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.

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The most important decisions made about any product often take place between iterations. You could argue that the timeframe between identifying key research findings and understanding what the next iteration will be is the most crucial to the future success of the product.

There are many activities that take place during this phase and even before it begins – not just by research or design teams, but stakeholders, developers and customers as well. Clear communication and collaboration is the primary driver for gaining overall alignment among decision makers as quickly as possible.

At 3M, we’re fortunate to have access to many customers, allowing us to take the iterative approach to research outlined in this article. Depending on the project, timeline and business realities, coordinating customer visits and travel usually takes place over the course of several weeks.

How researchers and designers collaborate

While initial research sessions are observational and focused around contextual inquiry, it doesn’t mean that design is on hold. It’s beneficial to have at least one designer and one stakeholder from the business attend the research sessions, preferably on-site, so there’s shared learning. Team members debrief after each visit and input findings into a shared document so that it’s accessible to everyone on the team. This prevents the possibility of forgetting key points or confusion between what users may have said or team members may have heard.

Aware of the need to identify trends, but cognisant of time between research visits, it’s important that researchers start to analyse and organise findings while designers start to explore potential solutions via sketches, moodboards and other design activities. Throughout this quick sketching process, the team should involve stakeholders and subject matter experts to ensure the accuracy of what is presented.

For us, this sketching process can sometimes happen in a hotel lobby, producing a sketch that we’ll share with customers. Customers appreciate the low fidelity of the sketches because it allows them to be involved in early validation and provides them with the opportunity to offer feedback. The accuracy of the content is important so that users aren’t distracted by missing data, and can focus on the intended functionality of the concept sketches.

This iteration cycle typically continues throughout the research phase, with the fidelity of designs increasing as research is analysed, revealing further insights on the behavioural trends of users.

The post The Space Between Iterations appeared first on UX Mastery.

For many designers, culture is a driving factor in choosing a company to work for and build a career. Design culture is more than ping pong tables, free food and a pretty workspace. It’s about providing the tools and an environment to perform at your best.

When evaluating the maturity level of the design culture of an organisation, some questions you might like to ask are:

• Is design positioned within the company as you would expect it to be?
• Are decisions being made without design having a seat at the table?
• Do most of the projects get buy-in from the organisation when they are started by non-design functions?
• Is design being brought in as a last-minute box to check before a product is launched?
• Is the UX team the only advocate for the user, while the rest of the organisation believes that they can just release a product and everyone will buy it?
• Are outside vendors and agencies championed as experts more than the internal team, who are just as capable?
• Are designers scattered throughout the teams, hidden in a dark corner somewhere feasting on scraps whenever the business decides to throw them a bone?

No matter the level of design maturity, each organisation has unique cultural strengths and areas that can be improved. While cultures and their individual fit may vary, these are five qualities to identify a mature design culture.

1. Design is represented at the executive level

Whether you have a Chief Design Officer, or a design level VP, you need to have executive support for design at the highest possible level. This role shows an organisational commitment to design both financially and philosophically. There is no longer a need for the justification of design, it is positioned as a function that’s integral to innovation and future success.

2. A common vocabulary

A mature design culture recognises that design is not the centre of the corporate universe. Having a shared vision and vocabulary among stakeholders with competing priorities and different backgrounds means there is no longer a need to translate design language or business acronyms.

The business manager is worried about profits, the marketing manager about brand, so leave the design lingo behind to clearly communicate solutions in terms universally understood. A common vocabulary allows everyone to be on the same page, speaking the same language.

3. Meaningful projects

One of the main things designers look for in an organisation is the quality of projects they’ll be working on. It doesn’t matter how fun or exciting a project is, if it never sees the light of day it’s considered throw away work.

Everyone wants to work on projects that make a difference. The last thing the world needs is another weather app – there are plenty of good ones already. Mature design cultures aren’t afraid to kill a project from time to time and refocus the learning and efforts into another solution.

4. Design efficiency

Reinventing the wheel is not efficient. It’s also not fun for designers or developers to continually recreate the same elements for every project. Organisations should have efficiencies in place for design activities and collaboration.

Depending on maturity level, these can range from individual elements like such as research method cards, a style guide or a workshop playbook to a full-blown design system comprised of a design language or pattern library with working components. The design activities and processes shouldn’t compete with business processes. Instead, they should be fully integrated into one single process.

5. Talented people

Companies with a more mature culture have less turnover. While culture may attract talent, it’s the talent that keeps the culture evolving. The ideal team would be high-performing, comprised of individuals who continually learn from one other. It’s the best team you’ve ever worked for, one that shares accountability and pushes the other members to grow and succeed.

Culture can’t be forced. It has to come together organically through the continuous evolution of a team as a result of growing in size and experience. The way to cultivate culture is to influence others by putting in the work, building relationships, fostering collaboration, having uncomfortable conversations, making tough decisions, being accountable and influencing others by learning from mistakes and leading by example.

What culture do you look for in a workplace? Let us know in the comments or the forums. 

Catch up on our posts about how to better engage with stakeholders:

• Using A/B Testing to Drive Constructive Conflict with Stakeholders
• Proven Strategies to Win Over Stakeholders for Your UX Project
• What’s the Impact of Investing in UX?
• Ego and Evidence Drive Designs, but Which One is Right?
• Doing Strategy to People

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