UX needs alliances
What value does UX bring to teams trying to build great products?
UX designers continue to play a broad role in the research, design, and testing of digital products hitting the market every day. But UX is always changing. It isn’t what it was in the past, and in the future it wont be what it is today.
More and more, UX is fragmenting into specializations. Where in the past a UX designer would be hired to do all that UX stuff, we see more and more dedicated researchers, interface designers, product managers, and content designers center stage. Some of them with a UX background, but always invested in the ideals that define what UX is.
It’s a topic we spoke about on the Opacity podcast recently. Check it out here to hear more in this episode on the expectations of the modern designer.
In my opinion, specialization within UX shows our industry is maturing. It’s becoming more clear. But it still raises questions about where we’re heading, as individual UXers but also as an industry.
I see three roads.
All 3 paths, I believe, are viable and interesting. This article is about the 3rd path. The path that I personally find very compelling, and central to what drew me to UX in the first place.
Depending on your context, you’ll know best what alliances need to be built and nurtured. Below are 5 alliances at the front of my mind that I believe UX designers should be actively building.
Each one could easily be its own article. For this piece I’ll keep it succinct, with a goal of getting you thinking about how this applies to you, your company, and the impact you can deliver.
Here are 5 essential alliances you should be building—
UX designers working on a product team may feel some affinity to their product manager. Maybe not the person themselves, or even their day-to-day management tasks. But with their responsibility and authority, there’s a definite draw for UX designers wanting more ownership and impact.
The potential for a PM to impact wholistic end-user experience is significant. Whether they’re doing it well or not is irrelevant—their position is ripe for it. In reality, a PM’s influence likely reaches far beyond what UX designers are able to do when only owning design.
It’s a matter of responsibility, and with responsibility comes authority. And authority, in our context, means the ability to define and drive a particular type of user experience. Through building an alliance with your PM—whether they value design or not—you’ll find opportunities to elevate UX ideals throughout the company.
Not all products have robust marketing departments. Some do. Many things marketers do wont necessarily overlap with what we consider UX, but what marketers are sending out into the world should align with the efforts you’re making inside your product.
The key here is aligning messages. By partnering with marketing, you can feed them insights from conversations with users, or key experiential principles central to your design strategy. And to ensure consistency from the moment someone enters a marketing funnel, to the point that they become happy users of your product.
Make marketers more user-centered in how they approach their jobs by giving them ways to think about the product’s user base. Include them in design sessions when possible. Marketers are familiar with UX concepts, but they don’t have the training a dedicated UXer would. They’ll benefit from a UX practitioner helping them think about the audiences they’re trying to reach, and the messages they’re trying to send into the world.
Customer success seems to fall outside of design altogether. Maybe seen more as a sales tool, or a tool for customer retention. Whatever way you view it, customer success representatives make up a major piece in the UX puzzle.
If this team exists at your company, it’s likely they’re talking with prospective/current customers and users on a regular basis. Likely more than you and your UX team. While your research team is planning out studies, the customer success team is in the trenches talking with happy and frustrated customers.
Some companies require their designers to sit in on these calls, which opens up a whole new understanding of users. A partnership and process between UX and customer success will add a whole new dimension to how your team gathers and prioritizes insights you’re getting from living, breathing customers of your product.
I feel a strong affinity for the Quality Assurance (QA) team. UX designers and researchers are a first line of defence, ensuring work that is planned and designed is the best it can be. QA is the final line of defence, ensuring all that work doesn’t crumble when it goes live in your product.
In terms of UX, what matters more than how a thing actually work once it’s released? A perfectly planned and designed feature that breaks when a user touches it is a UX failure.
The stress testing that a QA team is so good at is a skill many UX professionals could learn from. Take time to think a little differently. Instead of only thinking “what’s the best way for our users to complete this task”, ask “what are the 200 ways our users will break this”.
An alliance/partnership between UX and QA is partly about thinking differently, but also about designing tests that cover all possible scenarios. If UX is cut off from QA, those tests may miss something. Or, the tests may catch something that could’ve been designed for from the start.
Leadership is an interesting one. I may be slightly biased on this, but I believe a UX designer’s skills set them up to be good leaders. Especially when it comes to generalists who have a wide view on a product. The ability to look at things holistically is something anyone can have, but it’s nearly a requirement for a UX designer.
But, not all UX designers will be leaders. Some may not want to be, and others may just not be at that point in their career. Regardless of whether you have or want a leadership position, you can start building alliances with leaders.
As a UX designer you’re tasked with improving product experience. You’ll find gaps, either within the product or in what your company decides is important or not. Things that aren’t being done, but are negatively impacting users.
Alliances with a leadership team opens a door to make those things known, rather than just complaining how everyone’s neglecting important things. Say things enough, and you may find people start paying attention. Build a relationship with the leaders, and you may find your advocacy will be adopted by decision makers.
Thanks so much for reading. I hope some of these ideas are helpful, or reinforce things you’ve already been thinking about. I’d love to hear about how building alliances as a UXer has helped you. Or, if there are specific alliances that I haven’t mentioned here that you believe are critical.
UX needs alliances
Research & References of UX needs alliances|A&C Accounting And Tax Services
Source
0 Comments