Finding Role Clarity in UX Chaos
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The document discusses different roles in UX design such as UI designer, information architect, usability expert, content strategist, visual designer, and front end developer. It notes there is often confusion around what each role entails and suggests the roles should not work in silos. The document advocates for collaboration between roles to create a cohesive user experience rather than a fragmented one.
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Finding Role Clarity in UX Chaos
- 1. Finding Role Clarity in UX Chaos January 23, 2015 Marli Mesibov @marsinthestars#ConveyUX
- 2. Marli Mesibov @marsinthestars Content strategist What does that mean? Managing Editor at UX Booth @marsinthestars#ConveyUX
- 4. WHOSE JOB IS IT ANYWAY? UI Designer Information Architect Usability Expert Content Strategist Visual Designer Front End Developer @marsinthestars#ConveyUX
- 5. WHOSE JOB IS IT ANYWAY? @marsinthestars#ConveyUX Validates content delivery by developing and completing usability test plans; evaluating user flows and traffic patterns; studying user feedback; coordinating with Usability Specialists.
- 6. WHOSE JOB IS IT ANYWAY? UI Designer Information Architect Usability Expert Content Strategist Visual Designer Front End Developer @marsinthestars#ConveyUX
- 7. WHOSE JOB IS IT ANYWAY? UI Designer Information Architect Usability Expert Content Strategist Visual Designer Front End Developer @marsinthestars#ConveyUX
- 8. WHOSE JOB IS IT ANYWAY? @marsinthestars#ConveyUX …Responsible for designing, developing, modifying and implementing computer generated and photographic artwork, images and layouts for the Web.
- 9. WHOSE JOB IS IT ANYWAY? UI Designer Information Architect Usability Expert Content Strategist Visual Designer Front End Developer @marsinthestars#ConveyUX
- 10. WHOSE JOB IS IT ANYWAY? UI Designer Information Architect Usability Expert Content Strategist Visual Designer Front End Developer @marsinthestars#ConveyUX
- 11. WHOSE JOB IS IT ANYWAY? @marsinthestars#ConveyUX … Gather and synthesize business, brand, market, and user requirements, and collaborate on user workflows, information architecture, and wireframes.
- 12. WHOSE JOB IS IT ANYWAY? UI Designer Information Architect Usability Expert Content Strategist Visual Designer Front End Developer @marsinthestars#ConveyUX
- 13. WHOSE JOB IS IT ANYWAY? UI Designer Information Architect Usability Expert Content Strategist Visual Designer Front End Developer @marsinthestars#ConveyUX
- 14. WHOSE JOB IS IT ANYWAY? @marsinthestars#ConveyUX Candidate will develop content and data information attributes and classification schemes.
- 15. WHOSE JOB IS IT ANYWAY? UI Designer Information Architect Usability Expert Content Strategist Visual Designer Front End Developer @marsinthestars#ConveyUX
- 16. WHOSE JOB IS IT ANYWAY? UI Designer Information Architect Usability Expert Content Strategist Visual Designer Front End Developer @marsinthestars#ConveyUX
- 18. Research Functionality Content Visualdesign Development @marsinthestars The UX Conveyor Belt #ConveyUX
- 19. @marsinthestars We can’t live in silos #ConveyUX
- 20. Silos result in a fragmented UX. @marsinthestars#ConveyUX
- 24. @marsinthestars#ConveyUX “A successful visual design does not take away from the content on the page or function. Instead, it enhances it by engaging users and helping to build trust and interest in the brand.” - usability.gov (2015)
- 26. @marsinthestars#ConveyUX “Content strategy plans for the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content.” - Kristina Halvorson, 1998
- 27. @marsinthestars#ConveyUX “Content is king.” – Bill Gates, 1996 (Microsoft Site) “Content is king!!!” – Every Content Strategist, 2011 (Everywhere)
- 29. @marsinthestars#ConveyUX “When we discuss the “front end” of the web, what we’re really talking about is the part of the web that you can see.” – Josh Long, Frontend vs. Backend (2012)
- 32. @marsinthestars#ConveyUX “The presentation of information can be more important than the information itself.” – Gary Wolf, 2000 (Wired)
- 33. @marsinthestars#ConveyUX “Information architecture is the stuff that is never rendered in pixels and it’s never rendered in code.” – Dan Klyn, 2013 (Adaptive Path)
- 35. @marsinthestars#ConveyUX “User experience design [improves] the usability, ease of use, and pleasure provided in the interaction between the user and the product.” – Interacting with Computers (2010)
- 36. @marsinthestars#ConveyUX Check out the full deck by Guy Haviv: http://www.meetgooya.com/History-of-UI-OS- Design
- 41. Let’s Work Together! 1. Activities 2. Exercises 3. Soft Skills 4. Tools @marsinthestars#ConveyUX
- 43. 2. Exercises: pair programming @marsinthestars#ConveyUX
- 44. 3. Soft Skills @marsinthestars#ConveyUX What do you need? How can I help? What do you think? What do you see? What can I do?
- 45. 4. Tools • Editorial calendars • Check lists • User journeys • Any shared spaces @marsinthestars#ConveyUX
Editor's Notes
- Helpful, concrete questions to ask of other team members in collaborative settings. The secret to why “silos” exist in the first place, and why they’re not always bad. A stronger understanding of the history of some of the jobs now considered to be “UX” such as content strategy and information architecture. Conversation and brainstorming starters that can be utilized to kick off design/content projects.
- My name, content strategist No one knows what a content strategist/UX strategist is My mother tells people I do something with writing.
- No one knows what any of us do My Drew Carey impersonation
- 6 fields Using job descriptions from LinkedIn
- - IA
- - Which one is it?
- - Front end dev
- - Which one is it?
- - Visual designer
- - Which one is it?
- - Content strategist
- - Which one is it?
- problem with the words we’re using. secret: we can’t fix it today. Jobs and their titles are evolving, which means confusing
- - We CAN understand how we evolved to this point and what our jobs are intended to accomplish. Exciting time to be working in UX. We are writing the book(s) and creating the best practices. We can make changes (write blog posts, change wikipedia articles)
- But change is scary. So we end up in silos. How are silos created? Silos are specializations Silos are isolated teams or people
- Silos coming down Story of company with everyone split up (conveyor belt)
- End product looks messy, disjointed We need to be able to work collaboratively together. We need to understand all these different jobs, and how they interact.
- we are a culture looking to the future Past informs the future Don Norman coined the term “UX design.” We’ll look at 3 easily distinctive jobs and 3 people struggle to define. Lastly, we’ll talk about how we – as designers, developers, strategists, or something else, can work well together.
- Visual design sometimes used as a pejorative Differentiated from UX design Visual design is part of UI and IA clients ask us to make something bigger, we say “we can actually make that more prominent through visual design”
- Visual design is graphic design, imagery, use of color, shapes, typography, and form Enhances usability and improve the user experience. Visual designers are the closest to the original definition of “design,” and it’s what most layman think of when they hear the term “design.”
- Many visual designers do their own interaction design, their own research, and their own usability. Skillset employers are looking for is Photoshop skills. Separates “design” from content or development work
- Content strategy is very new. Earliest references are ~1997 In 1998 Razorfish began a content strategy department, Term gained momentum with A List Apart’s 2008 “Content Strategy” issue, which included the article in which Kristina Halvorson defined it.
- Early 200s, poor economy Companies hired copywriters, not content strategists, as though the two were interchangeable Many CSs began as researchers, journalists, or creative directors Common thread: empathy, big picture thinking UI designers are often designers who learn UX best practices, content strategists are often people working in user-centric positions, who can then learn to apply that thinking to content.
- In 1996, Bill Gates wrote an article entitled “Content is King” In 1995, Ann Rockley started The Rockley Group, and began doing content strategy (though people seldom called it that). In 2010 and 2011, suddenly content strategists picked up on the phrase. Timing was right – Google’s Panda Update in February of 2011, economy was starting to pick up. The iPhone had just come out, and people needed their content in two places, and they needed a strategy to do so.
- Front-end dev is the third major area of our Venn diagram of UX roles It sits at the interaction between development work and UI design work.
- Front-end development is the part of a website that users interact with. Dropdown menus, disabled buttons, sliders, and contact forms. As far as UX is concerned, this is the development side of things. Dev tells designers what the constraints are So dev helps with design, tells us what interactions we can use
- Reminder: easily distinguishable from visual design and content strategy. Not easily distinguishable from interaction design or from usability. Next three fields are in-between jobs, still focused on the user experience. What differentiates them is their deliverables.
- IA has a clear history, term “IA” was coined in 1976, by Richard Saul Wurman. Wurman co-founded the first TED talk in 1984, and he then chaired the TED conference until 2002.
- Wurman was an artist, an architect, an urban planner and worked as a graphic designer. He looked at the structure of data and design (before websites!) and said “why don’t we view this in the same way we view buildings?” Approached TED as a way of organizing information into a successful structure.
- IA has roots in architecture and structure. Tools: connect meaning to form, identify relationships between content and design types. Deliverables: blueprints for a website (sitemaps and nav)
- UI Design is the most difficult area of UX to explain “User interface” describes the buttons, menus, layout, literally the interface that we see. But those are also created by visual designers.
- Common definition of UX design. Is it any surprise that many people use the terms UX design and UI design interchangeably? UI design, (like IA or CS), can be done poorly or well. I’m interested in taking a look at UI design separate from UX.
- History of UI design can be summarized as “interfaces have existed as long as computer programs have existed.” UI designers often have backgrounds in graphic design or other design-related fields, (same as visual designers). Many UI designers found the field UX as designers, and began to learn UX best practices later. I interviewed UX design employers, they are more comfortable hiring someone with strong design skills, not someone with good UX instincts who needs to be taught to use the design tools. “UI design” is focused on the interactions, to the point that UI design is often interchangeably used with “interaction design.” Good UI is typically UI with a focus on the user
- Usability is the toughest area of UX design to define. Usability doesn’t have a job associated with it. I was unable to find a “usability specialist” job description.
- Usability does have a specific definition. Jakob Nielsen has broken it down into 5 areas: Learnability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design? Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks? Memorability: When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they reestablish proficiency? Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors? Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the design?
- usability peeks out between content strategy and front-end development. I disagree. Usability is part of all of user experience We all ensure products are learnable, efficient, memorable, satisfying, and unlikely to cause errors.
- Can’t remove the confusion among the multiple user experience professions. We can improve our ability to make projects run smoothly. We can stay away from silos I like my job – but when someone else is trying to do the work that I’m used to doing, I get protective and defensive. So do other people. We end up duplicating work unnecessarily.
- We can’t work in silos. Business wastes time and money when 2 people create personas and both do user research and both put together site maps People who overlap don’t do things the same way, which means wasted work or will need to redo work One of the benefits to not being a User Experience Team of One ability to share others’ expertise. Working in a silo removes that benefit. If we don’t identify potential flaws in an idea, we work on the idea and waste tons of time. Harder to fix later
- I get my activities from Gamestormin, by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown, and James Macanufo Use to create an IA with multiple perspectives They noticed that adults don’t actually get much out of brainstorming. Either one person is louder than the rest of the room, or the team gets stuck on one idea, or there’s no specific goal in mind to inspire the team. List Book website of activities Gets designers, developers, IA, and user researchers together to discuss something that impacts all of us. It moves us past “my job” and “your job” and helps cement ideas as belonging to all of us.
- Working together can mean literally working together. 2 developers side by side, swapping to check over work, digging into difficult areas Content first & design first with a designer & content strategist
- I don’t know everything (older person or younger) You don’t know everything (developers) Empathy and compassion
- Keep an eye out for tools that allow us to work together. Shared spaces can be in the cloud or in a room or on a whiteboard.