UX Leadership for All: How to elevate UX practices

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UX LEADERSHIP FOR ALL: How to elevate UX practices

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Introduction
Anita Cator
Principal,
Sabre UX Design
Anna Harasimiuk
Principal,
Sabre UX Research
About Sabre
• Global technology provider to the travel
industry
• Supports airlines, hotels, and travel agencies
sabre.com

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Across all product sets
#1 or #2
Employees in 65 countries
9,300
In revenue
(2017)
$3.6B
Customer relationships
Deep
Publicly traded on NASDAQ
SABR
Hospitality Solutions
Travel Network
Operating the world’s largest travel
marketplace, connecting travel buyers and
sellers
Airline Solutions
Offering solutions to help airlines market,
sell, serve and operate more efficiently
Travel Solutions
Providing distribution, operations and
marketing solutions to the hotel industry

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Anita Cator
Professional Experience
• Over 28 years of application design experience
• A 18 year veteran with Sabre
• UX Designer, Visual Designer, Interactive Designer, and a usability/
accessibility guru
• Experience working with Fortune 500 companies, with the high focus in
travel and hospitality industries
Strengths
• Anita is recognized as a decisive and innovative leader and works
extremely well with diverse teams and on complex projects
Current Projects
• Hospitality Solutions products (hotel operations)
User Experience Design Principal
Anita.Cator@sabre.com
“I love creative application involved in designing
for desktop and mobile applications.”

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Anna Harasimiuk
Anna.Harasimiuk@sabre.com
“My role is to serve as a voice of the users.“
Education
• MA in Language & Philological Sciences from UMCS, Poland
• HFI Certified Usability Analyst (CUA)
• Certified Scrum Master (CSM)
• Certified HTML Programmer, JavaScript, CSS
• Corel graphics suite, Macromedia products
Professional Experience
• UX research strategist, usability expert, principal UX researcher
• Over 24 years of experience in UX
• 18 years with Sabre; 12 years in UX Research
• Prior to UX research: content management specialist, web designer/
web developer, webmaster, translator
Current Projects
• Hospitality Solutions products (hotel operations)
Usability Principal and UX Researcher

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“The true measure of
leadership is influence
– nothing more,
nothing less.”
-- John C. Maxwell
Leadership Expert; Bestselling Author and Coach
myjourneyofchange.com
Photo: willowcreek.com

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“Influence is moving another
person toward an action without
the use of direct power.”
-- B. Kim Barnes, “Exercising Influence”
Credit: “DESIGNING INFLUENCE” presentation by Nancy Dickenson, Nielsen Norman Group training course

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Q:
What is most appealing
about the leaders you
know?

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• Effective
• Influential
• Confident
• Decisive
• Motivating
• Visionary
• Strategic
• Inclusive
• Personable and approachable
• Inspiring
• Admirable
• Available
• Patient
• Authentic
What is appealing about the leaders?
These are some of the qualities we look for in our leaders:

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Management vs. leadership
• Focus on tasks
• Have people who work for them
• Have processes to maintain
• Minimize risks
• Count value
• Instruct
• Maximize efficiency
• Expect control
• Have authority
• Focus on goals and vision
• Have people who follow them
• Have a vision to fulfill
• Take risks, challenge the status quo
• Create value
• Encourage
• Nurture skills and develop talent
• Inspire trust
• May or may not have authority
Managers Leaders
Credits: Leadership vs Management: Is One Better Than the Other? by Leon Ho, lifehack.org, Three Differences Between Managers and Leaders by Vineet Nayar, Harvard Business Review, hbr.org
Management and leadership have different characteristics and have different focuses.
vs

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CONNECTING LEADERSHIP TO
THE ROLE OF UX

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Q:
What does it mean to be a
UX Leader?
What defines UX leadership?

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UX leader may have no authority over people
or title to influence, but people still follow him
and he can influence people to produce better
user experience when they are not obligated to.
Credit: “Being a UX Leader” presentation by Rachel Krause, Nielsen Norman Group training course
There are many pathways to great UX leadership…

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UX leadership “hats”
Translating the value of
UX into business value
Architect
Setting and inspiring
others with overall vision
and design direction
Interpreter
Communicating UX,
presenting ideas and
insights effectively
Orator
Managing and responding
to feedback without
losing momentum
Foreman
Cultivating a shared
understanding of UX
Evangelist
UX leadership “hats” were defined by Nielsen Norman Group in their “Being a UX Leader” training course

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Q: What are your strengths?

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Find your UX leadership strength
Quiz by Nielsen Norman Group
What is your UX leadership
strength?
Take a quiz:
Image credit: scitechgen.com

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Be aware of your strengths
➢ Identify your natural abilities:
• What you are good at
• What you are most likely to enjoy
• Your underlying motivations
➢ Focus on what you are good at, not on your
weaknesses.
• Clifton StrengthsFinder can help you identify
your natural abilities and discover your
leadership style
➢ Know your weaknesses, so you can team up with
someone who can fill in the gaps…
(www.gallupstrengthscenter.com)
Credit: “CliftonStrengths Coaching For Sabre Women’s Exchange” by Brandy Schade, a Gallup-
certified Strengths coach and a leadership consultant

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• This famous Henry Ford quote, emphasizes how much
attitude determines your success or failure
• Focus on your abilities and have a positive attitude
• Have faith in yourself; develop confidence in your own
power -- you yourself determine your own success or failure
“Whether you think you can
or think you can’t… You’re right.”
-- Henry Ford

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Gallup leadership domains
Pulls teams and its members into the
future and keeps people focused on
“what they could” do; continually
absorbs and analyzes information to
help teams make better decisions
Implements and works tirelessly
to get tasks done; transforms
ideas into reality within
organizations they lead
Constantly sells the team’s ideas
inside and outside the
organization; takes charge,
speaks up and makes sure your
group is heard
Brings and holds people and teams
together; keeps distractions at bay
and collective energy high;
transforms groups of individuals into
teams capable of carrying out
complex projects and goals
EXECUTING
INFLUENCINGRELATIONSHIP BUILDING
STRATEGIC THINKING
Credit: “CliftonStrengths Coaching For Sabre Women’s Exchange” by Brandy Schade,
a Gallup-certified Strengths coach and a leadership consultant

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Top 5 strengths and leadership domains
Anita Anna
As Relator she creates
relationships with people
and develops them in ways
unimaginable.
She uses Achiever to get the
projects off the ground and
to make sure the projects
get done.
Executing
20%
Relationship
Building
60%
Strategic
Thinking
20%
Relationship
Building
60%
Strategic
Thinking
40%

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Our UX leadership “hats”
The Orator excels at:
• Storytelling with data and research
• Breaking down big ideas into their core parts to
ease comprehension
• Capturing and sharing the thought process that led
to an idea
• Leading others towards conclusions
Orator
The Evangelist excels at:
• Building relationships and trust
• Cultivating a shared understanding of UX
• Creating buy-in for UX
• Believing in and sharing a message
Evangelist

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WHAT DOES A UX LEADER ACT LIKE?

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What does a UX leader act like?
L
E
A
D
E
R
Lays out a vision
Effectively communicates
Accountable and responsible
Does not get defensive
Equips teams with priorities
[Builds] Relationships
LEADER defined by Nielsen Norman Group in their “Being a UX Leader” training course

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Successful UX
professionals…
.…are self-starters – they lead
without assigned authority
.…deliver results by practicing
influencing principles
.….build trust through
productive collaboration with
partners
.…practice emotional
intelligence through knowing
and managing their strengths
and weaknesses
.…expect resistance. They use
resistance to make their ideas
and their relationships with
others even stronger
L E A D E R

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USING OUR STRENGTHS
L E A D E R

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- A Chinese Proverb, 6th Century
Involve people you’re trying to influence
Tell me and I’ll forget;
Show me and I may remember;
Involve me and I’ll understand.
L E A D E R R for build Relationships
Align with, connect, and involve people you’re trying to influence.

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Work on building relationships with
• your product team
• internal stakeholders
• customers
UX Leader builds relationships

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Get to know people you work with
• Setup ongoing coordinations
• Find time for team building activities
• Involve people in the decisions; ask to be involved
• Treat people with dignity and respect
• Ask for feedback, ask questions
• Use collaboration tools for remote teams (MS Teams)
• Share your vision: paint the "big picture“
• Share your work: designs, research, artifacts
• Encourage the heart: recognize contributions, show
appreciation, celebrate victories
• Ask them for help - build a bridge

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UX Leader brings
the stakeholders
together 1. Decision makers
2. Knowledge holders
• Product
• UX
• Engineering
• Marketing
• Sales
• Support
Create a shared vision with the product team…
Include stakeholders:

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Get involved, get proactive: UX Backlog
45 items fixed, in prod
122 open items:
30 defects + 92 user stories
167 backlog items
45closed
122open
2
3
5
9
10
10
14
15
16
19
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Login
Shopping
Dashboard
GSR
Housekeeping
Other
Folio
Groups
ADA
Guest board
Tape chart
• Embrace Agile
• Get on Rally (or any other project
management tool your scrum team is using)
• Use UX Backlog
• Facilitate value-effort estimations
• Participate in the backlog grooming
• Speak up, reach out with concerns
• Collaborate on problem solutions
“Agile and UX work well together
when UX practitioners show
leadership.”
-- by Page Laubheimer, NNg
L E A D E R A for Accountable and responsible
TC
GB
GRP
HSKP

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Value effort estimation
YES!!!
NOMaybe…
Maybe…
Prioritization matrix
“Visuals such as
charts and matrices
can help
practitioners base
important decisions
on objective, relevant
criteria instead of
subjective opinions.”
-- Sarah Gibbons
L E A D E R E for Equips teams with priorities
“Using Prioritization Matrices to Inform UX Decisions”
by Sarah Gibbons, Nielsen Norman Group

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Client Involvement
PARTICIPATE IN DESIGN
Client participation in Design
Studios helps to inform the
design and promotes a shared
vision.
In addition, design reviews allow
us to share the direction and get
feedback.
VALIDATE WITH CLIENT USERS
Providing participants for
usability tests ensures that the
client has representation. We
often share findings with clients
and get their direct feedback.
DISCOVER USER NEEDS
Clients have an opportunity to
provide subject matter experts
and users for interviews, surveys,
etc. They can also arrange on-site
visits so that researchers observe
users in their environment.

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• On-site observations
By shadowing users in
their environment, we can
see what they actually do
and how they do it.
• User interviews
Interview users in their
environment.
• Guerrilla testing
On-site visits are also
great way to do ad hoc
usability research.
Customer sites visits
L E A D E R E for Effectively communicates

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• Usability labs tours during customer visits
• Explain the UX process and customer
involvement
• Demo usability sessions
• Collect product insights and feedback from
sales demos
Collaboration with Sales team

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• 64 research and usability
testing projects
• Total of 1222 hotel users
participated in our
research projects
• 881 participants engaged
through relationship with
our enterprise customers
• 12 on-property visits
• 43 usability tests
• 9 unmoderated remote
research studies and
surveys
• Research with both, our
customers and non-
customers
In last 2.5 years
client
involvement
resulted in…
L E A D E R E for Effectively
communicates

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UX Leader builds trust
“You guys go ahead and do what
you always do. I completely trust
you.“
-- Russ, product manager
“What you guys do with UX and
usability is your product’s
competitive advantage.“
-- Justin, enterprise customer

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UX Leader lays out a product design vision
• Attainable: It’s within reach in the determined
future
• Experience-focused: Connected to users
• Specific: Related to the product and its users
• Research-based: Focused on user research
• Practical: Pragmatic rather than aspirational
• Shared: Communicated across the
entire team
What makes a good UX vision?
L E A D E R L for Lays out a vision
vision
clear, long-term view
for the future
strategy
business goas and
Key opportunities
roadmap
prioritized features, people
and processes

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• Design POP (priority of product)
• Design Strategy
• BRD refinement and workshops
• Design Studio
• Iterative design and usability process
with post usability recaps
• Other workshops to help us vision
• Wall walks
• Business origami
How do we align with product vision
L E A D E R L for Lays out a vision

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UX Leader communicates effectively
• Show value of investing in good UX
• Log and share research
• Prove monetary gains with good UX (ROI)
research finding business impact costX =
Insights from usability studies,
user research, analytics,
support calls, customer
feedback, etc.
What business impact can
we associate with this
finding?
What is poor UX costing the
organization?
Guest registration card
prints on 2 pages
instead of 1
Number of registration cards
printed for guests each
month, cost of printing
(paper, ink)
Cost of printing is
doubled - $$ savings by
redesigning the registration
card to fit on one page
Example:

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Measure & communicate improvements over time
Aligning UX to business metrics:
• Identify top tasks
• Measure performance of top tasks over
time
e.g. average task success and failure rate, time-on-task, etc.
• Align to business objectives and key results
Identify key business objectives and track how UX changes
influence them. E.g. of KPIs include customer satisfaction, SUS
score, number of support calls, learning time, sales, etc.

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Q: How to communicate
your design?

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“Every designer has had to
justify their designs to
a non-designer, yet most
lack the ability to convince
people they're right.”
--- Tom Greever, “Articulating Design Decisions”
Good design does not sell itself

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How to effectively communicate your design?
• Figure out who needs to be there
• Set a date and make sure everyone knows about it
• Prepare the location for your review
• Create feedback guidelines
• Explain research goals and method
• Present your own work
• Don’t send out work in advance
• Know who is in the room
• Don’t just give a tour
• Help stakeholders give the information you need

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Tactics for listening
1. Lose the ego
Anyone can have a good design idea. Don’t be a snob
about format or design knowledge.
2. Hear them out
Allow others to explain the idea, reasoning, and to show
examples. Crushing the team’s ideas will alienate you.
3. Separate the suggestion from
the problem
Stakeholders don’t always think in terms of design
issues. Talk through their suggestions to determine
what they are trying to fix or archive with the idea.
L E A D E R D for Does not get defensive
More: “How to Deal With Bad Design Suggestions” by Kara Pernice and Kathryn Whitenton , Nielsen Norman Group
4. Assess the potential
Design includes many tradeoffs. Identify both the
problems and the benefits of the suggestion. Even a
bad idea has some benefit.
5. Buy some time for research
and exploration
Making a design decision in the moment means
skipping ideation, research, and user feedback. Ideally,
move toward a design-thinking process
6. How to say “No”
If you determine the idea should not be implemented,
you can say no in a positive way.

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Tactics for responding to feedback
1. Ask “Why?”
2. Propose an alternative
3. Give them a choice
Ask additional questions to understand the
underlying concerns.
• Questions are often expressed through
suggestions
• Pause and ask “why?”
Source: Tom Greever, “Articulating Design Decisions”
L E A D E R D for Does not get defensive
4. Ask others to weigh in
5. Postpone the decision

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Thank, Repeat, Prepare
“Get people to
move from talking
about what they
like and what they
don't like, to what
works and doesn't
work.”
-- Tom Greever
“Articulating Design Decisions”
(https://youtu.be/99e6d2purlo)
• Thank your stakeholders for their
feedback
• Summarize what the stakeholder
just said
• Give them some insight about the
content of your response
Transition to responding to the feedback

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“IDEAL” response to design feedback
Identify the problem that design is solving for
Describe the solution – how did you address the problem
Empathize with the user – how is this going to solve the
problem for the user
Appeal to the business – describe how this affects goals,
and KPIs
Lock in agreement – ask directly if they agree
I
D
E
L
A
Source: Tom Greever, “Articulating Design Decisions”

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Leadership develops daily, not in a day
• Ability to lead is a collection of
skills - you can learn and improve
• No matter where you’re starting
from, you can get better
• Successful leaders are learners -
get a little better each day
“It is the capacity to
develop and improve
their skills that
distinguishes leaders
from their followers.”
-- Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus

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“People don’t care how
much you know, until they
know how much you care.”
-- John C. Maxwell
Leadership Expert; Bestselling Author and Coach
Photo: http://www.willowcreek.com
Photo: http://johnmaxwellteam.com/minute/

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Resources
• Clifton StrengthsFinder, gallupstrengthscenter.com
• Being a UX Leader: Essential Skills for Any UX Practitioner - Nielsen Norman Group training course
• Designing Influence - Nielsen Norman Group training course
• Leadership in 2019: 5 Practices to Add Value to People, by John C Maxwell, myjourneyofchange.com,
johnmaxwell.com
• The Essential Qualities of a UX Leader, by Luke Chambers, uxmastery.com
• Design Reviews: Going Beyond the Surface, by Bethany Fong, design.google/library/going-beyond-the-
surface
• How To Communicate Design, Tom Greever, innovationcity.co
• Articulating Design Decisions, by Tom Greever
• The UX Careers Handbook by Cory Lebson (CRC Press, 2016)
• How to Deal With Bad Design Suggestions, by Kara Pernice and Kathryn Whitenton, nngroup.com
• Presentation by Brandy Schade, “CliftonStrengths Coaching For Sabre Women’s Exchange”
• How to Respond Effectively to Fierce Criticism, Crucial Skills, vitalsmarts.com

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