UX and other modern religions (not a conspiracy theory)
Everyone must believe in something and I’m certain that believing in UX is pretty easy.
As users ourselves, we love products and services that surprise us with their experience. We love receiving Apple’s products at home and opening their carefully crafted packaging slowly like we don’t want the moment to go away. We also love stepping into Walt Disney World and experiencing unforgettable moments, or when Spotify gave us a reminder of the music we enjoyed with its “Wrapped” year-in-review roundup and we couldn’t wait to share it on Instagram.
Just as we love experiences, users remember the products and services that made them feel important and companies progressively care more and more about UX, and that’s why it’s a growing field.
You can easily tell when a company has UXers promoting design thinking and user centered culture. I mean, you can sense it in the air while walking in their offices and you can definitely feel it in their products. Once you understand the impact of UX design you can never go back and you want everybody to acquire an UX vision. Once this mindset is inside you, it spreads everywhere, like an unstoppable force.
So, in case you haven’t been evangelized yet, let me tell you what UX design means. User Experience Design is an approach that puts the user in the center of every decision. It is both a mindset and a set of methodologies that focus in empathizing with the user needs. With systematic processes, it helps you develope friendly and easy-to-use solutions that reduce user frustrations.
You’ll love making data-driven decisions. If you’re used to wasting time not knowing which features to prioritize, you’ll find that through user-centered design methodologies, these decisions will come naturally. Defining the problem correctly, and getting the right insights will light your way to creating great products.
Certainly, you won’t come up with the best solution at once and you will make mistakes like everyone else, but the great thing about this method is that you acknowledge that failing is a key step of the process and it’s what helps you succeed.
Here’s some advice on how to evangelize User Experience:
1. Love the user
It’s all about respect. Be passionate about defending the user and respecting their time and feelings in every step of the design process and you’ll definitely transform user data into usable and valuable products.
2. Make it easy
If you want to evangelize people that are not already user experience fans, you have to realize that they may not be familiar with the terminology. Remember to explain the benefits of this approach in easy words.
3. Lead by example
It is certain that once a team starts having good results, others will want to follow suit. Be ready to prepare case studies and share your experience with others so that they can replicate your processes.
4. Own your metrics
Documenting and measuring your results is a good way of showing that UX design matters. Don’t forget to define your key metrics and success criteria.
It’s your turn
Now you are all excited about promoting UX, but you may not know where to begin or you think that it will be hard to get other areas of the company onboard. Don’t worry, here’s some advice that Chris Nodder shares in his Design Thinking LinkedIn Course:
“I would say that the easiest and potentially most effective way of starting design thinking work within your organization is to just do it. Don’t ask for blessing from senior management. Don’t make a big fuss about doing something different. Instead, just start a project off with a one or two week design thinking workshop. I’ve helped teams at several organizations do this, and now they’re gaining confidence to their design thinking approach. Their successes speak for themselves. Rather than trying to justify the design thinking process up front, they can now use the example of their own projects to show how successful it’s been for them.”
Useful reading: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/how-to-advocate-and-evangelize-user-experience
