UI/UX Articles and Interesting Tidbits of the Week
May//28//2021
Here are some interesting finds on UI/UX of the week!
1.
Key Steps for RPA Implementation. As machine learning, AI become part of many product solutions delivered to market, this article sheds light on the best practices to excel when implementing RPA. RPA which stands for Robotic Process Automation, essentially aims to track the best ways to implement automation of tasks, and the article details important factors such as Strategy, Employee Preparation (and engagement), Collaboration with IT and Business Departments, to name but a few. It’s a somewhat succinct article on this topic, but one worth investigating further nonetheless. Highlight of the article includes:
“Any new implementation in the organization requires a well-thought plan. Without planning, we are bound to fail. For RPA implementation, it is important to go through the objectives you have to fulfill. These methods and techniques are supposed to be comprehensible. The easy comprehension of the RPA implementation is easier for the employees to understand. It requires a good plan for introducing change management. In this step, you also define the roles of the employees around RPA implementation. A detailed plan can help you address issues before the RPA is actually implemented.”
2.
Design Leadership. As Design professionals evolve in their careers, and quite a few embrace a leadership career, at times in situations where there’s an obvious lack of maturity, craft or overall experience, this article from authors Chris Avore and Russ Unger is a well needed reflection on what true leadership is about, how it manifests itself and the path to achieve it. The article also focuses on topics such as diversity in teams, interview processes (their reflection on “design tests” in particular is very pertinent), and generally overcoming biases and truly shaping teams that are inclusive, diverse and ultimately rewarding for Design professionals, independently of their seniority. Well worth a read. Highlight of the article includes:
“If you want to have a diverse team, you have to have a diverse talent pool of candidates with varying skills and backgrounds,” Russ recommends. “This means you need to make sure that you use language that isn’t exclusionary when you write your job description. It also means you have to have an actual interview process. When I’ve interviewed for new opportunities, it became clear that some managers had only looked at my resume at the start of the interview and didn’t have a standard set of questions that they were operating from. That’s not only insulting to your candidates, it’s also a recipe for adding more bias to your process. It’s important to remember that you’re very likely not the only organization they’re interviewing with and they’re evaluating you and your hiring process as well.
It’s one of the reasons why Chris and Russ think design exercises — sketching on a white- board, or even wireframing or visually designing something on the spot, as part of the interview — are frequently problematic. Assigning similar tasks to be completed at home and presented back to the hiring committee is just as tricky, as candidates tend to have other commitments when they’re job hunting.”
3.
Design Principles for Great User Experience. Hailing from the JustinMind website, this article lists a series of “principles” aimed at crafting indelible product experiences. As a footnote, I probably should state that I dislike the expression “Good UX” — products/solutions are typically either well designed or not. The fact that something is well designed, typically means it has taken into account, both utility and usability, in order to craft something that is actually useful. These days discussing “Good UX” can ultimately lead the conversation in a series of different directions, either discussing part of a Design process itself, or research endeavors, or a combination of a series of steps in the Design Thinking process, to name but a few. Discussing good Product Design practices however, allows for the topics of that conversation to be contextualized more accurately on a specific discipline which is applied in the process, or even discussing the overall journey that was taken in order to achieve a final solution. Either way, this article tackles topics such as Consistency, Usability, Visual Hierarchy, Storytelling, to name but a few. While not necessarily bringing anything dramatically new to this topic, it’s a worthwhile reminder of the power of well designed product solutions. Highlight of the article includes:
“In theory, this UX principle goes to teach designers what other factors affect the user and influence the problem that the solution will tackle. In practice, this also includes knowing the context around the use of the solution. Things like what device the user will rely on, what situation will drive users to the product or any other factor that can touch the solution usage. With that said, users need context too. In fact, most design teams will go out of their way to offer users some context that can help to smooth out any possible friction. A silly but common example is filling out forms. Let’s face it, no user truly enjoys filling out a form. There’s room for misinterpreting the questions or UI components — all of which add friction to the experience.”
