UI/UX Articles and Interesting Tidbits of the Week
June//30//2023
Here are some interesting finds on UI/UX of the week!
1.
The 3 Foundations of Lean UX. This is an older article (dated from 2017), hailing from publishing house O’Reilly and authors Josh Seiden and Jeff Gothelf on the topic of Lean UX. The authors trace the origins of Design Thinking to the 1970s and 1980s and how IDEO popularized it in the early 2000s. The article looks at the essence of what Lean UX actually is, highlighting topics such as focusing on Individuals and Interactions over processes and tools, Customer Collaboration over Contract Negotiation, to name but a few. The authors also detail principles, including “getting out of the deliverables business”. It’s well worth reading through attentively and paying close attention to the principles it founds itself on. Highlight of the article includes:
“Lean UX is, at its heart, a way of practicing user experience design. Drawing on roots in the fields of human factors and ergonomics, as well as the human-centered design ideas that emerged in the 1950s with the work of industrial designers like Henry Dreyfuss, today we call these methods and mindsets user experience design (or just UX), a term credited to Don Norman. UX embraces a number of design fields, including interaction design, information architecture, graphic design, and many others. But the heart of UX practice is that it begins by identifying human needs — the needs of the users of the system.”
2.
CX Teams and ROI. Interesting article on the topic of Customer Experience teams, and the value they provide for Organizations. This article hails from the UserTesting blog, and authors Amrit Bhachu and Jonny Macaluso. The authors provide recommendations on how to bring awareness and a sense of worth to CX teams by essentially doing the following: (1) speaking the language of executives and (2) creating value efficiently (and not just fastly) . While the article could have provided some case studies to examplify the applicability of a sound CX strategy, it still imparts the importance that this discipline can have in an organization. Worth reading through. Highlight of the article includes:
“Speed is critical to business. Everyone wants a solution delivered fast, but speed comes at a risk. In 2022, U.S. organisations spent an estimated $260B on unsuccessful development projects. Too often, we see delivery cycles driven by product owners and executives pushing a particular solution in a rush to optimise KPIs. A solution-focused approach usually comes from a subjective perspective. For example, a product manager will embark on a journey to deliver a solution based on what they’ve seen competitors doing. Without properly understanding the problem that needs to be solved, how do they know if they’re going in the right direction?”
3.
Scaling a UXR Team. Another pertinent article from People Nerds, the dScout design blog, focused on Research. This article from Andy Warr, specifically addresses how to build a Research team, where to focus on when hiring and the logistics of doing so. He also provides sound recommendations on how to document process and establish protocols. He does all this wrapped up in specific examples he provides throughout the article in a way that is both contextual and informational. Well worth reading through. Highlight of the article includes:
“Meta had a guideline that another manager should be hired when a manager has eight direct reports. In practice, you have to start a lot earlier because it can take a long time to find the right candidate for your team. For example, we opened our first manager for the Airtable UX Research team in May 2021, and didn’t hire until January 2022. Managers have varying levels of experience and it may be possible to transition people from the individual contributor (IC) to the manager track. In my opinion, the first manager you hire should have prior management experience. You’ll likely want them to manage a sizable portion of the existing team, allowing you to scale. There’s also a learning curve and inherent risk of transitioning someone to the manager track without manager peers to support them.”
