I think that I’ve mentioned here before that I talk to a ton of UX professionals (lucky me) day in and day out. I hear a lot of frustrations, complaints, successes and failures. A good deal of the frustrations that I hear center around people not having the opportunity to either learn or exercise the real tools in our job, including things like personas, task analysis, scenario creation, in short, everything except wireframes. Some people think that they should go independent so that they can own the client work themselves, however most realize they are not yet ready. Either way you look at it, there is one key ingredient that we need in order to lessen our frustrations, learn and exercise the UX methodologies that we want, and just plain be happier in our work. We need to learn the ins and outs of the software development lifecycle.

When I say the software development lifecycle, I don’t just mean the labels on the page of who does what when, I mean the reason why we do the things to begin with. For example QA writes tests cases to ensure all the use cases are properly functioning and the code is ready to release. Developers have local, development, QA and production environments so that each release can be accounted for. The release schedule is every 6 weeks because of infrastructure builds… these types of ins and outs. The problems of not understanding the overall process (not just the UX process) of how our designs come to life are extensive. The main ones that I’m seeing are first, UXers become frustrated when it’s “too late” to use their updated designs, do testing, etc. They are frustrated mostly because they have no idea why something is late and more importantly they don’t know how to question the timeframe. Secondly UXers are frustrated because there is never time or opportunity to learn and/or exercise “real” UX work, just wireframes and interface designs.

In order to lessen these frustrations, become better UXers, and truly understand how our UX processes fits in, we first need to learn what they are fitting in to. We need to talk to our developers, our bosses, our project managers whomever it is that can tell us how the product actually gets built. We need to know release schedules, what is included in a release, when sign off of testing needs to occur…. but more than just the whens we need to know why there is a release schedule, why the timelines are what they are. We need to know what use cases, test cases, other cases do to support the build… and what the build is. Let’s use our tools of task analysis as well as a conceptual analysis to understand these external tools and processes to fit them into an experience flow. Then, we can fill in, move, adjust the gaps of a company’s software development process with our UX tools.

By being confident in what the development lifecycle is, and why it is that way, we can begin to use our UX methodologies to support, change, make better, this lifecycle. We know what our tools are on the UX end, now we need to know how, when and where we can use those tools and what effect they will have. Depending on the context of how the development lifecycle is being used, we can be flexible with what tools we use and when, and of course why we should use them. Knowing these things will prevent us from being taken aback by the “you are too late to use that design” types of discussions, as well as allow us to be creative and flexible in using our “real” toolbox. Without knowing the how & why our outputs are built, we cannot effect them. Learn about software development, become confident in it, then you can let your knowledge guide your career and not the other way around.

On my way to the airport from Boulder (yes the nice, long ride) I started to reflect on the view I was seeing out the window. Besides the mountains, everything was pretty much flat and almost desolate, at least compared to the rocky, tree-filled north east. However every once in awhile I would see a tree or group of trees. I started to think how long those trees must have been there, they seemed, at times, randomly placed. My thoughts started going back to the first pioneers that happened upon this region on their trek west, how some of them might have planted these tree seeds on their journey, and how these trees still remain today.

Ok, I promise I’m going somewhere with this. So, having just come from a conference of the UX tribe, my thoughts then began to move towards UX. I thought about how those frontier people set the stage for the landscape with the vegetation that they brought with them from elsewhere. How their journey so long ago contributed to the here and now, and I couldn’t help but see us at the same place with User Experience. Those travellers didn’t know what to call the lands they found, so they made it up based on their experiences and knowledge (sound familiar?). They knew what they were planting and why, but didn’t fully understand how these things might be used years in the future. They certainly didn’t see that it would inspire some young UXer in the far future to write this post. I can see us in the same place. We aren’t really sure what to call ourselves (some of us are some of us aren’t I’m aware this is a touchy subject) but we are making up and naming things the best we can with the knowledge we have. We’re creating a foundation for practicing this work, however we have no idea how it will be used years and years from now.

The point of this post is not just to talk about trees, history or whacky reveres, but the point is to express to you the great deal of calm I felt after this reflection. Because what I realized is that it doesn’t really matter what we do. Nobody is going to judge us right or wrong. Nobody is going to care 30 years from now if you were an interaction designer or an information architect. All they’ll care about is that path that was carved out for them to grow into and expand upon. And we are doing that, we are carving out that path as best we can. As long as we keeping doing that, I think we’re all going to be ok… and so will our beloved profession. So keep up the good work, and continue on the journey!

At Interaction 11, one of the keynote speakers, Richard Buchanan, spoke about having empathy for what you deliver and the material that makes this up. This particular phrase and the way it was described stuck with me. We, as UXers, are always trying to define who we are, and what we do. WE know why we’re important, however there aren’t many tangible deliverables that “show off” who we are and what we contribute. This, of course, leaves us feeling lost and left out, misunderstood and just plain annoyed.

I think one reason why we are so “lost” is that a good deal of us have first, not clearly defined what it is we deliver, and second, haven’t developed empathy for that which we deliver. As a UX professional you can deliver many things right? The first thing we always think of are wireframes… it’s always the first thing that I’m asked for. However, I know those do not define my work as a UX professional. I know there are many other things that define who Lis Hubert is as a User Experience Consultant, but wireframes are not one of them. I have found that many of us are in the same predicament. We know what we do but what we deliver is an incorrect representation of our profession, thus leaving us frustrated.

How do we solve this? First, I think we need to clearly define what it is we deliver. What do you deliver? Not because someone said we need wireframes, but if you were in an ideal world, what would you say you deliver? I deliver several things but I guess the most important is a narrative or experience for the user to move through. I also deliver a user perspective based on my research and insight. I deliver personas, yes but more importantly I deliver the emotion behind them. These are, of course, just a few examples to help you start your list. Now I need to develop empathy for these “deliverables”. How in the hell does someone do that? Well what I gleamed from the presentation is that we need to dig to the root of what these things are that we deliver, really understand them. So in the case of a wireframe, we need to have empathy for drawing the activity/material needed to create this document, to really understand what this deliverable is about (a drawn representation of a future screen). An interesting note, I hate drawing, which gives me some insight to my dislike of wireframes… just putting that one out there. The point is that this empathy for a material, is really about knowing it, understanding it inside and out (so I guess for user research one would have empathy for well… empathy) almost become one with it.

So what does this accomplish? By going through these steps, really defining who you are as a professional, what it is you deliver to your clients (whether in house, agency, indie you have clients), and having empathy for that material/deliverable you are passing along, you have now defined yourself as a UX professional. I am Lis Hubert, researcher, strategists, lover of all things empathetic…. Who are you?

This February, I had the esteemed opportunity to join the interaction design community at Interaction 11 in Boulder, Colorado. While there, I got to attend my first Local Leaders Workshop as a representative from NYC. Needless to say, I loved talking with other Local Leaders from around the world about what their interaction design communities are doing. One of the ideas that has taken hold in several areas is Design for Good. Several chapters have taken the stance of helping a local non profit/charity by designing interactive solutions for them… basically using our talents in our free time to help those that can’t afford it, a dream that we all have. So, I was wondering how NYC might get onboard, and if there was 1. a desire to do this in our community, 2. ideas around what types of groups to help, and 3. ideas on getting started? So, what do you think??

In our day to day work, we’re always looking to get better right? Most everyone wants to do their best, and wants their best to be good, really good. The hard part about UX is that there is this unknown skill, a gut feel that needs to be developed. Of course there is our usual tool kit that we can use to produce good, even great work. But how can we take ourselves to the next level? How can we become one of those UXers that we look up to? That just get the non-physical/emotional/empathetic part of this work… how can we start to be more like them? Well, one part of the answer is simple… work to be a better communicator.

Now I know what you’re thinking… “What? A better communicator? What does that have to do with anything? This girl is crazy! I need to do some soul searching, there has to be an app for this! Or at least there is some methodology in a UX book that I can follow”. Well, all this might be true, but one way that I believe you can reach that next level is to look at the way you communicate with others, and look to improve it.

So, what makes a great communicator? A great communicator, whether they are just in conversation or presenting or somewhere in between, level sets with their audience. They try to understand where that audience is at, realize and respect that the other party has an opinion or train of thought and moves from there. They don’t try to force their opinion or thoughts onto others, but instead use the audience’s own points of view to prove their points. Great communicators don’t talk over others and don’t find the need to talk over others. In fact, if they talk over someone, they might miss an insight into the other person’s mindset, and that mindset is the most important factor to use to get one’s point across. Think about the best presenters that you’ve seen… what did they do differently, why were their presentations so good? I would be willing to bet that one factor is that their talks felt personal, like they were meant for you, and were almost aimed at you directly. This, dear reader, is taking the audience (user) and their mindset into account. Thus, the person being communicated to internalizes the message, owns it, and moves forward with it.

How does one become a better communicator? First I would write down the names of all those people that you think are good at communicating and begin to observe them in the act. Note what they do and why, what works for them and what doesn’t and begin to fold this into your communication style. Listen to your audience, really listen. Don’t just try to win an argument or debate, or just try to express your point and expect the other person(people) to get it. They aren’t you. They are different people with thoughts, opinions, backgrounds, all of which you should be noting. Use those thoughts, opinions, backgrounds to your advantage… have empathy! Put yourself in their shoes, really do it. Let go of your ego and do this for your audience… that is what makes a great UXer afterall.

What does this have to do with UX Design? Everything. If you can communicate your message effectively, then you can communicate a design or experience effectively. Everything I’ve talked about above is in the world of having empathy for the user. Great communicators do this, as do great UXers. By letting go of our egos in our conversations, presentations, etc we can do so in our designs and experiences. We can design things for others not just because it’s new, cool, looks good on the screen, the UX book told us to, but because we can feel in our gut that this is right, we have become the user for a moment and understand where they might be at. We have a good idea of what is best for them, and this only can come from true empathy. So strengthen your empathetic side, become a really great communicator and see how your UX work benefits, and it will… I promise.