I get asked this all the time by people new to user experience (UX) design. Understandably, they want to learn the tools of the industry so they can get hired.

To celebrate the recent launch of the UI for UX Designers course in collaboration between CareerFoundry and InVision, I’ve put together an answer to this all too common question. 

Hiring someone based on the tools they use would be like hiring an artist because they have the right brushes. It’s not about the tools, it’s about method and craft. UX design relies heavily on process and the tools that I use mirror that process.

A design process is a recipe for creating great products. Everyone has their own way of doing it, and everyone uses different tools to make it happen. I’m going to try to share my recipe and the tools that I use along with a few alternatives.

Even better, most of the tools listed here are available on a freemium model and have a usable version for free. The exception is Sketch (good news- there are tons of free alternatives). The only requirement for these tools is a computer or tablet, but with UX design in general, all you really need to create a good user experience is pen, paper, and an inquisitive mind.

There are lots of things that should happen behind the scenes of creating a great product, such as user personas and customer journey maps. I’m just going to assume that you’ve already created these for your business and talk about my workflow from the first stage of inspiration, all the way to implementation of a new product or feature.

Inspiration stage

I know it’s tempting to get on Behance, look for inspiration, and then move straight into wireframes, but as a UX designer, you want to fall in love with the problem, not the solution. You’ll try to define the problem and create a competitive analysis to make sure that you’re solving the right problem in the right landscape. I like to use various survey and polling tools to define this.

Surveys

At CareerFoundry we have a very active student community on Slack so I will often create a Simple Poll in Slack as they’re quick, easy, and garner lots of participation.

For more in-depth surveys, you can use a survey tool like Typeform to reach out to your customer via email. I usually create a survey with a final question that asks whether the customer would be interested in a 30-minute video chat.

Interviews

I take a look at their answers and follow up with a video conference using my favourite video chat tool, Appear.in. Make sure you have a script ready, but more importantly, let the customer lead the conversation in the user interview so that you give them the opportunity to identify problems.

I love the combo of Typeform and Appear.in because all the customer needs to participate is a simple URL so the experience can be as simple as one click with no tools or downloads required.

Problem Solving

Once I have an idea of what the problem is, I use Google Docs to create problem statements and share them with my team for further collaboration.

In addition to understanding the problem, we often use “How Might We” statements, a tool pioneered at IDEO, to frame our approach to the problem.

Project Management

For project management, we use DaPulse at CareerFoundry and it’s great for keeping track of complex projects. I would also recommend Trello for project management, even if it’s just for your own daily work management. It’s an amazing tool and the free version is all you will ever need to manage your UX projects.

Ideation Stage

Now that you’ve built empathy with your customer and wrapped your head around the problem at hand, it’s time to start experimenting. As I mentioned earlier, all you need for this phase is paper and pen, as the goal is to keep things as sketchy as possible until you have experimented enough to discover the solution.

Sketching ideas

When I began sketching ideas, I typically just use standard A4 paper cut in half to create a tablet sized canvas. I always start with mobile and sketch my ideas with a marker so that I won’t get too detailed. Ideally, this is a collaborative process, and I would encourage you to have all of the stakeholders attempt to sketch solutions in a brainstorming meeting along with you.

Whiteboards are excellent for collaborative sketching so I recommend you have several around your office for this purpose. Create several sketches to experiment with (I recommend at least 5 novel directions) checking that each idea is feasible with your stakeholders.

You can scan your sketches into your computer and create a “Preference Test” in Usability Hub if you need help deciding on an approach. You could also use your team’s internal channels like Slack for stakeholder feedback. The important thing at this stage is to allow your team the opportunity for feedback so that you can narrow down the solutions to only those that are achievable.

Wireframes

Once you have a few approaches in sketch form, it’s time to create wireframes. If you already have some design skills, try using Sketch or Illustrator. Vector-based tools like Sketch offer a lot of power, but it can be tempting to jump to high-fidelity designs.

If you find yourself tweaking fonts or adding colour to your designs (a common tendency for UXers with visual backgrounds like myself), switch to a tool that only does wireframing like Balsamiq. I use Sketch for wireframing because it’s faster, but I like to use wireframing kits so that I’m not wasting time creating visuals that serve only to distract.  Whether you use a digital tool or even just pen and paper, the important thing is that you stress functionality over aesthetics at this stage.

Prototypes

Experimentation is a pivotal part of any UX designers workflow, and any simulation of what might become the actual product is called a prototype. There is a saying at IDEO that goes, “If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a prototype is worth a thousand meetings.” A good UX designer will spend a lot of time prototyping ideas so make sure that you find a tool that you love.

My favourite prototyping tool is InVision because it covers all the basic functionality in a really intuitive user interface. Of all the prototyping tools I’ve tried, InVision is the fastest way to get something clickable. It’s such a life-saver when you have a user testing session in an hour and your boss is asking you to make changes to the prototype.

They are always adding new features, including a Sketch plugin to prototype in the popular design program. There are a ton of prototyping tools, and most of them are browser-based so all you need is a computer and an internet connection. If you want more in-depth interactions and complex animations, I recommend you buy Flinto for Mac. For on-the-go prototyping, there is even a tool called Prott that allows you to create an entire prototype on your Android or iOS device. Check out uxtools.co for a really nice breakdown of these and other prototyping tools.

Don’t worry about the learning curve involved with these tools. You can also use paper prototypes to test your idea. It all depends on how real you want the prototype to feel. Once I’ve worked out all of the kinks with my team, it’s time to test these prototypes with real users.

User testing

Designing for the user is fundamental to being a UX designer, and you will want as much face time as possible with your users. At first, getting in touch with your user can seem like a daunting task, but don’t worry, there are a million ways to get access to people for testing.

You can find groups on Facebook that fit with your target market. You can create a print ad and put it up in an area where people are likely to fit your demographic. If you’re feeling brave, you can just walk into any coffee shop in the world and find people willing to try out an idea. Keep it simple and try to offer some sort of compensation for their time. Ideally, you should schedule at least a 30-minute usability test and you should be testing with at least 5 participants.  

I really like PowWow for scheduling interviews, and you can schedule up to five on the free trial. If you have more than five interviews to do, I would recommend the paid version or a more powerful tool like Acuity.

You will want to record these interviews if possible and take plenty of notes (I recommend getting a partner for this). Any note-taking program will do, but I recommend using something with a search functionality. I like to use Google Sheets so that I can keep my interview questions and all the responses in one browser tab that is easily searchable.

For recording interviews, I really like Vidyard GoVideo, a really neat Chrome extension that allows you to record the user, the screen, or both in a very simple interface. This works well for testing as it allows you to record the user’s face and the interactions that they have with your clickable prototype. Another alternative would be QuickTime’s screen recording setting (warning: this will create huge files) or even just your phone and a tripod.

CareerFoundry is based in Berlin, but most of our users are in the United States, so we often do remote user testing. The only difference here is that we have the user share their screen while they’re testing the prototype. Offering compensation from across the ocean can be tricky, so we use a tool called Rybbon that offers international gift cards.

Implementation stage

Once you are satisfied with the direction of your idea, it’s time to present your findings to your internal stakeholders. Presenting your work is extremely important for UX designers because many people still don’t understand the process that goes into creating a user-centric product. If they understand all of the steps you went through to get to your final solution, they will be more likely to adopt your approach.

Summarise the testing and pull out your top learnings. Don’t forget to illustrate these with quotes from the testing. I generally use Google Slides for presenting internally because it has excellent commenting and sharing abilities. Sharing your slides afterwards is just as important as presenting your solution! If I want to include more design elements sometimes I will use Keynote as you can drag elements from your wireframes directly from Sketch or Illustrator into Keynote.

Most UX designers won’t get into high-fidelity designs so I’ll keep this phase brief. The UI portion of this process would involve taking your low-fidelity wireframes and turning them into polished designs that are ready for development. I prefer to use Sketch for high-fidelity designs for its ease and simplicity, but some designers still prefer Illustrator or Photoshop or Adobe’s newest design product, Adobe XD.

The important thing to remember about high-fidelity designs is that you clearly present the concept to your development team. One of my favourite tools for this is Zeplin, a program that turns a Sketch or Photoshop file into something that a developer can work with. It pulls out things like hex codes, CSS and fonts allowing them to be previewed through their web app. This is very important because not every developer will have access to Sketch. Use your Zeplin project as the final source of truth between design and development. Having one source of truth will help your developers keep track of the design through the inevitable changes in the development cycle.

In summary

Breaking my process as a UX designer down into three stages, here are the tools I use most often and would recommend.

Inspiration

• Simple Poll in Slack
• Surveys with Typeform
• Interviews using Appear.in
• Google Docs for Problem and How Might We Statement and user stories
• DaPulse or Trello for project management

Ideation

• Pen, Paper, Post-Its
• Get internal buy-in with Usability Hub
• Wireframes in Sketch
• Clickable Prototypes with InVision
• Find participants with Slack, FB, Print Ads
• Scheduling Testing with PowWow
• Take notes in Google Sheets
• Record Interviews with Vidyard GoVideo

Implementation

• Telling the Story with Google Slides
• Sketch for Hi-Fidelity Designs
• Zeplin for Dev Handoff

Bonus tools (a few more of my favourites)

• Chrome
• Trello
• Balsamiq
• Flinto
• Prott
• Acuity
• Rybbon
• Keynote

I hope this has given you a glimpse into the process and tools that go into making a digital product. UX as a discipline is constantly changing and challenging the accepted norms. You should be constantly experimenting with your own tools and process until you find something that works for you. There’s much room for improvement with the current design tools available, so I’m sure our workflows will look very different in just a few short years. 

What’s your favourite UX design tool? Leave a comment and let us know! 

And if you’re interested in levelling up your UI design skills, take a look at CareerFoundry’s new course: UI for UX Designers.

The post The Workflow of a UX Designer: The Process and Tools You Need appeared first on UX Mastery.

This really resonated with me because I’ve been thinking of a way to explain the importance of going beyond just having empathy for users—especially because designers often talk about empathy but then proclaim that they are here to solve your (the user’s) problems.

Having just started a new role, I’m working on creating design principles with my team as a way to align and communicate our fundamental team beliefs. The idea of ‘loving’ users was one of the principles we instantly agreed upon.

When you think about the people you love, you want the very best for them. You want to make things delightful and keep them magical. There is great joy in spending time with those you love, the relationship involves an element of surprise, and sharing experiences to build understanding is key. Love has a far greater emotional connection than empathy; as designers, we can leverage this way of thinking to provide more immersive, engaging experiences for our users.

As we spend time with users, observing them with intent can help us identify their pain points, goals and desired outcomes. Taking time to know them and build relationships uncovers their unarticulated needs. Understanding the reasoning why, beyond just knowing the what, provides an opportunity to truly delight users—more than fulfilling a single need—and involving them throughout the process cultivates a strong, authentic relationship.

Designers still need to be grounded in the business and avoid any impression they spend more time advocating for the user than learning and understanding the goals of the business. Loving the user also means being transparent about business constraints—it means making users aware of business realities that may prevent some of their needs from being solved, or even prevent them form appearing on the roadmap altogether. It’s up to us to explain how solving specific user needs and providing an emotional experience will translate to exceeding business goals.

In the podcast, Mauro said: “As designers, if we make the people we design for feel the love, then we will receive the love back, and our business will benefit from this big-time.” As we look ahead to 2018, I challenge you to find new ways to keep the magic alive for your users, so they feel the love.

The post Don’t Just Satisfy Your Users, Love Them appeared first on UX Mastery.

The Japanese have a great word: ikigai. It has no direct translation into English, but roughly means your level of happiness in life, or your ‘reason for being’.

As you can see in the chart below, you can achieve ikigai—meaning in life—if you can find the right balance of 4 things:

• Passion
• Mission
• Vocation
• Profession

Your design Ikigai

Your ikigai encompasses your career and your personal life. But it’s also a great lens to use when looking for the next step in your design career.

With Ikigai in mind, we can design our own careers, finding a balance between working on the things that we love doing, the things that we’re good at, and the things that add meaning to the world. And yes, we need to be paid for our work too.

Many people spend their lifetime working out their reason for being.

But understanding where you sit on the chart above might help you realise what areas you need to work on to get there. Here are the questions to ask yourself.

Are you in a role that you love?

Nothing makes us happier than working in a job, or at least a project that gets us into flow state.

Ask yourself, “am I truly happy with the work that I do?”. Are there changes that you could make in your current role that could make you truly love your work? Or would a new role get you closer to finding your passion?

And if you haven’t found your passion yet, that’s okay too. Keep looking.

Are you building things that the world needs?

Where’s your moral compass at? Is working ethically important to you? (Hint: it should be). Are you producing work that benefits society?

If you’re not feeling satisfied with your design career, perhaps it’s because there’s not enough meaning in your work.

Are you doing what you are good at?

To be really satisfied with what you do, you need to be doing things that you are good at. And you need to feel empowered to do your best work.

Knowing that we can do something well gives us a sense of accomplishment. And when we’re stuck in jobs and work environments where we can’t achieve our full potential, it sucks.

Are you in a role that pays you fairly?

A good salary is, of course, another consideration to being happy in work.

We all know more money doesn’t make us any happier, so striving for big salaries is not the be all and end all. In some ways, getting paid more can make you less happy. But we do need to get paid enough to make ends meet.

What changes do you need to make to your career to reach your design ikigai? Finding your design ikigai won’t happen overnight, but I hope by next UXmas you’ll be a little closer.

This article was originally published for UXmas – an advent calendar for UX folk. Catch up on all 24 posts at uxmas.com

The post Your Design Ikigai appeared first on UX Mastery.

Getting close to our users is essential in our line of work. The experience they have with a designed product or service is profoundly impacted by what we know—or don’t know—about them.

Research is an important piece of the puzzle. But so is understanding underlying behaviours, so we can analyse our findings and suggest solutions in light of how people think.

You might have guessed from the title that we’ve taken inspiration from Susan Weinschenk’s excellent book 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People. This is an incredibly useful resource that we recommend every UX designer have in their library.

Read reviews and find out more about 100 Things »

How psychology and neuroscience fill the gaps

We’re all told that researching with our users is paramount to being a good UX designer. We conduct the research, and even manage to undertake some analysis and find patterns.

But then we hit a wall.  

There’s a big gap between knowing an issue or a set of unwanted behaviours and being able to design your way out of it. This is where understanding how to apply design principles based on psychology and neuroscience help suggest a starting point for a workable solution.

How can you get involved?

Framed around Susan’s book, this month we’ll explore questions like:

• How does the human brain work?
• How might we use these insights to create better designs?
• What examples do we have of this being used well, or perhaps abused?

How do you use psychology and neuroscience principles in your work? We want to know, and there are many ways you can the conversation:

• Tweet us! We’ll share our favourite quotes and tips using #100things
• Follow us on Instagram for quotes, design tips and more
• Join the conversation in the UX Mastery forums
• Read along with us in bookclub
• Chat with us in our Ask the UXperts Slack channel. We have an exciting guest lined up – stay tuned for details!

The post 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People appeared first on UX Mastery.

James Brown, that funky Godfather of soul music, held an important contrast: “Thank God for the journey”. 

Between the depressing scepticism of Nietzsche and the enduring passion of Brown, there lies some wisdom for how we can approach our vocations.

There isn’t a clear-cut, authoritative approach anywhere that can guarantee a successful career, whether that be in user experience design or any other field.

This is both daunting and exciting; daunting because achieving our dreams is a unique and slippery struggle, but exciting because identifying, planning and thriving in a career can be one of the most meaningful and satisfying things we ever do. 

We might begin surmounting the daunting pathway by simply taking pause to mindfully assess our position and set some goals; once we’ve set our goals we can start taking the steps to make them happen. 

For example, we might be strategic and deliberate about our next career move, whether it’s that promotion to product manager, moving into a coveted in-house role, or striking out on our own as a freelancer.

There are troves of career advice all over the internet, but sometimes we must wrestle and go a little deeper to find wise and honest help. And that’s where it pays to pick up a book to explore the heart of your strengths and weaknesses and for gaining a more complex understanding of something outside your own experience.

Here are seven of our favourite books we recommend you dive into for the next step in your UX career.

1. The UX Careers Handbook – Cory Lebson

Cory Lebson’s definitive book on UX careers is for newbie and experienced designers alike. Industry-leading UX professionals share how they got their start and how they evolved their careers over time. Across four sections, the book covers career pathways, learning, personal branding, networking skills, building resumes and portfolios, and actually landing a UX job.

Cory is a strong believer in education as the foundation for success for UX professionals, including continual learning. He also shares our opinion that UX has many pathways—that there is no one single career trajectory within UX.

The book has an accompanying website full of links to resources building on the foundations of the book. In particular, Cory provides further reading and study options for each UX profession, including recent articles and study options from content strategy to service design. It’s a great online reference to find out the specifics of each UX stream.

Read more reviews and details about The UX Careers Handbook »

2. How to Get a Job as a Designer, Guaranteed – Ram Castillo

This is great one for newbies. Ram Castillo’s blog-turned-book is pitched at students and new graduates looking to break into the industry. The title makes a pretty big promise, but Ram does cover all the essentials to prepare for your first design job: education, design, networking, interviews and building a portfolio.

The content is grounded in Ram’s own experience working his way up the ranks in his first agency job, and he aims to help others learn from the successes (and mistakes) he made along the way.

Read more reviews and details about How to Get a Job as a Designer Guaranteed »

3. Stand Out – Denise Anderson

For designers and UX practitioners, a portfolio is a key collection of evidence about your experience. Denise Anderson’s Stand Out is an excellent guide for creating a portfolio that demonstrates your strengths. While it’s primarily aimed at helping students, many seasoned pros will also benefit from revamping their portfolio following Denise’s guidance.

The book takes you on a step-by-step journey, beginning with defining your personal brand and brand story. Once you’ve understood this, you’re ready to start building your portfolio, choosing the most appropriate projects, and designing a portfolio that communicates who you are and what you do. You’ll also find helpful handouts on the book’s associated website to help you through each stage of putting your portfolio together, and eventually building your ideal career.  

Read more reviews and details about Stand Out »

4. Pivot – Jenny Blake

Having no single entry point, people often come to UX from a multitude of different careers. Jenny Blake’s Pivot is designed to help you harness your existing skills and strengths and translate them into a new job. While not UX specific, it’s a practical read for side hustlers or anyone looking to harness an existing skill set for a career in UX.

Jenny advocates a cautious approach in her four-stage process, drawing from her own experience moving from Google to launch her own book and brand. The book teaches you how to test ideas by running small experiments, and how to learn from failure. Plenty of agile development analogies in here!

Read more reviews and details about Pivot »

5. The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Survival Guide – Leah Buley

More survival guide than career planner, this book by Leah Buley teaches readers how to make the most of working as the only UXer in a cross-functional environment. It’s aimed at helping UX professionals understand the other members of their product team, and helping those other product team members understand (and potentially cross over into) a UX role.

If you find yourself in a UX team of one, you’re likely to be charting your own course and figuring out your own career path, without many close role models to follow. Leah works through the foundations of building your team of one, first explaining the fundamentals of UX and how to build support for your work. She then goes on to work through research and design methods, and how these can be adapted (you guessed it) for a team of one.

We suggest reading it cover-to-cover and then using the techniques section as a reference when you’re embarking on a new project.

Read more reviews and details about The User Experience Team of One »

6. Mike Montiero – Design is a Job

A must-read for anyone working with clients—which is essentially all of us, whether we work agency, freelance, or in-house with internal stakeholders. Written in Mike’s irreverent style, Design is a Job is packed with pithy advice based on Mike’s personal experience managing design businesses for the past 20 years.

Mike Monteiro guides designers through designing their business, from choosing the right work, following process, presenting design, and managing feedback— including all the nitty-gritty details of contracts and actually getting paid.

An easy, personable read packed with insightful gems, you can easily read this over a weekend afternoon. But you’ll spend years remembering the lessons it contains. Pick it up if you want to improve your design business savviness, or if you need a new approach to managing clients.

Read more reviews and details about Design is a Job »

7. Get Started in UX – Luke Chambers & Matthew Magain

Of course, no list of UX career planning titles would be complete without our very own ebook Get Started in UX.

We wrote this because there was nothing else like it available anywhere—the UX community was asking the same questions but no-one had put together the essential, practical advice for aspiring UXers in such a straightforward fashion. So we collated advice from our own experience into six steps for building your UX career, starting with options for education, and assessing your current skills.

From there, all the basics are covered; from choosing the right tools for the job to building a portfolio, getting a mentor, and finally, landing that dream UX gig. You’ll also find plenty of useful templates to help you out at each step. Overall, this is a concise and highly practical guide for those looking to break into the field.

Read more reviews and details about Get Started in UX »

For more books covering every UX topic under the sun, make sure you check out our top recommendations in the epic list of UX books.  

The post 7 Books to Level Up Your UX Career appeared first on UX Mastery.

That’s why we decided to start the UX Mastery online book club! With so many fantastic books on UX and related topics, we hope we can give you that extra motivation to get reading.

Our very first book, decided by popular vote is The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman.

It’s available on Amazon2 for $12.85 (Kindle) or $13.61 (Print)

Here’s a blurb about the book:

How book club will work

All book club related activity will take place over in the UX Mastery forums in the Book Club category.

Every week we’ll read a chapter, then discuss in forums.

We will kick off each week with one or two broad questions to consider before reading, a couple of key observations to go through on your own directly after reading, and then open it right up for opinions and other questions in weekly discussion thread.

How to get involved

Book club officially kicked off on 5 June, but it’s never too late to join. Find all the details over in the forums.

Happy reading!

The post Join the UX Mastery Book Club! appeared first on UX Mastery.

This completely natural experience has a devious ability to feel like it’s uniquely affecting you and no one else.

For UXers just starting out, this feeling is practically a prerequisite. What other group of people are meant to have extensive skills in research, design, strategic thinking, data and psychology?

Oh and to add to this list, user experience designers are meant to have EXPERIENCE. Our credibility lies in our immense knowledge of problem-solving built up from seeing different scenarios unfold with varying outcomes.

But we all have to start somewhere. If it’s not the first UX job, it might be the first interactive screen we design, or the first time we deal with a product in the financial sector.

In order to gain a deeper understanding of how imposter syndrome affects people in their careers, I had conversations with four different people. These were my findings.

It ebbs and flows but never completely disappears

Something that probably shouldn’t have surprised me (but did anyway), was that the seniors I spoke to still experience imposter syndrome on a regular basis. It’s become a part of themselves they’ve had to accept use to push them to produce the best work they can.

 “Not fitting in can be a hindrance or a motivating factor,” one Experience Design Director told me. “It can be a driving force to feel comfortable. It can be the thing that defeats you, or you learn to accept it and find the right way to utilise it.”

How do they use it? They over prepare, they assess every possible outcome, they live and breathe the problem until the solution is as clear as day.  

It varies in intensity

After 6 years in the industry, one woman I spoke to has a fantastic job and a great resume behind her. Nonetheless, she still struggles with imposter syndrome.

It often occurs after she’s performed well. After completing a project that she initially feels great about, she’ll have what she refers to as a “crash” about a week later after dwelling on the details. She explains this as a period of intense self-doubt and anxiety. It often hits harder when she’s particularly happy with a project – because it takes away positive feelings that she previously felt.

Now that she’s aware of this pattern, she gets help. She talks to others, she is open and authentic about her emotions, and picks herself up time and time again. She doesn’t let it consume her and by dealing with it, it doesn’t affect her when she starts her next project.    

Remember there’s a reason you’re in the room

One person I spoke to recalled attending a meeting where he felt like he didn’t quite belong. Suddenly, plunged into a senior role, people expected him to answer difficult questions that could even impact other people’s careers. The best piece of advice he got was “there’s a reason you’re in the room”.

Just remembering that you have been hired for a reason, or put on a project for a reason is a strong piece of knowledge to hold on to. It’s a cliche, but you simply must learn to back yourself. Even if it doesn’t come naturally to you.

Oddly enough, the same people who promoted the need to “back yourself” felt they had fluked their way into their positions – “I’m in this position because I must made the right guesses along the way”. This leads me to believe we’re all a bit blind when it comes to assessing ourselves.

Starting out, everyone relies on their gut

When you don’t have the wealth of experience to guide your decision-making, you have to get comfortable trusting your gut. My boss always says to me “what does your gut tell you the answer is?” and lo and behold I have an answer. It was always there, I just never thought to ask myself the question. We don’t always have the luxury of conducting research to back up every decision we make. This is where you need to tease the answer out of yourself.

Next time you feel stuck on a problem, try suggesting your gut feeling to your team. Ask their opinion on your gut feeling rather than asking them to solve the problem for you.

Exposure to different scenarios will fast track you to comfort

Everyone wants a shortcut to overcoming imposter syndrome. It doesn’t have to take years, you just need enough experience dealing with difficult situations. One resilient interviewee assures me the only way to improve as fast as you want to is “exposure to different stuff, different outcomes, how different things play out. Mix that with exposure to different personalities and that’s what experience is”.

You could experience a situation 10 times in 6 months or 10 times in 2 weeks. Throw yourself in the deep end. If you don’t feel confident presenting directly to stakeholders or clients, put your hand up to present at the next possible moment. Make mistakes often and early. But make sure you reflect on these afterwards to continuously improve.

One leader insists that his team push themselves into contextual enquiries – “you’ll feel awkward as a researcher until you learn to ease into it and get comfortable with it,” he says. Approaching strangers to ask them questions only gets easier with repetition.  

Don’t be an email signature

Easily my favourite piece of advice I’ve received (and arguably my own personal mantra), is that relationships are the key to thriving in new situations. This works on many levels. For instance, one man in his first strategic role claimed that you should work at developing relationships with your seniors from the get-go. This allows you to show some vulnerability and ask for help when you need it.

Another manager explains that if people are unhappy with your work, they are unlikely to speak to you directly about it if you only communicate via email. They’ll probably end up going over your head to your boss who they feel more comfortable talking to. In contrast, when you’ve built up those relationships “people will let you overcome your deficiencies if they know you and have a personal relationship with you”. I can’t tell you how many people I see avoiding personal contact, which I find mystifying as nothing compares to face to face conversation.     

I can’t tell you how many people I see avoiding personal contact, which I find mystifying as nothing compares to face-to-face conversation.     

The worst case scenario actually makes you stronger

“What if someone tells me I’m wrong?” – this is usually the worst case scenario when facing imposter syndrome.

The Experience Design Director I spoke to found that when he started in UX he wanted to be referred to as a Designer. This way he could sit in the design department and make strategic decisions that could impact on the overall creative result. The Creative Director he worked with at the time didn’t want UX impeding on the “design” space, and didn’t like his team taking this term. After a couple of years mulling this over and fighting for the right to be accepted as a designer, he found that now more than ever he believes UX should sit in a design space. After all, when you look at the history of industrial design and product design, it is problem-solving at its core. He felt like this desire to define identity has really helped him define his own UX identity and would never feel like an imposter again in the “design” space.  

The UX Researcher I spoke to had someone publicly refute an article she wrote. Normally, she is so fearful that people will call her out for being wrong, but when it actually happened it didn’t bother her in the slightest, because as she put it, “I knew I was right”. The worst case scenario of being called out can in fact allow for a strengthening of character and conviction.

Final thoughts

After these conversations, I don’t believe there’s a simple cure for impostor syndrome. However, I also don’t necessarily view this as a bad thing. Imposter syndrome creates a kind of humility that motivates us to constantly source solutions we might not find otherwise. If it’s taking the form of intense insecurity and anxiety I encourage you to talk to someone about it. I guarantee you won’t be the first person to feel this way.  

What are your thoughts and experiences with the imposter syndrome beast? Leave me a comment and let’s keep the discussion going.  

Are you new to UX design? See our guide on how to get started, or download our ebook: Get Started in UX. 

The post How Experienced UX Designers Manage Imposter Syndrome appeared first on UX Mastery.

These are all ways you can take on a leadership role in UX.

Last week, we looked at the essential qualities of UX leaders. This week, our UXperts share their advice on overcoming barriers and practical tips to steer your career in the right direction.

If you aspire to be a leader in UX, read on for advice on how you can make your mark in the UX community. And don’t worry, you don’t need to be a unicorn to make it!

Cory Lebson

Cory Lebson (@corylebson), author of The UX Careers Handbook (CRC Press, 2016), has been a user experience consultant for over 20 years. He is the Principal and Owner of Lebsontech LLC, a successful user experience consulting firm he established in 1997. Lebsontech is focused on user research and evaluation, user experience strategy, UX training, and mentoring. Cory also speaks frequently on topics related to UX career development, user experience, user research, information architecture, and accessibility.

What are the barriers that prevent people from becoming great UX leaders?

I think that one of the primary barriers to people being great UX leaders is the assumption that leadership needs to take the form of workplace team leadership when there are so many additional ways to be a leader.

Not everyone has the inclination towards workplace leadership. In fact, while workplace leadership can certainly be valuable on a resume, other forms of leadership actually offer far more exposure within and outside of the UX community. In addition to a solid resume of UX experience, that exposure is just as critical (if not, perhaps, more critical) to UX professionals whenever they are considering looking for a new job. Really, though, UX professionals need to practice these other forms of leadership all the time, not just when job seeking. This helps build their personal UX brand – a critical piece of any UX job search.

Who are your role models in the industry?

It’s all those UX leaders who help build UX community – local community, national community and global community, by creating events, activities, conferences, blog posts, articles, and podcasts. It’s all those UX leaders who strive to help others grow and learn. UX is a career field about people – about people helping people – and that extends beyond what we get paid to do. We’re in a field where this kind of leadership is so common and so appreciated by so many.

What can people who aspire to be leaders do now to move their career in the right direction?

Get out there! People should go beyond their workplace and build community, build ideas, and inspire others. Find out what is missing or could be better in a given local UX community, for example, and help create it! Yes, there is enough time in the day and it’s well worth it – to the community, to the individuals within the community, and to the leaders who get to feel good about what they created while simultaneously building a name for themselves beyond what they may do on the job.

Jodie Moule

Jodie Moule is Co-founder & CEO of Symplicit, a Customer Led Innovation firm based in Australia that has focused on research, strategy and design services since 2003. Following a Design Thinking philosophy that was grounded in the psychology and industrial design backgrounds of the founders; Jodie believes that understanding human behaviour allows you to change the customer experience, and that change happens through great design. Follow Jodie: @jodiemoule @thecookapp @symplicit

What are the barriers that prevent people from becoming great UX leaders?

I guess it comes down to each individual and your tenacity. Opportunity always presents itself, it’s just whether or not you are a ‘grab the bull by the horns’ kinda person, or ‘the world owes me’ type. In my experience, it’s the opportunistic types that get shit done, don’t make a fuss, and therefore, ultimately get the gig. Proactive, persistent, and high energy wins every time in my book. In that sense, the barrier is attitude. Your attitude. 

Who are your role models in the industry?

How do I not sound like a wanker and say I don’t have any? I tended to be profoundly impacted by everyday people that I observed from my life when I was younger, and then strived to be like them in some way.  

Growing up, I was lucky to be surrounded by strong independent women who I admired. My Grandmother was fiercely independent. She supported her whole family through the war times, and was one of the first female lifesavers in Australia – which was a major coup, given women weren’t allowed to wear swimsuits and do that stuff back then. Shows how strong she was fighting the machine back in the day. Same with my Aunty – she was a high-flying airline consultant who lived, what I thought, was an incredibly glamorous lifestyle that I aspired toward. Even my Dad was a world champion Hot Air Balloonist in his spare time. These were the people I was surrounded by growing up, and they were the people I admired, and was heavily influenced by.

I also tend to admire people that do things I’m really bad at – or who have achieved something in a unique way that I think is clever or cool. For example, I walked into ‘Victor Churchill’ the other day – a crazy high-end butcher in Sydney. What that guy has done for butchery is something really different and amazing. What a vision! You can learn from that, no matter what industry you’re in.

When I got into this space, we were too busy making our own way to think about role models. I certainly read what others had to say and formed my own views, but ultimately I just got on with it. I think that was good on reflection. It’s best not to be too distracted by others, and pave your own way.

What can people who aspire to be leaders do now to move their career in the right direction?

Work hard, don’t give up, and focus on your career, because it will have to come first to everything. No really, give up on the idea of work/life balance for a long while. I have found the harder that I work, the more I focused, the less distracted by other things I was – the more successful I got.

There is no point being half-assed about it all. Success comes to those who work bloody hard to make it so. Start building a profile and personal brand.  Get yourself into positions where you are doing the things that leaders do – like have a voice in industry, write articles, present at conferences, do great work, be excited and engaged. And of course – take every opportunity you get – work hard and just fit it all in. Those who snooze lose.

James Noble

James has helped re-define, create and evolve user experiences for over two decades. Founding one of Asia Pacific’s most innovative experience agencies Carter Digital. An active UX industry advisor, mentor, radio presenter, public speaker and serves on a number creative juries globally including Australia’s first UX & Digital Craft representative for Cannes Lion in 2016. Follow James on LinkedIn, Medium, or Twitter.  

What are the barriers that prevent people from becoming great UX leaders?

Ability, knowledge, people

Some things take time to learn, evolve and perfect. Staying positive, understanding limitations helps you be honest with the team and yourself. Don’t be afraid to say ‘I don’t know’, own it. We never have all the ux suite of tools in our bag, have insight and the ability to know ‘how’ and ‘where’ to find a solution to a problem.

Some barriers are universal and difficult to shake. This is a team, leverage each member’s core skills to each task and trust they can achieve the right result. Share your knowledge and trust your team, massively reduces people who are prone to micro-managing. Leading from the front and focus on the bigger picture, adding value to your leadership, and help others feel a sense of empowerment, ownership and satisfaction. Make sure the right people are in the right seats, the right person in the wrong seat can hinder the entire team you are trying to lead. A strong leader will make the hard choices for the greater good and know when to make those tough decisions.

UX leaders are from all areas of industry, businesses and departments. Being siloed within your own comfort zone or organisation can happen to everyone. Look outside your environment and look for similarities with what you do to others. Something as simple as switching from Apple iOS to Android for a few weeks you’ll see how it affects interactions with the interface, environment and mood while you use it, help you break routine and spark new approaches to problem-solving.

Who are your role models in the industry?

This seems like an easy question, it isn’t. UX is part of a much bigger picture, and you have to look outside your comfort zone to find answer.

Staying within the standard comfort zone it would be Luke Wroblewski for his forward thinking and research articles on mobile first, Tina Roth Eisenberg (aka Swiss Miss) helping make UX mainstream and contributions to Creative Mornings, Mike Monteiro for saying what everyone is thinking and of course, the mighty Steve Jobs/Steve Wozniak combo for kickstarting the personal and digital revolution.

If I was honest, in my drive and motivations, my mind turns more towards Charles and Ray Eames, for understand and thinking outside the norm, Erik Spiekermann creating a typeface the world never knew we couldn’t live without, Wes Anderson for his beautiful understanding of the left vs. right human psyche and application of symmetry and of course NASA, without them we probably wouldn’t have Elon Musk trying to save the world, who also has a masterful plan b: MARS.

What can people who aspire to be leaders do now to move their career in the right direction?

Consuming information in all its forms, regardless to the likelihood of remember it. Learning is more than the user experience industry, startups can be a constant source of information and inspiration. Never stop learning.

Improve communication skills, and know public speaking comes with the territory as exposure grows within the ux community.

Voice your opinion if you have one and try to write articles on these observations, a difficult ask (I know). Don’t be afraid to be wrong, you can’t be, it’s an opinion right?

Create what makes you happy, the rest will take care of itself.

Dan Szuc

Dan (@dszuc) is a Principal Consultant at Apogee, as well as the co-founder of the UX Hong Kong conference. He has been involved in the UX field for 25 years, and has been based in Hong Kong for 20 years. Dan has lectured about usability, user-centred design, and user experience globally. He co-wrote The Usability Kit, an implementation guide providing best practices and guidelines for usability teams, and he holds a Bachelor of Science in Information Management from Melbourne University in Australia.

What are the barriers that prevent people from becoming great UX leaders?

The barriers to great humanistic leadership are the very systems that people work in that promote toxicity and lack of care. Where rewards systems are given priority and where people are incentivised to show a continuous lack of respect. Where people are treated like numbers and speed is considered the constant routine at the detriment and degradation of work itself.

So in order to consider the barriers to being a great leader, we in fact need to consider the barriers that get in the way of answering – how do we make meaningful work? One major barrier to this is that people do not have a common space, language, process, toolset and practices in order to make meaningful work. So people end up clawing at each other to gain access to the top of the summit that is a myth to begin with.

Who are your role models in the industry?

My role models primarily come from diversity of publications we read as we seek a holistic and diverse understanding of what drives behaviour and this also helps us seek clarity on themes and patterns that influence thinking.

If we could describe the characteristics of our roles models it would include: openness, connectedness, a willingness to challenge own bias and assumptions, one that is not driven primarily by digital or technological solutions for all that ails society, a yearning to understand people more deeply to better understand their needs and issues and dreams and people who encourage a more respectful, considered and reflective discussion and debate as grounded in evidence and a willingness to challenge that for an enlightened plateau as we all learn together.

The role models would be too big a list to share here but they are easy enough to find and reach out to as we are lucky to be part of a community we generically call UX that encourages people who do care about the well-being of other people and who get disappointed when they do not see as much progress as we should be seeing in this instance of futures.

What can people who aspire to be leaders do now to move their career in the right direction?

Consider the skill sets needed to be a leader and consider that not everyone who thinks they are a leader, is a leader, and that people who may not think they are a leader are in fact good leadership material.

Think about the leadership style that suits your personality. If leadership is about helping others be successful in order to have a greater sense of success for teams, business and community, under what circumstances have you exhibited those traits and what are those traits?

Fundamentally, an important part of any leadership role is clear communication and the ability to express where you would like to take people and why. This implies the need for a vision and the openness to iterate on that story or narrative to get you there. It also means you need to learn from people and see how those learnings assist the iteration of your direction.

The question also implies the notion of a career and consider a view down the path. Break this down into 2-3 year chunks and then think about the why you do what you do in the first place and then consider the implications on your direction. It also helps to have more experienced and diverse views around you to help shed light on that direction.

David Travis

Dr David Travis (@userfocus) holds a BSc and a PhD in Psychology and he is a Chartered Psychologist. He has worked in the fields of human factors, usability and user experience since 1989 and has published two books on usability. David helps both large firms and start ups connect with their customers and bring business ideas to market.

What are the barriers that prevent people from becoming great UX leaders?

I think there are two main barriers. The first is that many organisations still don’t get what user experience is about. For example, there’s a common belief that it’s only about visual design or making products that look cool. As a consequence, the people assigned to a leadership role may not have the right technical skills. Although those skills aren’t enough on their own to create a great UX leader, it will be very difficult to lead a team effectively without them.

The second barrier is having senior management support for some of the tough decisions that need to be made. Everyone loves user experience when it doesn’t impact delivery schedules or drain too much of the development budget. But when the user research shows that the product is a dog and needs to be redesigned from the ground up, our UX leader needs a supportive chain of command. If user experience doesn’t have a voice in the boardroom, the best UX leader in the business won’t be able to have an impact.

Who are your role models in the industry?

My role models in the industry are Jared Spool and Jakob Nielsen. They are both fine examples of UX leadership and both of them spend serious time growing the industry as a whole.

What can people who aspire to be leaders start doing now to move their career in the right direction?

You should certainly ensure you have the foundation level, technical knowledge that I’ve described in the previous post. You can develop those skills through training courses (such as on my course on Udemy) and through day-to-day practice on projects. But to become a UX leader, you also need to develop yourselves in two other spheres of practice.

I call the first sphere of practice “process skills”: these are the activities a practitioner uses when managing stakeholders and managing projects. This includes:

• Active listening: really seeking to understand the design problem and providing a solution that will fix it.
• Helping the organisation implement change: in many user experience activities, the real work begins when the activity (such as a usability test) has finished.
• Making appropriate ethical choices: in some organisations, the pressure to do your research a particular way can be overwhelming.
• Project management: good leaders know how to manage their time, manage the work of the team, and manage the projects that they work on.

The second sphere of practice is marketing. Typical marketing activities that user experience leaders need to master include:

• Explaining the cost-benefit of usability activities. A good user experience leader will be able to ground the main benefits of user experience in the organisation’s domain.
• Formulating a proposal and a research plan for the work you will carry out.
• Generating new work. As a leader, you need to keep your team busy and you need to identify the next big enterprise project, ensuring that the user experience flag gets flown.
• Leaving a legacy. Great UX leaders will grow their team, their company and the industry as a whole.

Catch up on part 1 of our leadership series: The Essential Qualities of a UX Leader.

What do you think makes for excellent leadership in UX? Let us know in the forums or leave a comment.

The post Finding Your Path to UX Leadership appeared first on UX Mastery.

So what qualities do you need to become a UX leader? And what defines UX leadership?

To find the answers, we asked our UXperts to weigh in on what UX leadership means to them. The good news is, there are types and pathways to become a leader.

Make sure you read our second instalment, featuring practical advice from our experts on how you can become a UX leader.

Cory Lebson

Cory Lebson (@corylebson), author of The UX Careers Handbook (CRC Press, 2016), has been a user experience consultant for over 20 years. He is the Principal and Owner of Lebsontech LLC, a successful user experience consulting firm he established in 1997. Lebsontech is focused on user research and evaluation, user experience strategy, UX training, and mentoring. Cory also speaks frequently on topics related to UX career development, user experience, user research, information architecture, and accessibility.

What do you think makes a great UX leader?

A great UX leader realises that there are many pathways to great leadership. In my book, I talk about four kinds of UX leadership: workplace leadership, UX organisational leadership, mentorship and thought leadership.

Workplace leadership is what someone may typically think of when they think of UX leadership: leading a UX team in the workplace, making good UX decisions and ultimately producing successful products. While I started down this pathway myself, I chose a number of years ago to become a freelancer and instead channelled my UX leadership energy into UX organisational leadership, helping a local chapter (UXPA DC) and later UXPA international on a voluntary basis.

A UX practitioner who doesn’t lead a team can also be a workplace leader by mentoring others and helping them to improve their skills. Mentorship doesn’t just have to take place within the workplace and can involve giving advice and support to others outside of one specific company.

Finally, thought leadership involves promoting new ideas and information to UX professionals and advocating for UX to those who aren’t already embedded in the profession. Thought leadership can take many forms – writing personal blogs, publishing articles in established electronic periodicals, giving talks and providing training in person, and doing podcasts online, for example.

How can people lead great UX teams?

Sticking with the theme of leadership outside of the workplace, leaders leading a UX Meetup or local, national or international UX professional organisation should not just do everything themselves. Instead, they should create a proper infrastructure to support events and other activities and should pull in other like-minded UXers to help them.

Not only does this make volunteer leadership more enjoyable and provide a basis for more resources to scale upwards towards greater events and activities, but it also spreads the “wealth” of volunteer leadership – that is, provides opportunities for exposure to more people.

Jodie Moule

Jodie Moule is Co-founder & CEO of Symplicit, a Customer Led Innovation firm based in Australia that has focused on research, strategy and design services since 2003. Following a Design Thinking philosophy that was grounded in the psychology and industrial design backgrounds of the founders; Jodie believes that understanding human behaviour allows you to change the customer experience, and that change happens through great design. Follow Jodie: @jodiemoule @thecookapp @symplicit

What do you think makes a great UX leader?

What makes a great UX leader is what makes any other leader great, really. To my mind, this is a mix of being good at what you do, and also being a great people person. To lead a group of people, you have to have a certain ‘gravitas’ about you, and that to me is the intangible aspect of leaders that gives them the X-factor.

In a practical sense, I think someone who isn’t afraid to jump in and help their team get shit done, and get their hands dirty–guiding by example–is someone I think is a great leader. That would be someone not tied up in the ‘ego’ of merely being a leader for the title’s sake. In my opinion, too many people place too much value in job titles and job descriptions. Those people are not leaders.  

To me, a leader really thinks about the future of the space they work within, and is constantly looking at connecting the dots on where the industry is headed, pushing the boundaries beyond the standard approaches, with a clear vision of where their team needs to head–whether that direction is the popular belief or not–they trust their gut and go for it!

How can people lead great UX teams?

When it comes to leading great teams, I think ‘like attracts like’. If you build something that is great, others will want to be part of that. I also think if you are just setting out to ‘build a team’ you might find that hard. If you are setting out to achieve a mission rather than just ‘building a team’–that’s how you end up building and leading a great team. For example, we always set out to do great work, the rest kinda followed. Be yourself and enjoy the ride! Model great qualities, be passionate and engaged in what you do. Others will see that and want to learn from that, and most importantly–they’ll want to be part of it.

James Noble

James has helped re-define, create and evolve user experiences for over two decades. Founding one of Asia Pacific’s most innovative experience agencies Carter Digital. An active UX industry advisor, mentor, radio presenter, public speaker and serves on a number creative juries globally including Australia’s first UX & Digital Craft representative for Cannes Lion in 2016. Follow James on LinkedIn, Medium, or Twitter.  

What do you think makes a great UX leader?

Empathy. A regularly refuted topic in UX articles. In my humble opinion, this is where UX began. Being in a position of leadership is easy. Being a competent leader, whom people want to listen to is much harder to achieve. If you can embody what you represent and embrace it, people will follow.

Confidence. Cultivate your craft before your passion. Regardless of profession, UX or otherwise. Be sure of yourself and understand the entire suite of approaches available to you: Learn them, break the rules, and remake and refine it. The knowledge to define and tweak the process to ensure the best possible outcome with certainty is invaluable.

Focus. Empower yourself with the knowledge of process from books, speakers and fellow leaders both in and out of the user experience industry. The solutions you are trying to create can be similar but never identical, forever adding to your mental library. People are your focus, not the medium by which a solution is presented.

Awareness. Know your team. Understand each personality, role, drive and focus of every member of your team. Harness their individual drive to empower to push themselves past that imaginary ceiling.

Inspire. Communicate clearly, concisely and emotively. An engaged team wants to learn, and the goal is to make them better than you. Share ALL your knowledge, thought processes and thinking.

How can people lead great UX teams?

No matter how long you’ve been in an industry, never be too senior to muck in and get your hands dirty. People often let their title get in the way of just getting things done, and done well.

Understanding an audience, defining research questions, analysing results, creating personas, user journeys and flows is never linear. People are individuals. Understand and nurture each need, want and goal to harness your team’s drive and success. Inspire, engage and communicate with each individual in a way in which best fits their personality. Turn your understanding and knowledge of the UX process to motivate the team, including yourself. You’ll effectively set expectations, create a roadmap to understanding your audience, needs, wants and goals. Listen. Respect. Consider. Act. Repeat.

Dan Szuc

Dan (@dszuc) is a Principal Consultant at Apogee, as well as the co-founder of the UX Hong Kong conference. He has been involved in the UX field for 25 years, and has been based in Hong Kong for 20 years. Dan has lectured about usability, user-centred design, and user experience globally. He co-wrote The Usability Kit, an implementation guide providing best practices and guidelines for usability teams, and he holds a Bachelor of Science in Information Management from Melbourne University in Australia.

What do you think makes a great UX leader?

I suggest we can consider what makes a great leader. Or we can consider that UX is a word in front of leadership that helps describe a type of leadership that does not exist today. Or maybe it’s about what kind of leader do we need in order to have the type of places we wish to work in going forward?

In the spirit of integrated and connected thinking, the answer probably lies in a hybrid of answers to the questions above. I consider a great leader to be a human leader and a person who does not put process above care. A leader who thinks about the needs of the team and a selflessness to get to great outcomes together. A great leader is also someone who can help a team understand and get clarity on a narrative that everyone can get behind and to work together in respectful ways.

How can people lead great UX teams?

By learning from other people who know how to build a sense of team spirit and know how to help people be at their best. To create work environments that are not just about the delivery of work, but to also provide spaces for people to stop, slow down, reflect and talk about their work and to identify gaps in their own capabilities to assist them to be better on a weekly basis. To give people the necessary artefacts to help structure their routines at work and to have a connected understanding or sense of purpose as to why they come to work in the first place. To know that learning never stops and that we need ways to constantly mature and to have people who can play explicit roles to help us to do that, namely–facilitator, mentor, connector and custodian.

David Travis

Dr David Travis (@userfocus) holds a BSc and a PhD in Psychology and he is a Chartered Psychologist. He has worked in the fields of human factors, usability and user experience since 1989 and has published two books on usability. David helps both large firms and start ups connect with their customers and bring business ideas to market.

What do you think makes a great UX leader? 

I think there are certain characteristics that all good leaders share, whether they work in the field of user experience or in something else. For example, a quick Google search turned up this article. It describes “22 Qualities That Make a Great Leader” such as decisiveness, communication and accountability, and I can see all of them applying to people in a UX leadership role. So I think to really answer this question, we need to address what, if anything, is different about UX leadership?

I want to avoid talking about technical skills here, because although our UX leader needs to know the process to follow to create a good user experience, they won’t be doing the work day-to-day. Technical skills like field research, usability testing, information architecture, interaction design, visual design, technical writing and prototyping are the table stakes—but they are not sufficient to lead a user experience team.

When I mull over this, the one characteristic that I’ve seen in great UX leaders is “Vision”: the ability to describe a future state for the product and to have the soft skills to motivate the team behind this shared vision. As user experience professionals we’re lucky to work in a field where we really can make the world a better place. This is something we do every day by ensuring we’re developing the right kind of products and services for people, avoiding waste and making people’s lives simpler. Articulating this vision to the team is the single most important thing we can do to encourage people to do their best work.

Read part two of the series: Finding Your Path to UX Leadership.

What do you think makes for excellent leadership in UX? Let us know in the forums or leave a comment.

The post The Essential Qualities of a UX Leader appeared first on UX Mastery.

After a year in a large agency I can say that yes, it’s true – we don’t always get the chance to iterate a product, and research isn’t always as valued as it should be. On the other hand, we’re pushed to create usable, experiential products quickly, which have honed my intuitive design skills in ways I never expected. In advertising, you’re part of the creative process, dreaming up innovative activations and learning that every project is a completely new challenge.

1. Debating is still alive and well

Remember debating at school? It was all about constructing a solid argument, gathering all the research to understand the problem in detail, and looking at a question from every side possible. These skills are the best persuasive tools to have at your disposal. If you can learn to hold your own in a debate then you can hold your own in an agency. This has led me to the idea of starting my own meetup, DigiDebates, encouraging young digital enthusiasts to develop debating skills and learn to argue their rationale in front of a panel of industry experts.

2. Make the user the hero of your story

If you’ve ever heard of the Hero’s Journey, you’ll know that this is the classic storyline (think Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings). Most companies treat their brand as the hero of their story. Try switching your thinking; view the user as the hero and the brand as the gift (ie: Light Saber, Wand, Ring) that allows the user to solve their problems, pushing them through their own unique story arc and become the hero of their story.

3. The design is not the detail, the detail is the design

The way things are moving, we need to design for emotional engagement. This means bringing a magnifying glass up to the details of a product and seeing how to unify the many moving parts into something cohesive and appealing. Create design principles at the start of a project and look for ways to achieve them holistically. When the bigger picture has been acknowledged, it’s time to go granular – from the tiny animation that validates the purpose of the experience, to the microcopy with personality.

4. Compromise is inevitable + integral

You have a brilliant solution to a problem, which you present clearly with perfect reasoning. There’s no possible way anyone could look at this solution and think there’s a better way to do it. But trust me, despite reason and logic there will always be certain things your client will want done their way, and with no room for movement. And you’re going to have to accept this. When you work as part of a larger agency, learning when the fight is over is integral to maintaining a good client relationship where their trust in you grows over time. You can’t win every battle, so learn how to pick your battles.

5. Content in context is king

If we’re serious about designing an experience, we need to think about the context in which the content is presented. This can include anything from dynamic content for time and location to more complex contexts such as mindset. Look at the data you can collect from users and see how this can be used to create a personalised experience that speaks to the user’s physical and emotional environment.

6. Design the right product

Just like any UX die-hard, I’ve heard the mantra “design the right product” a million times. But experience over the past year of coming into projects midway through has altered my understanding of this. You don’t always get to set the parameters of the product or conduct the research. Sometimes you don’t even get a research allowance on the project (shock, horror!). Despite this, you can still design the right product. Use any data at your disposal to interpret insights. Use a mix of ethics and intuition to continuously drive your product in the direction you feel will be most useful. It can be slow, and it can be argumentative, but it’s also well worth it!

7. Collaboration – not as easy as it sounds

I used to think working in a creative field would mean everyone would be as passionate and motivated about every project as I am. I like to talk everything through and debate the details, and didn’t anticipate people getting defensive about their way of working, or that they would prefer to do their bit and then hand it over with very little discourse. Learning how to make that work—in a way that best suits those individuals but still gets the best out of the team—has been a big learning curve.

This article was originally published for UXmas – an advent calendar for UX folk. Catch up on all 24 posts at uxmas.com.

The post 12 Months in an Advertising Agency: A UXer’s Guide appeared first on UX Mastery.