why ux matters as you scale

WHY UX MATTERS AS YOU SCALEMike Scopino Experience Designer

WHY UX MATTERS AS YOU SCALE

• I help businesses build digital tools that enrich their users’ real world experiences.

• I teach General Assembly’s User Experience Design course. Next session starts 7/20!

MIKE SCOPINO EXPERIENCE DESIGN CONSULTANT

@JEFFTHETURTLE

WHY UX MATTERS AS YOU SCALE

• The concept of a user experience encompasses people’s emotional and physical interactions with all aspects of a product or service

• UX design is a methodical approach to defining those interactions that a person has with a product

• Design is not a series of deliverables

• Design is not a one size fits all solution

LET’S DEFINE UX

WHY UX MATTERS AS YOU SCALE

HERE’S WHY IT MATTERS

WHY UX MATTERS AS YOU SCALE

• Monetization The experience changes as your target audience evolves and your feature set expands

• An Expanding TeamThe holistic vision for the product can no longer exist in one brain

• Bigger CompetitionYou will vie for market share in a competitive landscape that already invests heavily in design

YOUR BUSINESS’S GROWTH LEADS TO…

WHY UX MATTERS AS YOU SCALE

• Mobile devices, omni-channel commerce, and the growing internet of things create an environment where digital experiences are suddenly always present

• This drastically increases daily interactions • “A pain point can become a ‘pain plane’ on mobile. That’s a lot

of ouch.” – John Maeda • People will naturally lean toward experiences that offer the

least friction

WHY NOW?

Source: @kpcb @johnmaeda “#DesignInTech Report” (http://www.kpcb.com/design)

WHY UX MATTERS AS YOU SCALE

THE COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

“ Being designers, they thought we were people that worked for people that ran companies.”- BRIAN CHESKY, CO-FOUNDER OF AIRBNB

WHY UX MATTERS AS YOU SCALE

• 6 major venture capital firms invited designers onto their teams (for the first time) in the last year

• 13 of the 2014 Fortune 125 companies have executive-level positions for design — Nike’s CEO is a designer!

• 27 startups that were co-founded by designers have been acquired by major tech companies since 2010

INVESTMENT IN DESIGN BY THE NUMBERS

Source: @kpcb @johnmaeda “#DesignInTech Report” (http://www.kpcb.com/design)

WHY UX MATTERS AS YOU SCALE

• Successful tech businesses are realizing that Moore’s Law is no longer a path to satisfied customers

• Designers are not relegated to making interfaces look better, they are an active participant in product development

• “Design shouldn’t be designated a specific function or industry. The discipline is just as fundamental as technology and profit are to a business… It should be considered part of every role.” – Sahil Lavingia, founding designer at Pinterest

HOLISTIC INVOLVEMENT

Source: @fastcompany(http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669189/pinterests-founding-designer-shares-his-dead-simple-design-philosophy)

WHY UX MATTERS AS YOU SCALE

• To compete in an environment where established competitors are heavily committed to the value of design thinking, you need to create a business culture that embraces design

• Treat design-aware leadership as a must

• Apply design holistically rather than as a final polish

TAKEAWAYS

WHY UX MATTERS AS YOU SCALE

A GROWING FEATURE SET

“ Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they never stopped to think if they should.”- DR. IAN MALCOLM, JURASSIC PARK

WHY UX MATTERS AS YOU SCALE

• Your early users do not constitute the majority of your users

• While assumptions can gain traction early on, growth dictates that you gather an accurate understanding of your audience

IT’S TIME TO MEET YOUR ACTUAL USERS

Source: “Rogers’ bell curve” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_lifecycle)

WHY UX MATTERS AS YOU SCALE

When you begin monetizing new aspects of your product, the process of UX design will help you avoid:

• Diluting your experience with feature bloat

• Designing for marketers instead of real people

• Letting technology dictate the experience

• Creating “me too” products

NEW FEATURES, DONE RIGHT

Source: @charmingrobot “Why UX Matters” (https://generalassemb.ly/education/why-ux-matters-dan-maccarone-online-class)

WHY UX MATTERS AS YOU SCALE

• UX designers ask the tough questions to make educated decisions on what to build

• Investing in UX will help you build less frivolously

• Remember: 1 new element can create 2 problems

QUESTION EVERYTHING

VS.

Hi thereClick Me

Or Click Me

Hi thereClick Me

EXERCISE

TIMING

DELIVERABLE

KEY OBJECTIVE(S)

ACTIVITY

Reverse engineer the design thinking of Facebook at various points in the past.

Whiteboard sketches

2 min 10 min

1. Review your snapshot of Facebook’s profile 2. Discussion: What does the screen design tell you

are the primary business goals vs. the primary user goals?”

WHY UX MATTERS AS YOU SCALESource: @PCmag http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/320360/10-years-later-facebook-s-design-evolution/14

SNAPSHOT #1 SNAPSHOT #2 SNAPSHOT #3

WHY UX MATTERS AS YOU SCALE

• Rely on the UX design process to critically evaluate the new features that come from growth

• Acknowledge that your user base evolves as you grow and that you must develop a truthful understanding of what they need and want

• Ask the tough questions yourself to pave the way for letting your designers ask them too

TAKEAWAYS

Source:

WHY UX MATTERS AS YOU SCALE

EXPANDING TEAMS

“ You can use an eraser on the drafting table or a sledgehammer on the construction site.”- FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

WHY UX MATTERS AS YOU SCALE

• You may have been the sole vision behind the early versions of your product, but you must begin sharing that role

• The design process teaches the growing team to share their ideas — no single person has the right answer all the time

• Formalize your documentation process so that new employees can learn from past thinking

IT’S OK TO LET GO

Source:

WHY UX MATTERS AS YOU SCALE

• You must first realize that designers have specializations and then you can learn when to employ those skills

• A facet of your leadership is being able to evaluate when to hire, when to freelance, and when to outsource to an agency

• If you are not naturally design savvy, find a trusted partner/advisor that can help you evaluate options

THE RIGHT DESIGN, AT THE RIGHT TIME

WHY UX MATTERS AS YOU SCALE

• A UX designer marries the information gathered from the business side, the technology side, and the user’s needs — they need access to all these people

• Observation shows that early-stage design conscious startups form a 1:5 designer to engineer ratio

• “To achieve great design, you need great business thinking/doing (to effectively invest in design) and you need great engineering…” – John Maeda

A WELL BALANCED TEAM

Source: @kpcb @johnmaeda “#DesignInTech Report” (http://www.kpcb.com/design)

WHY UX MATTERS AS YOU SCALE

• Maintain a level of involvement in the design process so that enables you to:a) trust in letting go of some product vision b) accurately evaluate available resources

• Open up the design conversation to all areas of the company and give your UX designers access to both the team at large and the end-users

• Share design thinking through formal documentation

TAKEAWAYS

QUESTIONS?

@JEFFTHETURTLE

Reach out anytime:

@GA_BOSTON