context.
By the end of the session, attendees should be aware of tools and approaches for:
Organizing user research information in a database
Disseminating user role information to product and design teams
Managing a user roles database as part of a long term UX Research program
If you’re ready to ditch personas but don’t know how, this session is for you!
We will present a case study that details our approach for replacing user personas with user roles for a multi-national SAAS company. We will take the audience on a journey that starts with an executive request for personas, travels through the tribulations of realizing personas suck, and concludes with convincing others to accept a new and innovative way to understand the people who use the product. Our key message is that personas lack real value for organizations that already understand the importance of empathizing with users. Building user-centered products requires easily accessible and well organized user insights. We will discuss defining users through a process of stakeholder consultation and content review, and structuring data around Jobs to Be Done and product interactions. We will also discuss the dissemination of user roles in our organization using relational databases, interactive dashboards and online wikis. Spoiler alert, our stakeholders loved user roles!
UXPA 2023: Experience Maps - A designer's framework for working in Agile team...UXPA International
Agile Methodology refers to software design and development methodologies centered around the idea of iterative design and development, where requirements and concepts evolve through collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams. Thus, Agile enables teams to deliver value faster, with greater quality and predictability, and greater aptitude to respond to change. With evolving product features every design sprint, designers & researchers find it difficult to follow the design process. This sometimes leads to designs delivered in haste or sub-par design artifacts which result in UX debt. UX debt is accumulated when design teams take actions or shortcuts to expedite the delivery of a piece of functionality or a project which later needs to be refactored. It is the result of prioritizing speedy delivery of design to the development team over a perfect experience journey. Experience Maps is a great tool to practice UX in Agile as well as manage UX Debt.
UXPA 2023: UX Enterprise Story: How to apply a UX process to a company withou...UXPA International
How to build a UX Department from scratch, in an environment they think UX people do social media posters and posts! An agile implementation just started, and people are moving from a waterfall and ad-hoc mindset to agility. In this session, I will talk about my Journey to establish a UX Department for a company that is part of a global brand, but this local branch just started the digital transformation movement. Challenges like: spreading awareness and educating people about UX, hiring the right team, defining the right team structure, establishing workflow and day-to-day operations, and applying localization (non-western culture).
UXPA 2023: High-Fives over Zoom: Creating a Remote-First Creative TeamUXPA International
I started my current job in March of 2020. Many of us remember something clearly about the month that COVID started to shut things down. I remember being surprised to hear that my new on-site-only job would be starting in my living room over zoom. How do you lead a design team when none of the team members live near each other and creativity is highly collaborative? Taking from over a decade of working in HR software, I knew whatever I did needed to put people first. That what employees love about a job is often deeper than the work, it’s the culture, the relationships and people they work with. It’s the feeling that their work has value, and their contribution matters. In this talk I will walk though some of the rituals and best practices I have learned over the last two years building a remote-first creative team.
UXPA 2023: Behind the Bias: Dissecting human shortcuts for better research & ...UXPA International
As humans, we are biased by design. Our intricate and fascinating brains have developed shortcuts through centuries of human evolution. They reduce an unimaginable load of paralyzing decisions, keep us alive, and help us navigate this complex world. Now, these life saving biases affect how we behave with modern technology. Understanding some of the theories and reasons why these biases exist is the key to unlocking their power. In this workshop we will cover some theories around how the brain works. We will review some of our mental shortcuts, take a look at some common biases, and learn how they affect our users, our research, and our designs. Lastly we will review some advantages of biases, and ways to identify and reduce bias. This workshop is targeted for designers who do their own research, and researchers looking to learn more about removing bias from their studies.
UXPA 2023 Poster: Improving the Internal and External User Experience of a Fe...UXPA International
UXPA 2023 Poster: Improving the Internal and External User Experience of a Federal Government Legacy Application Using User Experience and Agile Principles
UXPA 2023 Poster: 5 Key Findings from Moderated Accessibility Testing with Sc...UXPA International
A moderated accessibility testing study conducted by UserTesting between 2021-2022 involved 25+ tests with screen reader users. The study identified 5 key findings about common issues: 1) Unexpected screen reader focus location on pages; 2) Missing alt text for images; 3) Lack of feedback when actions are performed; 4) Insufficient labeling of interactive elements; and 5) Unclear error messages. The study recommends conducting tests with 5 blind participants using the same screen reader, browser and device to standardize results and identify issues violating the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
Are you new to UX management, or thinking of getting into management? Then this talk is for you. After reading countless books, attending countless trainings, mentoring and being menteed, nothing quite prepared me for management like my first year. I’ll share with you what I wish they’d told me. I’ll also share my process for generating team research roadmaps, establishing team values, keeping employees motivated, and not burning out.
UXPA 2023: Redesigning An Automotive Feature from Gasoline to Electric Vehicl...UXPA International
This document summarizes the redesign of the Pro Power Onboard feature for electric vehicles from Ford. It discusses how the original gasoline-powered version used a radial dial interface but this would not work for an electric truck with more circuits. User research found the need for increased power and outlets in more locations. An iterative design process involved brainstorming, paper prototyping, and usability testing to create a horizontal gauge interface with on/off and range preservation settings. The final design was validated through testing truck prototypes up to production. Lessons included considering the user experience first and proactive stakeholder involvement.
International Upcycling Research Network advisory board meeting 4Kyungeun Sung
Slides used for the International Upcycling Research Network advisory board 4 (last one). The project is based at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK, and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
8. • Have weekly live call to talk about the project.
• Write up a weekly status report of status of the project.
• Any verbal of offline conversation or breakout session should be documented
in writing and shared with team.
• Tag team members that need to know about any decisions or explanations
that were done.
• Create a culture of no dumb questions. “The only dumb question is the one
you didn’t ask.”
8
9. • Don’t assume anyone knows or remembers anything.
• Explain process.
• “I’m sure everyone knows this already, but just to make sure that
everyone is on the same page.”
• Recap what has happened prior to this email / meeting.
• “As a quick reminder,”
• Create useful meeting invites.
• Title is something useful: Project Name - What you are doing.
• Include an agenda.
• Include location / conference number / online meeting link.
9
10. • Share your screen during meetings so you can take shared meeting notes.
• Include key info in meeting notes.
• Upload meeting notes to shared space and send out over email.
10
12. • Define the project in detail in a Statement of Work.
• Project Overview
• Primary Goals
• Activities
• Deliverables
• Schedule
• Costs
• Investment
• Payment Terms
• Project Details
• Risks & Dependencies
• Approval Process
• Intellectual Property
• Exclusions / Out of Scope
• Signatures
12
13. • After SOW sign off, create calendar events that match schedule and invite key
team members. Get in everyone’s calendars early!
• At every meeting, update team on progress towards the next milestone.
• If you are going to be late on that milestone, communicate how that will
affect the rest of the schedule.
• Easy to get distracted. Put a calendar event to look at SOW once a month to
make sure you are meeting contractual obligations.
13
15. DO:
• Listen to client and make sure next deliverable reflects that.
• Take notes on all feedback, even if you don’t agree with it.
• For the items you agree with, make the change then mark it as DONE.
• For the items you don’t agree with, put on your UX hat and try to figure out
what the root cause is of the issue they have.
• “Don't ignore feedback that may appear stupid. Be sure to understand the
meaning behind it.”
• If you outright disagree with what client is proposing (Focus group instead of
usability test) because it is wrong for the product / project, it is OK to say “I
am the expert on methods. We should do what I say because ABC and not
what you want to do because XYZ.”
• Use tools / methods (Contrast ratio calculator, GOMS, etc.)
15
17. • Unprofessionalism is one of the biggest complaints clients have about
vendors.
• Sometimes you are hired because you have a skill they don’t have. But
sometimes it is just because they are too busy. They can be very experienced
in your field and have very high expectations.
• Prepare for meetings.
• Do formal research. Don’t base designs and trend findings on your own
personal experience without doing additional research.
• “One vendor suggested inappropriate research practices, such as
combining research with their own medical care.”
17
18. • Create polished deliverables.
• “Don’t make me recreate your deliverables.”
• Word Docs
• Use correct formatting of headers, fonts, spacing, alignment.
• View Navigation Pane / Document Map to see if you formatted the
document correctly.
• When you use a deliverable from another client as a template for your
current client, update the entire document.
• Check every section to make sure it is relevant to my project.
• Do a Find / Replace for client name.
• Use spell-check.
• Include a Table of Contents when you won’t be around later to explain.
18
19. • PowerPoints
• Make sure page title and content is the same size and as in the same
position on all slides.
• OK to use your company branding in footer.
• Use the name of this project in footer.
• Add page numbers.
• Be consistent with punctuation. Always include periods or never include
them.
• View > Outline View to double-check formatting.
• Export PPT as a PDF so I don’t have to go through your animation
transitions. (But double-check with your client. They may want your PPT
to use in another presentation.)
19
20. • Wireframes / Prototypes
• Create clean wireframes.
• Remove old information.
• If I request a change on one page, update that change on all pages.
• Double-check fonts, sizes, alignment.
• Use gray-scale.
• Make sure it is projector friendly. Many screens and projectors have low
contrast ratios and limited resolutions.
• Check for browser issues (doesn’t work in IE8).
20
22. • Practice what we preach. Client work gets bashed in usability testing and we
tell them to get over it.
• You never know what you want until you see what you don’t want.
• Recognition over blue sky. Easier to say no than to describe things perfectly.
• “You can’t read my mind, but if I knew how to describe exactly what I
want, I wouldn’t need to hire you.”
• Practice Active Listening. Face the person giving feedback, look at them
talking and really listen to what they are trying to say.
• Repeat back to the client what they are saying in a different way to make sure
you understand what they want.
• Write down verbatim what is said so you can go back to it later and review
when you are not emotional.
22
24. • In SOW, describe what and how you will do the project.
• Activities – user interviews
• Deliverable – Findings PPT report
• Actually sign the SOW.
• Kick off meeting – go into more detail & give the detailed overview.
• Weekly checkins – Think about “transparent progress reporting.”
• Be specific about when a deliverable is due.
• EX: Friday, July 26 – 5pm PST (especially important if team is across time
zones)
• Make sure everyone is ready for the deliverable.
• EX: UX delivers wireframes that Dev is not ready for. They nod and say yes
but don’t really give feedback yet because they aren’t there yet.
24
25. • Be clear about what is a business day.
• EX: Finishing up testing at 4pm on a Friday does not mean that 4 business
days later is Monday. The first business day after testing is Monday.
• Communicate about delivery delays because of client error / omission once a
week during your weekly meeting. Telling the client every day that they are
delaying the project can be annoying and cause bad feelings for a project
team.
25
27. • If you don’t know the answer to something, tell me you will find out and tell
me when you will tell me the answer.
• Put a calendar invite to give me the update.
• If you still don’t know the answer, keep me in the loop.
• I understand you need to get your story straight on your side of the fence
before getting back to me. Just tell me when to expect your answer.
• OK to give me a preliminary “I think XYZ but let me think on this and I will get
back to you by X.”
• Don’t make me send an email “Are you getting my emails.”
• Don’t procrastinate sending an email you know will make me angry. Take your
medicine and ask for a follow up meeting to discuss.
• In your email signature, add a note that you read email at 9a, 12p, and 5p and
will respond then. If it is an emergency, please call or text.
27
29. DO:
• Provide value. This is why you are being hired.
• Recognize the AHA! Moments where your idea earned your keep.
• Offer unique solutions that match the goal of the client. No cookie cutter
solutions.
• Create the right kind of deliverables.
• “A vendor presented charts, graphs, percentages and participant numbers
for a qualitative study -- completely inappropriate and misleading.”
• Provide data and suggestions I didn’t even think about.
• “One vendor presented UX trends but balanced with 508 requirements.”
29
31. • If you have industry expertise, you are more marketable to me as a client.
• No significant on-boarding and kick off meetings.
• I don’t have the time to train you.
• Start producing deliverables in Week 1.
• User types spreadsheet
• Placeholder personas
• Current workflows
• User stories (epic-level is OK)
• Current metrics
• Glossary
• Initial concept sketches of product
31
32. • Don’t schedule too many meetings.
• “Don't waste time…Don't treat me like an operational company that’s full
of process. Treat me like a growth company. Don't get bogged down by
theory. It's all about results and survival.”
32
34. • Understand the client’s business goals and help meet them. Think beyond
design.
• “When it doubt - it's okay to say ‘I am sorry, I don't understand why we are
doing this. Can you help me understand this process based on your
business?’ Treat your client as your own project.”
• Tie metrics to goals so I can see where we’re at.
• Learn about the company, the customers, the products.
• “This project is a team effort. You may be doing the wireframes / design /
testing / coding, but it is with my ideas.”
34
37. • #1 No-no!
• Do what you say, when you said you were going to do it.
• “Work twice as hard if you are not going to meet your goals.”
• Communicate about delays. Delays result in outsourcing (UXPA is a good
resource) and no sleep. Get it done!!
37
39. • Don’t charge senior rates for junior team members. “
• “Premium pricing before demonstrating competency, let alone excellence.”
• Don’t tell me you’ve done it before if you haven’t.
• If you are going to use a tool (surveymonkey, axure), figure it out on your
own and not while you are having a meeting with the client. It is a bad
thing if the client has to tell you how to format a survey question.
• If I am your guinea pig, tell me and then give me a discount.
• Don’t be so green, that you look unprofessional.
• If you don’t know about a particular software or technology, don’t
discredit it because you just don’t know about it. It comes off as “Lying
about the pros and cons of a particular technology or function to cover
their lack of skill in that technology. So they recommended only those
things they liked or had knowledge in.”
DON’T :
39
40. • Dirty secret of UX is sub-contracting out work. From the client side, this sucks.
• I hire you because I like and trust you. The quality of work for your
subcontractors is usually not up to snuff.
• You cost me extra time and money by being a middle-man.
• I can hire a senior level person myself for the same rate I am paying you
for your markup.
• That person won’t be available for follow-on work so I will have to
onboard someone else.
• Take full responsibility for your vendors to have them deliver under SOW.
• If you have an in-house resource, highlight it. As a client, I will pick you
over a competitor.
DON’T :
40
42. • Don’t go on rants about process or methods unless I ask.
• “Don't be arrogant with non-tech savvy people... teach and inform.”
• Be concise and clear when I ask you questions (as much as you can be).
• Don’t react to my bad attitude. My crazy is not your crazy. I’ve got so much
going on and this is just one spinning plate.
• Language barriers can be gruesome. Figure out the best way to communicate
and put your best native speaker on the phone.
• Don’t make me put you off. You should be the first thing I want to deal with
because it is fun and easy.
42
44. • Project Management is not sexy or fun for a UX person. However, it is
CRITICAL to do for a project.
• Awesome easy tools are out there to organize your project. (Asana, Trello,
JIRA)
44
46. • Fail early and often – yes but only if you’ve talked about it first.
• Create a culture of iteration, but if you blatantly mess up, fix it on your own
dime.
• Some good quotes we use to explain mistakes are OK:
• “Mistakes are the portals of discovery” – James Joyce
• “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more
intelligently.” – Henry Ford
46
48. • If you work in an Agile environment, standups and sprint plannings work well
to set expectations and strategy.
• If there are changes, create an addendum to the SOW and have it initialed.
• “I find the best strategy is to find a vendor that you can collaborate well with
even if the vendor charges more. In the long run sticking with a vendor will
yield a higher return than constantly looking for the best deal.”
48
50. • Do what you say you are going to do.
• Add in some freebies.
• “UI Developers had to do a release to fix some bugs and they added some
features for free while they were in the code.”
• Check in with client after your portion of the project is over and give some
feedback. Often this will turn into follow-on work.
• No false promises.
• “Don't say - Yes, we can do that. and then when it's time to do it say ‘Sure,
we will do this but it will be XXX dollars more.’ Don't manipulate, please.”
50
52. • BRDs and specs are dead but sharing information is not.
• “Dare to innovate... but for goodness sake, document what you are
doing.”
• Annotate wires for:
• MVP, V2, V3, etc
• Conditional logic
• Flows stemming from links / buttons that are not designed
• Where to pull data from
• Create workflows for the wires.
• Create swimlane diagrams of epics (multi-channel product).
• Create user stories (include a column for what pages are hit in that story).
• Create journey maps to give that high level view of your customer.
52
54. • Don’t wait until a big milestone to share work product.
• Waste time & money.
• Increases aggravation & frustration.
• Share link to the live wires or visual design so I can see the current state of
wires at all times.
• If client sees something that is not right, they can correct it early.
• Annotate wires (yellow box) with questions or use placeholders for things
you haven’t done yet.
54
56. • If the client is wrong, tell them. This is why you were hired.
• “In general being told, with convincing explanations and alternative
solutions, that my ideas are not the best for my business goals. I love to
learn from savvy and focused vendors who have my business success and
value for money at heart. This is pretty sure fire way to get repeat
business.”
• Push the client to think about new technologies, workflows, designs.
• Clients typically have far superior mental models about their business than
their customers do. Ask “but is that realistic for your customer?”
56
57. VENDOR DO’S:
1. Over-Communicate
2. Follow SOW / instructions
3. Incorporate feedback
4. Deliver high-quality work
5. Take constructive criticism
6. Set clear expectations about
milestones and deliverables.
7. Respond promptly
8. Create original ideas
9. Hit the ground running
10. Say “we”
VENDOR DON’TS:
1. Miss deadlines
2. Exaggerate experience
3. Be a PITA
4. Skip project management
5. Charge client for your mistakes
6. Freak out about scope / SOW changes
7. Over-commit & under deliver
8. Forget the details
9. Keep client in the dark
10. Say yes to everything client says
57
59. Be honest. Be transparent.
Be professional. Do your homework.
Bring me expertise I don't have.
Don’t be this dude.
59
Editor's Notes
Running a remote usability test
This is stupid. The cobbler’s children have no shoes.
We are UX. Fix it.
Put product design skills to use and create a product
Happy to talk about my product later
The point is that I went from a UX person to the CEO
Very different hat you are wearing.
I’m used to battling for UX and being the user advocate.
As a CEO, I have to redline functionality that I know is important. I have to create MVPs and think about versioning. And a lot of stuff.
I work at incubators and accelerator programs so I talk to a lot of other startups
I started noticing vendors doing some shady maneuvers and started asking former clients and colleagues about it.
That’s not acceptable. As a community, we need to do better.
That is how this talk was born.
Sent out a few surveys to different demographics to get more data.
The trends are what we see here.
Every slide has several tips to be better at something or to not do something.
I’d like this to be a very interactive session.
If you have a tip about a topic, stop me and tell me.
I will take notes, add them to my notes and send out a presentation with all of them.
Heard this at other sessions – integrate into the team. No us vs them mentality.
Have weekly live call to talk about the project.
Write up a weekly status report of status of the project.
Any verbal of offline conversation should be documented in writing and shared with team.
Tag team members that need to know about any decisions or explanations that were done.
Don’t assume anyone knows or remembers anything.
Explain process
“I’m sure everyone knows this already, but just to make sure that everyone is on the same page.”
Recap what has happened prior to this email / meeting
“As a quick reminder,”
Create useful meeting invites
Title is something useful: Project Name - What you are doing
Include an agenda
Include location / conference number / online meeting link
Share your screen during meetings so you can take shared meeting notes.
Include key info in meeting notes.
Date
Attendees
Agenda
Notes
Decisions
Action Items (who – what – when)
Upload meeting notes to shared space and send out over email
Define the project in detail in a Statement of Work.
Project Overview
Primary Goals
Activities
Deliverables
Schedule
Costs
Investment
Payment Terms
Project Details
Risks & Dependencies
Approval Process
Intellectual Property
Signatures
After SOW sign off, create calendar events that match schedule and invite key team members. Get in everyone’s calendars early!
At every meeting, update team on progress towards the next milestone.
If you are going to be late on that milestone, communicate how that will affect the rest of the schedule.
Easy to get distracted. Put a calendar event to look at SOW once a month to make sure you are meeting contractual obligations.
Listen to client and make sure next deliverable reflects that.
Take notes on all feedback, even if you don’t agree with it.
For the items you agree with, make the change then mark it as DONE.
For the items you don’t agree with, put on your UX hat and try to figure out what the root cause is of the issue they have.
“Don't ignore feedback that may appear stupid. Be sure to understand the meaning behind it.”
Use tools / methods to see who is right.
Contrast ratio calculator
GOMS analysis
A/B test
Unprofessionalism is one of the biggest complaints clients have about vendors.
Sometimes you are hired because you have a skill they don’t have. But sometimes it is just because they are too busy. They can be very experienced in your field and have very high expectations.
Prepare for meetings.
Do formal research. Don’t base designs and trend findings on your own personal experience without doing additional research.
“One vendor suggested inappropriate research practices, such as combining research with their own medical care.”
Create polished deliverables.
“Don’t make me recreate your deliverables.”
Word Docs
Use correct formatting of headers, fonts, spacing, alignment.
View Navigation Pane / Document Map.
When you use a deliverable from another client as a template for your current client, update the entire document.
Check every section to make sure it is relevant to my project.
Do a Find / Replace for client name.
Use spell-check.
PowerPoints
Make sure page title and content is the same size and as in the same position on all slides.
View Outline View.
Add page numbers.
OK to use your company branding in footer.
Use the name of this project in footer.
Be consistent with punctuation. Always include periods or never include them.
View > Outline View
Export PPT as a PDF so I don’t have to go through your animation transitions.
Wireframes
Create clean wireframes.
Remove old information.
If I request a change on one page, update that change on all pages.
Double-check fonts, sizes, alignment.
Use gray-scale.
Practice what we preach. Client work gets bashed in usability testing and we tell them to get over it.
You never know what you want until you see what you don’t want.
Recognition over blue sky. Easier to say no than to describe things perfectly.
You can’t read my mind, but I knew how to describe exactly what I want, I wouldn’t need to hire you.
In SOW, describe what and how you will do the project.
Activities – user interviews
Deliverable – Findings PPT report
Sign the SOW and get sign off.
Kick off meeting – go into more detail & give the detailed overview
Weekly checkins - “Transparent progress reporting”
If you don’t know the answer to something, tell me you will find out and tell me when you will tell me the answer.
Put a calendar invite to give me the update.
If you still don’t know the answer, keep me in the loop.
I understand you need to get your story straight on your side of the fence before getting back to me. Just tell me when to expect your answer.
OK to give me a preliminary “I think XYZ but let me think on this and I will get back to you by X.”
Don’t make me send an email “Are you getting my emails.”
Don’t procrastinate on email you know will make me angry. Take your medicine and ask for a follow up meeting to discuss.
Provide value. This is why you are being hired.
Recognize the AHA! Moments where your idea earned your keep.
Offer unique solutions that match the goal of the client. No cookie cutter solutions.
Create the right kind of deliverables.
“A vendor presented charts, graphs, percentages and participant numbers for a qualitative study -- completely inappropriate and misleading.”
Provide data and suggestions I didn’t even think about.
“One vendor presented UX trends but balanced with 508 requirements.”
If you have industry expertise, you are more marketable to me as a client.
No significant on-boarding and kick off meetings.
I don’t have the time to train you.
Start producing deliverables in Week 1.
User types spreadsheet
Placeholder personas
Current workflows
User stores (epic)
Current metrics
Don’t schedule too many meetings.
“Don't waste time…Don't treat me like an operational company that’s full of process. Treat me like a growth company. Don't get bogged down by theory. It's all about results and survival.”
Understand the client’s business goals and help meet them. Think beyond design.
“When it doubt - it's okay to say ‘I am sorry, I don't understand why we are doing this. Can you help me understand this process based on your business?’ Treat your client as your own project.”
Tie metrics to goals so I can see where we’re at.
Learn about the company, the customers, the products.
“This project is a team effort. You may be doing the wireframes / design / testing / coding, but it is with my ideas.”
#1 No-no!
Do what you say, when you said you were going to do it.
“Work twice as hard if you are not going to meet your goals.”
Don’t charge senior rates for junior team members. “
“Premium pricing before demonstrating competency, let alone excellence”
Don’t tell me you’ve done it before if you haven’t.
If you are going to use a tool (surveymonkey, axure), figure it out on your own and not while you are having a meeting with the client. It is a bad thing if the client has to tell you how to format a survey question.
If I am your guinea pig, tell me and then give me a discount.
Don’t be so green, that you look unprofessional.
If you don’t know about a particular software or technology, don’t discredit it because you just don’t know about it. It comes off as “Lying about the pros and cons of a particular technology or function to cover their lack of skill in that technology. So recommended only those things they liked or had knowledge in.”
Dirty secret of UX is sub-contracting out work. From the client side, this sucks.
I hire you because I like and trust you. The quality of work for your subcontractors is usually not up to snuff.
You cost me extra time and money by being a middle-man.
I can hire a senior level person myself for the same rate I am paying you for your markup.
That person won’t be available for follow-on work so I will have to onboard someone else.
Take full responsibility for your vendors to have them deliver under SOW.
If you have an in-house resource, highlight it. As a client, I will pick you over a competitor.
Don’t go on rants about process or methods unless I ask.
“Don't be arrogant with non-tech savvy people... teach and inform.”
Be concise and clear when I ask you questions (as much as you can be).
Don’t react to my bad attitude. My crazy is not your crazy. I’ve got so much going on and this is just one spinning plate.
Language barriers can be gruesome. Figure out the best way to communicate and put your best native speaker on the phone.
Don’t make me put you off. You should be the first thing I want to deal with because it is fun and easy.
Project Management is not sexy or fun for a UX person. However, it is CRITICAL to do for a project.
Awesome easy tools are out there to organize your project. (Asana, Trello, JIRA)
Fail early and often – yes but only if you’ve talked about it first.
Create a culture of iteration, but if you blatantly mess up, fix it on your own dime.
“Mistakes are the portals of discovery” – James Joyce
“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford
Do what you say you are going to do.
Add in some freebies.
Developers had to do a release to fix some bugs and they added some features for free while they were in the code.
Check in with client after your portion of the project is over and give some feedback. Often this will turn into follow-on work.
No false promises.
“Don't say - Yes, we can do that. and then when it's time to do it say ‘Sure, we will do this but it will be XXX dollars more.’ Don't manipulate, please.”
BRDs and specs are dead but sharing information is not.
“Dare to innovate... but for goodness sake, document what you are doing.”
Annotate wires
MVP, V2, V3, etc
Conditional logic
Flows stemming from links / buttons that are not designed
Where to pull data from
Create workflows for the wires.
Create swimlane diagrams of epics (multi-channel product).
Create user stories (include a column for what pages are hit in that story).
Create journey maps to give that high level view of your customer.
Don’t wait until a big milestone to share work product.
Waste time & money.
Increases aggravation & frustration.
Share link to the live wires or visual design so I can see the current state of wires at all times.
If client sees something that is not right, they can correct it early.
Annotate wires (yellow box) with questions or use placeholders for things you haven’t done yet.
“Transparent progress reporting.”
If the client is wrong, tell them. This is why you were hired.
“In general being told, with convincing explanations and alternative solutions, that my ideas are not the best for my business goals. I love to learn from savvy and focused vendors who have my business success and value for money at heart. This is pretty sure fire way to get repeat business.”
Push the client to think about new technologies, workflows, designs.
Clients typically have far superior mental models about their business than their customers do. Ask “but is that realistic for your customer?”
Don't make me pay for my own work.
Expect vendors in other countries to assume the statement "all deliverables in English" means all deliverables and project communications in English
Don't sell what isn't your core expertise.
don't pretend you know their business/industry better than they do
Don't deliver shoddy work
Keep up with the latest advances, don't get stuck in a rut.
Pretend to know more than you do. Over charge
the reverse!!
Have weekly live call to talk about the project.
Write up a weekly status report of status of the project.
Any verbal of offline conversation should be documented in writing and shared with team.
Tag team members that need to know about any decisions or explanations that were done.
Don’t assume anyone knows or remembers anything.
Explain process
“I’m sure everyone knows this already, but just to make sure that everyone is on the same page.”
Recap what has happened prior to this email / meeting
“As a quick reminder,”
Create useful meeting invites
Title is something useful: Project Name - What you are doing
Include an agenda
Include location / conference number / online meeting link
Include number of hours for each deliverable
Include a shared timesheet
“transparent progress reporting”
Learn time management skills
Learn time management skills
My marketing vendor creates a strategy document every month and puts in more work if we do not see results. His team has also been very creative with ideas. Developers I have worked with has a detailed scope that gets discussed weekly. If I want to change priorities we discuss, come to an agreement and set new expectations. I have worked with all my vendors for over a year and this benefits all of us because we ultimately learn each their strengths and weaknesses and we learn to work together. I find the best strategy is to find a vendor that you can collaborate well with even if the vendor charges more. In the long run sticking with a vendor will yield a higher return than constantly looking for the best deal.