The UX team at TechSmith has grown from one part-time designer and researcher to five designers and two full-time researchers over the past five years. They strive to create easy and delightful user experiences through user research and design. Their goal is to understand users' problems and design the right solutions. They work closely with product development and management to influence what gets built based on user data.

1. User Experience@TechSmithBarb Hernandez – User Experience ManagerIn UX, we are passionate about creating great user experiences. We believe that people should just be able to use software and not have to learn how to use software. We strive to create designs that are easy, elegant, and delightful, and to turn user research data into world-class software and web services.

2. The UX TeamThree and a half years as a formal departmentFive years ago: one designer and a part time researcher, no departmentNow: five designers, two full-time researchers, department and department managerDevelopment / product driven organizationUser focused, feature drivenCore value to the companyResearch to understand the user and their problems through out the processDesign to make sure we start and end with the right solutionsGetting in the Agile groove

3. Success@TechSmithStart at the core, expand from thereProduct developmentIntegrate and engageProduct management is nextRetrain and reframeBe as close to the decision-making as you canFind success and build on it

4. Cradle to Grave DesignSolve real problemsLook for valuable solutionsDesign great interactionsEncourage incremental design, evaluation and developmentInvolve the teamCollaborative designCreate finished art

5. In-Product Branding

6. Look and FeelUnify visual styleUnify interaction modelsLook like the same companyWork is slowLimitations in tool setPriority but not…Cross-platform design issuesTrue platform specific experiences with a “one product, two platforms” philosophy

7. User ResearchUsability testing and other methodsAnswer design questionsAvoid being the tie breakerDesign exercise facilitationPersona developmentCommunication and interaction with teamsCollaborative analysis

8. Core Skills: DesignVisual design and communicationGraphic designWorkflow modelingInteraction designProblem solving and root cause analysisLeadershipFacilitationOpen mind…

9. Core Skills: ResearchUser research methodsUsability testingSurvey creationRecruitingEthnographic methodsFacilitationLeadershipData aggregation and analysisCollaboration

10. Where We LiveCloset to the actionIntegrate with Product DevelopmentPart of the Customer Engagement organizationWork with Product Management

11. SuccessRelationships / embedded designers and close relations with researchersAssertive championing of usersDoing things wellProviding opportunities to see real user use the productFacilitate team work

12. Where We Are GoingInfluencing what gets builtCurrently informallyMoving toward making it a best practiceWork with our new market research organizationData collection and aggregation

13. FodderTeam-based (a.k.a. collaborative) usability test analysisPersonas Consulting model or work directly with teamsSpecs or no specs Agile