Podcasts – UIE Brain Sparks

[ Transcript Available ] There’s a saying that you can’t know where you are going unless you know where you come from. Designing navigation for enterprise applications is a journey unto itself. One that UX Immersion speaker, Hagan Rivers is quite familiar with. In this podcast, listen as Jared Spool discusses the importance of clear […]

Enterprise applications are massive, often unwieldy pieces of software. You get a sense they were never truly improved or updated, they just had a continuous string of features tacked on until it got to the point where they are almost impossible to use. And they’re old.

Organizations need to approach every problem and decision from a design viewpoint. Jared connects the UX Advantage themes together to form a framework for how we tackle the amazing challenges ahead of us.

Traditionally, user research has taken on more of a scientific identity. You would do usability testing and research, take a ton of notes, and then compile all of your findings into a report. The effectiveness of that research depended on whether anyone read the report, and then if they could do anything actionable with that data.

The expansion of the web past a desktop-based world into more of a multi-device ecosystem has caused organizations to re-evaluate almost everything they do. Style guides have had to grow to accommodate this new reality of multiple screens sizes and resolutions. When you start incorporating the multitude of products across devices and all the people working on them, organizations are forced to think more “systematically.”

The notion of being a “designer who can code” has been a prevalent topic in recent years. Delivering static PDFs and working in photoshop is seen as inefficient in some circles. Being able to create a clickable or even responsive mockup to present to developers and stakeholders can be a better way to show your intent. It’s also much easier to iterate by changing a few lines of code.

Understanding is what user experience as a field hinges upon. After all if you don’t understand how users are interacting with your product or service, you don’t know what to design for. But how, as a team, do you come to that understanding? Telling the story of a user’s journey highlights areas where you’re right on point and where you’re missing the mark.

Service design seems to go by an increasing array of names: Customer Experience, Cross-Channel UX, or even just “design thinking.” In most cases, these terms describe a holistic approach to your users’ and customers’ needs, no matter where or when they’re interacting with your product or service. In traditionally siloed organizations, it can be no small task to ensure that you are providing the best possible service.

The speed of Agile delivery fundamentally changes the work process and puts new demands on the design cycle. What happens when the notion of deadline dates is replaced with a continual stream of experience enhancements by everyone in the organization?

There are always burning questions about how to get organizations to be more design-centric and what better way to learn than from someone who has done it. Marc Rettig has been helping organizations make the transition for 30 years. In this podcast, Karen McGrane shares why he was chosen as one of the keynote speakers for UX Advantage.

The belief of public failure or marketplace irrelevance can drive an organization to change. How does a UX leader exploit this corporate fear? What transforms the momentum from fear into positive change within the organization?

Usability in products and websites is what most organizations strive for. The more usable the product, the more likely that people will use it. Through research and testing, you can root out many issues with clunky interactions that hinder the experience. What isn’t as immediately clear is if some perceived usability issues are actually understandability problems. Your content could be the culprit.

When some people hear the term Lean UX, they dismiss it as simply a nouveau buzzword. There can be some confusion as to its relationship to Agile, both the methodology and the adjective. Some of the biggest resistance came from the idea that Lean UX was shortcutting and lazily undoing much of the groundwork to get organizations to buy into the value of UX. But as waterfall development increasingly becomes “the old way” of doing things, teams are operating in more agile, or Lean, ways.

Product Managers are responsible for the success of a product. As we’ve seen, UX is not misaligned with business goals, in fact it helps achieve those goals. If UX has become a necessity in terms of a driver of business, product managers need to adapt to it. Those who have a respect and understanding for the value of UX, and incorporate it into their product strategies, can better serve their users and customers, as well as the business.

Traditional organizational silos are the nemesis of delivering great experiences. How do you scale multidisciplinary teams to enterprise size? Does a culture of design require a fundamental structural shift in how the organization operates?