"Product Design is not UX Design is not UI Design is not..."
Look, if you're doing the job right, it's all the same shit.
It's all DESIGN.
Every description I've ever read about any of the above disciplines applies to ALL THREE if you're going to be any good at it.
1/6
If you're going to make an impact. Get results. Help people.
Design of ANY kind, in general, is a holistic pursuit — you have to know a hell of a lot about a hell of a lot that is far beyond the actual tactical work you do.
2/6
Stuff that is beyond the principles and practices of good UX, good design.
Into the realm of business, technology, engineering, human psychology, cognitive behavior, the list goes on.
3/6
I fail to see what this constant need to separate them in posts and videos and whatever does to HELP practitioners, new or experienced.
It only encourages people to learn a very narrow slice of the discipline — and struggle to get (or keep) a job because of that narrowness.
4/6
It just builds more silos that separate us and make folks feel incapable or unworthy. Creates more clubs where gatekeepers get to tell other people they're not good enough to belong.
Sorry, you don't have the right title, the right creds, didn't go to the right school...
5/6
...or call what you do the RIGHT THING.
Look, I have no huge point here other than to say I really, really wish folks would stop this.
Yet another example of what I was ranting about yesterday: just read something about how UXers + Designers should "apply strategy to consider 'sunk cost fallacy' when redesigning an existing system, as if this was novel.
Please excuse my bluntness, but:
NO. SHIT. SHERLOCK.
1/6
This SHOULD NOT be a new or novel idea. Any and every UX , Product or UI (or ANY) designer should damn well have been taught to consider these things.
They should *never* have gotten to the job without understanding the necessity of considering such things.
2/6
This does not apply to just ONE of those titles; it applies to ALL of them. This is something that always has to be considered, researched, explored, applied, no matter what your design- or UX-related title happens to be.
3/6
If decisions about requirements, #productdesign and #UX are being made without you, I have a suggestion:
Stop waiting for an invitation.
Start inviting yourself.
(a LONG thread ahead...settle in)
1/13
I’m sure in your organization there are strategic meetings you’re not part of, where product strategy or requirements or sprint plans are made and decided without you.
Everyone else knows things you don’t; information upstream never makes it to you.
2/13
You feel marginalized, left out, disrespected, OK, fine. I get it. That happens, more often than it should, I agree.
So what are you gonna DO about it?
Where do you need to be to know what they know — when they know it?
Since so many ask so often, I will finally share my #UX process (a thread):
1) Get clear on why this app, site or system exists, who needs it and what they expect to be able to do with it.
2) Assess the current state of the app, site or system and map out how people use it.
3) Determine where and how the product (and the company) is falling short and what the consequences of each of those instances are, for users and for the business (existing or new research).
4) Prioritize and rank those failure areas: how bad and how often?
7) Be willing to completely blow all of this up and do something else entirely depending on the company, the team, the users, customers, constraints, etc.
I was in a meeting once where there was a religious argument between groups of developers, database folks, product owners and executive managers.
The topic: why a certain report screen was taking so long to load.
(1/12)
It was a report clients were asking for; they log in, enter their credentials, enter a date range, set some filters — and then the system would literally take up to three full minutes to fully load the report.
You literally got a blank screen for several minutes.
(2/12)
The database folks are barking: "our infrastructure prevents us from doing this any other way, dev needs to do things differently." #Developers fire back: "it's a needlessly complex data structure." #UX folks are angry with both groups: "we TOLD you this would happen."
A significantly large number of companies and organizations share three specific traits when it comes to #UX improvement and #ProductDesign in general:
1 - They don’t really know what their users or customers actually want.
(1/13)
2 - They’re under the mistaken assumption that surveys or their NPS scores tell them what the value of their product/service is to those users.
3 - They’re not willing to allow you to talk to those users to find out what they actually need or hope to accomplish.
(2/13)
I get enough emails and DMs every day to tell me that this is reality for most of you. And the question folks ask me is always the same:
What the hell do I DO?
My answer tends to ruffle some feathers, but here it is.
Them: "We never have enough time to do proper user interviews."
Me: "How much time do you have?"
Them: "a week."
Me: "Let me tell you a story..."
And the story, #UX and #design friends, goes like this:
(1/11)
I was consulting with an organization, whose team needed to do some research; interviews specifically. They said "well, we have 24 hours based on our schedule…but we have to get to this other work to make deadline and right now it's all hands on deck."
(2/11)
So the team can't spare the manpower or the people and there were lots of reasons why that date couldn't move. In the end, we got eight hours.
Eight hours to talk to users and get some sense of what's going on here.