I’m the UX guy in the digital team of a large corporate bank in Australia. On my first day someone asked me “from a UX perspective, should we go with the red or black button? By the way, we go live tonight.” To my new team, UX was a post-design addition that one guy – me – could do in isolation.
We’ll show you how to change a team’s awareness of UX, drawing lessons from a big organisation spanning Australia and New Zealand. We’ve saved time and money, helped the company’s bottom line, and tapped into the organisation’s world-class expertise in a range of disciplines.
We’ll also explain our plan to empower people to making their own UX decisions in the future.
This talk is for people who don’t know where to start. I’m talking to anyone whose team doesn’t know where a UX person fits. Learn how to prove your worth, get the team working with you, and change things for the better.
Beginners Guide to TikTok for Search - Rachel Pearson - We are Tilt __ Bright...
UX NZ - teaching a cross-Tasman corporate web team to value UX
1. Teaching a crossTasman corporate web
team to value UX.
Four stories about building digital
experiences, expressed through the
medium of 2002 pop culture.
2. UX in the corporate world
• Working with a lot of other people
• Bringing the user into the room and the
heads of people who specialise in all sorts
of other things
• Knowing we’ll never get anything perfect
• Keeping an eye on a huge amount of work
• Office politics meets education:
“Championing” UX more than doing UX
3. Adam Kendall / @kendalls
User experience specialist
National Australia Bank (NAB)
Max Johns / @mxdej
Business lead, BNZ
Before that:
Online content specialist, NAB
4. When I got my UX job at NAB, I thought I’d be like this guy...
15. A day may
come when
courage
fails, when we
forsake our
friends and
break bonds of
fellowship, but
it is not this
day.
16. I’m part of
a great
team, but
I’m also a
decisionmaker.
17. Let’s use these three characters from 2002 to help illustrate
our stories...
I know nothing
about UX
I know something I’m making my own
about UX, but
UX decisions
I need help
18. Story 1: José and forms
UX
I know nothing
about UX
I know something I’m making my own
about UX, but
UX decisions
I need help
19. We have lots of forms… heaps in fact.
They were usually built to our stakeholders requirements, not
to our users needs. The David Brent way of doing things.
UX
UX
20. These are three of
our most used
forms with lots of
inconsistencies… the
David Brent way of
doing things.
UX
21. We got Jose, our form builder to start thinking
about forms from the users point of view…
And creating a form style guide so he can
replicate this stuff….
UX
UX
22. This is what our forms look like now. A little
less David Brent…. and a bit more P-Diddy.
UX
23. Story 1: Summary
UX
I know nothing
about UX
I know something I’m making my own
about UX, but
UX decisions
I need help
What we did here:
• Started small: one person, one project
• Got him thinking from the user’s point of view
• Showed why consistency is important
The downside:
• David Brents involve UX too late – 5 weeks of extra work
• UX seems like a lot of work when you realize that every other form is wrong, too
The upside:
• Our first UX convert (a bit closer to P-Diddy)
• Better forms – happier users, more leads
• Better processes
24. We also talk to our counterparts across
the tasman to steal/borrow their
ideas…
Natalie Kerschner
UX Specialist, BNZ
@BrambleRose_Nat
UX
25. We talk to our counterparts around the
globe to start conversations …
… and to recruit internal test participants.
UX
26. Lunch and learn – informal sharing
All of these things help us get a bit further from David
Brent (I know nothing) to P-Diddy (I know something).
UX
27. Story 2: International Payments
We’re getting people a bit closer to
becoming P-Diddy…
UX
I know nothing
about UX
I know something I’m making my own
about UX, but
UX decisions
I need help
29. Here’s the site that used to help our customers… but
it was terrible…
UX
30. People were becoming P-Diddys because they asked for me
first – and I convinced them to do some qualitative user
testing… I also convinced our web team to help me do the
testing. This meant they were talking to real users and
hearing what they had to say… warts and all!
UX
31. This is what the site looks like now, since the user testing…
the developers and everyone involved had a direct
connection between the users and the final designs.
UX
32. Story 2: Summary
UX
I know nothing
about UX
I know something I’m making my own
about UX, but
UX decisions
I need help
What we did here:
• Got involved early by accepting an offer to help
• Organised user testing and involved a lot of the team
• Helped the team fit testing results into their work
The downsides:
• Convincing the team to be involved in user testing was like getting them to join a
cult
• Then organising them to attend the sessions was like herding cats
The upside:
• People had learned to think UX early
• The team met, and talked to, actual users
• Test subjects tell it like it is
33. Story 3: Locations tool
UX
I know nothing
about UX
I know something I’m making my own
about UX, but
UX decisions
I need help
Moving people from P-Diddy and closer to Aragorn.
35. Let’s draw ...do a
some ideas quick
test...
...draw
some
more...
UX
...and
test
again...
36. Here’s the result of using heuristic assessments on paper
prototypes. Much much better….
UX
37. Story 3: Summary
UX
I know nothing
about UX
I know something I’m making my own
about UX, but
UX decisions
I need help
What we did here:
• Got them going and left them to it
• Gave them the tools to do the job
• Kept myself available so they could keep checking in
The downside:
• Technology issues – not released yet
The upside:
• Once I got the team started, they were making their own UX decisions
• Proof that the processes I created actually work
38. Data before design
We have a wealth of data that we need to look at before we
even think about beginning a design.
UX
39. Guerrilla testing
We also test our paper prototypes with our colleagues
before we put too much effort into high-fidelity designs.
UX
40. Heuristic cards
We use heuristics (rules of thumb) to test our paper
prototypes…
Source: Abby Covert - http://abbytheia.wordpress.com/2012/04/12/ia-heuristics-journey/
UX
41. Story 4: Special credit card offer
UX
I know nothing
about UX
I know something I’m making my own
about UX, but
UX decisions
I need help
We’re finally getting some Aragorns…
42. Yo dude, I’m from the
Agency. I just designed a
shiny new campaign page!
Wanna chuck it online for
me? KTHXBAI.
43. Two of our colleagues went and got the data, did the paper
prototypes, tested and assessed these, did the high-fidelity
prototypes, tested and assessed, iterated until they got it
right…
And they did this all by themselves without a UX person –
they just used the UX person for the final check before
going live.
UX
45. How to get a corporate web team
to value UX
I know nothing
about UX
I know something I’m making my own
about UX, but
UX decisions
I need help
When you’re dealing with David Brents:
• Start small - even as small as one person, one
task
• Look for chances to introduce new tools in
context (e.g. style guides)
46. How to get a corporate web team
to value UX
I know nothing
about UX
I know something I’m making my own
about UX, but
UX decisions
I need help
For the P-Diddy phase:
• Put together a “tool kit” – borrow other people’s
good ideas, or build your own
• Grow the team – get more people involved in UX
• Get involved, in a balanced way. As people use
the tools for themselves, check in regularly
47. How to get a corporate web team
to value UX
I know nothing
about UX
I know something I’m making my own
about UX, but
UX decisions
I need help
Once you have Aragorns:
• Give them space
• Work on the tools and processes, not the
people
MAX: UX is different in the corporate world.We work for massive companies with millions of customers. We’re building things with hundreds or thousands of colleagues from around the company.Depending how you count it, we have dozens or hundreds of team mates. [CLICK] The people we work with can specialise in quite specific areas, too.UX starts as working with a lot of other experts. - some in Digital (SEO, copywriting, design), some not (marketing, product managers)ADAM:[CLICK] Being a facilitator. Helping all these experts understand things from the user’s point of view. [CLICK] Corporate UX needs us to understand that we will never get it perfect. We’re constrained by time, by the number of things that he bank is working on, by technology, and by the number of people we’re serving. MAX: [CLICK] The scale of corporate work can be a bit mind-boggling, too. Online we have our main website (1,000s of pages), 9 or 10 logged-in areas like Internet Banking, a blog eco-system, ever-changing campaign microsites, 7 or 8 mobile apps, a few dozen other websites that carry our brand…There’s more happening than any UX team could possibly keep up with. We can’t expect to do all the UX work ourselves.[CLICK] …So that means we need to get non-UX people on our side. It sounds useful having 100s of people to help build things, but the scale of the corporate world means we lose direct control of things.So we do a lot of work “about” UX. Sometimes it’s political – arguing why the user should be in the room to begin with – and sometimes it’s educational: once we’ve decided to think about the user, how do we go about doing that? In business-speak we “champion” UX at least as much as we “do” UX.
ADAM:So, who are we?I’m Adam Kendall, UX Specialist for National Australia Bank, or N.A.B., or NAB.MAXWith BNZ for a month now, Business Lead in the Digital Team.Before that, 4-and-a-half years in NAB Digital where I was a content strategist.…which means I remember Adam’s first day in the Web team.
When I started at NAB I thought it would be like… BeardGlassesSingle-speed bikeCoffee machineMacbook pro
ADAM: But in reality it was like this… Nerds / developers – we work on computers…Max:and we get bossed around by finance nerds. The company is not cool.That’s probably why in this photo they’ve hidden the guy with cool t-shirt is hidden. ADAM:And put the kid with too many pockets out the front.He needs more pocket protectors. Me – baldNescafe instant coffeeBut I got the macbook!
And in reality, this is some of our actual team.
ADAM: And this is some of our actual coffee.MAX: At least it’s deluxe.
STORY: My first day at NAB – red/black button.Adam: Here these buttons are tiny and out of context, and that’s how they were presented to me.MAX:This is how we thought of UX – a step in a process, done in isolation by an expert. Like wireframing or legal review. We’d never had a UX guy (or gal) before. We thought the hard part would be working out whether UX came last or second-to-last in the process.Obviously, we needed help from Adam. We needed someone to teach us what UX is, and how it works.
ADAM:This is what we’re going to show you:How we’re teaching a corporate web team to value UX.Taking them on a journey from “I know nothing about UX” – “I know something but still need the UX guy” – “I’m making my own UX decisions and the UX guy’s there if I need help”Hints and tips that might help you take people on a similar journey.We’ll use pop-culture references from 2002 to help illustrate our points.MAX: Why 2002? It’s an important year to us both.
MAX:In 2002 I built my first website. It looked like this.still onlineonly thing that doesn’t work is the banner adfree template limited me to five pages, so I worked out how to hack in extra pages, which I built in MS Word.If I’m not too late, please don’t Tweet this slide.ADAM:In 2002 I got my first IT-related job, where I started thinking about the disconnect between humans and the systems we build for them.Kind of like the disconnect that Max built.
These things happened in 2002:ADAM: Lleyton Hewitt won WimbeldonMAX: The Office series 1 was released on DVD and series 2 aired on BBCADAM:Michael Jackson dangled his baby from a balcony in BerlinMAX: Brazil won the football world cupADAM: Raelian UFO sect/sex cult scientists announced that they, through their company called Clonaid, had cloned the first human baby. They didn't. MAX: Just a little picture for this one, because none of us really want to see it, but Australia won the Bledisloe Cup for the last time ever. (That’s a lifesize picture of George Gregan, by the way. (Christ I’m funny.)ADAM:The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – highest grossing film for the year / best picture oscarMAX: Puff Daddy, who had already renamed himself P.Diddy, appeared in Billboard’s top 100 for the year three times.ADAM: We’re going to pick three to talk about some more.
MAX: Talk about David Brent and where he fits.
ADAM: talk about p-diddy and where he fits.We’ve already told you that P-Diddy was in 2002’s top-100 singles chart three times.What we didn’t tell you was this:[CLICK] the first one of those songs had two guest stars, and a b-side by someone else[CLICK] the second was a co-credited song with three more guest stars[CLICK] the third one wasn’t his song at all – he was one of a two on a Busta Rhymes songWhat we can see in the way P-Diddy spent 2002 is that he’s sending a clear message:[CLICK]“I know what I’m doing, but I need help”
MAX: talk about Aragorn and where he fits.
ADAM: talk about this and sum it up.We’re going to take this journey in 4 stories.
The OLD way:Internal stakeholders – someone like a product manager, for example - produces requirements (often by working off a paper form);We build a form to fit those requirements.The user never came into it.
We’re directed by someone who never deals with customers – they see customers as an aggregated data set in reports.We end up asking for whatever information might be useful to us, rather than trying to make the form quick and easy to useSome things go in as rush-jobs – validation and error messages were hardly ever covered by requirementsResult: Inconsistent forms built one-by-one to different people’s requirements.
A close-up look at what we were creating:Different headingsDifferent ways of saying what’s mandatoryOne explains what “Residential status” means, the other one that asks for it doesn’tField labels differStreet name and street type is on one or two lines, depending on the formDo labels go on the left or right? How about both!Do years belong in drop-down boxes or free text fields? How about both!Validation messages differ – here are two different responses to the same postcode error.So that’s just a quick example of what the old, David Brenty process spits out.But in this story, Jose doesn’t just churn out whatever he’s asked to. He goes to the UX guy.It’s late in the process, though. José did most of the building and then asked Adam to join in as a last-minute check. Like I said, we thought UX would come last, or maybe second-to-last.So Adam broke things down, from the user’s point of view.Let’s pull up those forms from the last slide again.
[CLICK] What does this question even mean to a normal person?[CLICK] Are we offering options that make sense to users, or asking them to fill in database spaces for us? (In this case there’s only one account to choose from)[CLICK] Do we display questions in ways that make sense? Or are we forcing people to think harder than they have to?[CLICK] How do people react to sensitive questions? We’re a bank, so we have to ask about money – but when and how is most comfortable?[CLICK] Are we asking questions in ways that people understand? In this example, is “valid tax exemption” something that we can expect users to know about?These questions get José thinking about his work in a different way.Now that he’s thinking about the user, he starts making good changes to the forms.Adam encourages him to quickly check his assumptions with random people in the office, and that gives him more feedback to work with.But this isn’t good only for the five forms that José’s working on.Because what becomes apparent is that we need to standardise some things – like the address mess I showed you before.And so a new piece of work starts – putting together a form style guide that anyone, not just José, can use next time we need a new form built.
Here’s what José made. It’s cleaner and simpler than things were before – a clear win for UX.The style guide, meanwhile, revealed limitations in our forms which we needed to start working on. As long as we were just working to stakeholder requirements one-by-one, we never would have been able to think through generic form functionality like that.
So the team, and our users, are already benefitting, even after just one instance of taking a go-it-alone David Brent and teaching him the benefits of P-Diddy-like collaboration.- Starting small, with one person, is a slow but manageable way to start a big change.- Get that one person to think from the user’s point of viewAs that thinking expands over similar work, pay attention to consistency – e.g. forms style guide [CLICK]DOWNSIDES:On the downside, Jose’s new knowledge of UX, and the new iterate–change-test process, added 5 weeks of work.Also, this new UX guy might not seem so cool when you ask him for help on one or two forms and walk off realising that every form on the site needs work!But you can get around things by helping develop and standardise new processes:– early UX engagement- consistent, and documented approaches (eg. style guide)[CLICK]UPSIDES:- Better forms that do what the user needs, rather than what the bank wants.- A new process that centres on users.[CLICK] So in the context of the overall journey we’re talking about, this is a pretty minor victory. It feels like it was a very long time ago now. But it’s worth celebrating.
Other ways we’re bridging this gap:Speaking to others in the business and copying. E.g. Natalie Kerschner from BNZ:She’s already been on a similar journey – no need to reinvent the wheelShe has let us use her training materials and ideas [CLICK for close-up of example doc names]We’ve organised a regular catch-up with Natalie so we can continue our cross-Tasman relationship and hopefully collaborate more and moreThis is an upside of the corporate world – BNZ is part of the NAB group, so the scale of the company means that we have experienced colleagues to learn from (and no intellectual property disputes when we “leverage” the work that they‘ve already done).
Yammer – Conversations: Building awareness of UX, and of ourselves so people know who to come toRecruitment for user testing: Asking people to spend a few minutes testing a prototype.NAB has a thriving Yammer communityBNZ doesn’t.
We have regular ‘lunch and learns’Informal way to get togetherChoose a topic and a presenter from the teamShare what you knowThis helped introduce more team members to UX – why it’s important, easy ways to make it part of the way you work.
ADAM:So we’re getting rid of David Brents around the office and turning them into P-Diddies. This story is an example of how we knew this was actually happening.
ADAM:Sending money overseas can be confusing.This is the form for sending money overseas in Internet Banking.It’s a long form, which already means you’re not going to enjoy it. But looking closer [CLICK] it gets harder. You have to know who or what a “beneficiary” is You need to do mental maths with indicative exchange rates before you see the actual rate on a different screen After you’ve done that, we ask you how you want to pay the fee – more maths All sorts of ID codes come up – IBANs, SWIFT codes, Chips numbers, ABA Fed Wire Routing numbers… you can generate a SWIFT or BIC code automatically, but what about the others?The obvious thing to do would be to change the form, but that’s not easy here. - exchange rates changing between pages: technology limitation (we give an estimate at first, then pull the actual rate later) - codes with confusing names like SWIFT, IBAN and Chips Number: required by different financial laws around the world.We can’t change these things. Like we’ve already said, corporate UX means knowing you can’t get everything perfect.So we have to do something else to let our customers know what to expect, and to set their minds at ease, before they start.
ADAM:This is the page we used to have to get people up to speed with international transfers. It spills off the bottom of the screen, so there’s a shot of the whole page on the right.It’s an ugly FAQ list. You don’t need to see any more to get the point.Luckily, someone from the Foreign Exchange team decided to fix it. And, like a P-Diddy, they asked me for help. (“I know something about UX, but I need help from the UX guy”).
ADAM:I convinced them to spend the time and money on doing some qualitative user testing with 10 people. 1 hour interviews where we had people use the prototypes and talk about how they make/receive international payments.As well as being a great way to improve this particular userexperience, it was also a chance to teach my team more about UX. So we involved as many people from our web team in the user testing.The value of this process was immediately recognisable as soon as we built the new sub-site.
ADAM:Here’s the new section that we built. It’s ordered, a little more graphic, and much easier to find your way around.And that’s because it’s built how our users like it.
ADAM:So when I was working with P-Diddies, who are ready to collaborate but aren’t UX leaders yet, here’s what I did:Got involved. When the opportunity to be a part of a project right from the start came up, I took it, to demonstrate what UX is like when you do it thoroughly.Arranged user testing. This took money and time, but since the team was at the point of thinking about the user and appreciating UX, it was a good time to introduce live user tests: good for this piece of work, but also good for the team.Worked with the team as they took the insights from user testing and let them inform the work they were doing.[CLICK]Downsides:Getting web team members to involve themselves in user testing sessions after work felt a bit like [CLICK]……like trying to get them to join a cult. Not the sex cult from 2002 though.Once we got them to join the cult however, [CLICK]……getting them to the testing sessions was like trying to herd cats.[CLICK]Positives:Someone asked for me, so the ‘UX value’ message was starting to cut through;The web team got to hear it ‘straight from the horse’s mouth’ because they were involved in the user testing, asking real users questionsand more importantly hearing real answers ‘warts and all’.
The team needed to design a new locations tool. The team building this came to me straight away, which was great. However this mean that they were still ‘P. Diddies’.But by the time we finished this piece of work, they were making their own decisions. Working through this problem, our P-Diddies turned themselves into Aragorns.
How the old Locations tool works: [CLICK] Asks for 6 pieces of data (compare Google maps, with its ONE text box) [CLICK] Throws grumpy errors if you don’t select a state [CLICK] Spits potential general matches out in a text list (no map yet) [CLICK] Lists potential exact matches [CLICK] Put a single match on a map
I started them out on the process. We went into a room for a few hours, looked at our existing locations tool [CLICK] and I got the team to mock up a couple of paper prototypes that we thought would be better.[CLICK] I then got them to assess these paper prototypes using our Heuristic cards we’ve developed. I’ll explain what these are in a little bit.[CLICK] From this heuristic assessment came a heap of changes that needed to be made – the next iteration began.[CLICK] I left the team to it, and they checked in with me every now and again, but mainly continued on by themselves. Until the finished product was built.
SUMMARY: We got them going, then left them to it.Here you can see the results: - desktop and mobile versions – a single search box - a map view as soon as you open the page - all searching and filtering on a single pageA much better experience, focused on how the user wants things to work.
The key things I did to help people go from being P-Diddy, needing help with UX, to making their own decisions like Aragorn: Give them space. Let them do work without looking over their shoulder. (Compare this to the last example, when it was important to “get involved”.) Make sure that their are good UX tools available for them to use, and that they know how to use them. (You don’t always need to build tools for yourself. A lot of the things our team uses have come from elsewhere) Stay available. When the team have questions, you have to be there to answer them.[CLICK to bring up “Downsides” text]DOWNSIDES:Due to a technology issue [CLICK for MJ pic] we haven’t been able to safely release this baby. [CLICK]UPSIDES:After I got them started, the team did its own UX work. Seeing the team do this proved that the UX tools and processes I’d built for them actually work in real life.NEXT: Other Tricks, tips and tools that we’ve introduced to the team
Teach people the value of data and the importance of looking at data before looking at design.Data tells us:[CLICK] WHAT ARE PEOPLE LOOKING FOR?External search data – what are people Googling?[CLICK] Site search – what are people looking for on the NAB site?[CLICK] WHAT ARE PEOPLE ASKING US ONLINE?We serve a lot of people through social media, so we can see individual Tweets…[CLICK] or Facebook posts – we’re on LinkedIn and Google+ as well, but volumes there are much smaller[CLICK] or we can head into our Social Media Command Centre and get a look at the Big Data instead[CLICK] We can look at reports or individual chat transcripts from our automated chat bot[CLICK] Or similar things from the more in-depth live chat that customers have online with real people[CLICK] WHAT ARE PEOPLE ASKING US OFFLINE?Our contact centre categorises every single call we get – THOUSANDS of them. We can even listen in. (And yes, those are real NAB contact centre people in that photo)[CLICK] And there are hundreds of bankers in branches that we can get information from as well. It’s more time-consuming, but incredibly valuable to talk with them.*[CLICK] WHAT ARE OUR BANKERS LOOKING UP? *Our internal knowledge management tool lets bankers look for anything they need when they’re serving customers. Reports tell us what they’re looking for AND whether the content in there contains the info they need.*[CLICK] SITE ANALYTICS. It’s a good idea to leave this till later – digital types can rely on what they know, and site analytics are a bit obvious in this way. The other sources that get us closer to customers are too important to ignore.
Other ways we’ve tried to bridge this gap:Getting others in the web team to guerilla test on the floor. Take your paper prototype, go and ask someone in another part of the business what they think, expect, or would do.
Other ways we’ve tried to bridge this gap:Heuristics are rules of thumb that you can apply to your designs. They help you evaluate your design against a set of principles or guidelines. Heuristic cards – we took Abby Covert’s IA Heuristics FLASH UP SCREEN SHOT and put them on playing cards. We then use the cards to highlight issues or areas for improvement on the designs. It can be a fun way to get things done.
P-Diddy is just a phase you go through.This is a story about a campaign.Our credit cards weren’t as competitive as we’d like, particularly online, so our teammates Ed and Renima decided to do something about it.This is already different to the way things used to happen – campaigns aren’t traditionally initiated by the digital team.Usually Product owners, or marketing, or someone else designs a campaign.Whoever it is, they’d put the general creative idea together and usually outsource the Digital side of things.So we’d finally get to meet…this guy [CLICK]
But this guy doesn’t know our users, and the people who have been sending work his way don’t know digital, or look at all the data that we can pull together, so our campaigns have never been great.That’s why Renima and Ed stepped up.
They looked at all the data, like we were talking about before.They’d done competitor research and analysis, to see what we were up against.They then sketched paper prototypes, reviewed and iteratedThey then mocked these up in digital format – see on-screen, not using anything fancy, just PowerpointAssessed and iteratedThey then asked Adam what he thought.And Adam said…”Yep.”
So they put their work live.And what’s important here is that so many people in the Digital team would have been able to work like that.We’d learned to use data, sketch ideas, test them over and over, mock them up and test them again, ask people what they’d expect, and build around user experience.We have the knowledge and the tools to do things in a completely different way.Adam had changed the way we work, almost beyond recognition, in less than a year.And that means that we’ve changed what Adam does, too. It might sound a bit like we’ve put him out of a job – thanks for the heuristics cards, mate, there’s the door! – but it’s not like that at all.UX isn’t an argument, or a point of office politics anymore. That battle has been won. We are the converted.Now we’re asking for new tools, and better ways of doing things. And that’s what our UX guy has time to work on now – our design and engagement processes, and the resources we use when we build.We were a team of about a dozen people. 11 months after Adam started, our boss moved to Sydney. It felt natural for Adam to step up and take over. If that doesn’t prove that someone’s taught a corporate web team to value UX, I don’t know what does.
So looking at the whole story, here’s the short version of how we’ve taught a corporate web team to value UX.We start with David Brents, who don’t know what they don’t know.Start small, slowly. Chipping away at a single person is fine – like Jose and his work on formsAs you can, introduce tools in ways that let people use them straight away. A forms style guide was a natural progression from one-on-one work with Jose.ADAMAs you create P-Diddies, who know how and when to ask for help:You need tools for them to use. It’s your job to equip people for UX work.Don’t reinvent the wheel. Use stuff others have done.Include everyone in the process so they can realise the benefits of UX.Reduce your own involvement, but make sure your P-Diddies check in with you as they go.MAXAs your P-Diddies become Aragorns:Trust them with the tools they have. Let them go for it.Now that you have people you can trust to focus on the user, spend your efforts on improving the tools and processes they use.ADAMWork yourself into a better job. – I can now stop the political stuff, but I am doing the UX. More tools, wiki, more designing.Make people better at what they do, and you’ll end up with a better job.
So looking at the whole story, here’s the short version of how we’ve taught a corporate web team to value UX.We start with David Brents, who don’t know what they don’t know.Start small, slowly. Chipping away at a single person is fine – like Jose and his work on formsAs you can, introduce tools in ways that let people use them straight away. A forms style guide was a natural progression from one-on-one work with Jose.ADAMAs you create P-Diddies, who know how and when to ask for help:You need tools for them to use. It’s your job to equip people for UX work.Don’t reinvent the wheel. Use stuff others have done.Include everyone in the process so they can realise the benefits of UX.Reduce your own involvement, but make sure your P-Diddies check in with you as they go.MAXAs your P-Diddies become Aragorns:Trust them with the tools they have. Let them go for it.Now that you have people you can trust to focus on the user, spend your efforts on improving the tools and processes they use.ADAMWork yourself into a better job. – I can now stop the political stuff, but I am doing the UX. More tools, wiki, more designing.Make people better at what they do, and you’ll end up with a better job.
So looking at the whole story, here’s the short version of how we’ve taught a corporate web team to value UX.We start with David Brents, who don’t know what they don’t know.Start small, slowly. Chipping away at a single person is fine – like Jose and his work on formsAs you can, introduce tools in ways that let people use them straight away. A forms style guide was a natural progression from one-on-one work with Jose.ADAMAs you create P-Diddies, who know how and when to ask for help:You need tools for them to use. It’s your job to equip people for UX work.Don’t reinvent the wheel. Use stuff others have done.Include everyone in the process so they can realise the benefits of UX.Reduce your own involvement, but make sure your P-Diddies check in with you as they go.MAXAs your P-Diddies become Aragorns:Trust them with the tools they have. Let them go for it.Now that you have people you can trust to focus on the user, spend your efforts on improving the tools and processes they use.ADAMWork yourself into a better job. – I can now stop the political stuff, but I am doing the UX. More tools, wiki, more designing.Make people better at what they do, and you’ll end up with a better job.