Mark C.

UX Design for Specialized Domains is something we at Boston UX know a lot about. Check out this great article from my co-worker Dorothy Shamonsky!

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Simple portfolio presentation tip for design leaders today: Include something about why this job. Why do you want it? What do you like about it? Don’t overcomplicate. I added one slide at the end when I applied for the Maps role. Idea is it helps you confirm what you think this role is going to be about. AND, it tells the interviewers you understand the challenges and the landscape.

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This is likely why your product sucks. You are cramming way too many features into one interface. I have a rule. It’s called the “Rule of Two”. You are only allowed two OBVIOUS features per interface. Obvious features dominate visual and mental space. They’re pricey. They’re pricey in terms of real estate. They’re pricey in terms of cognitive load. They’re pricey in terms of attention span. You’ve used products with more than two “obvious features. How did they make you feel? Anxious? Frustrated? Lost? For example, take a look at the remote control on the left. Overwhelming anxiety. Don't be the brand that gives your customers overwhelming anxiety. Don’t be the brand that makes "SB-IR Remote-HH." Master the subtle art of feature prioritization. You'll destroy competitors. And, you will make your customers fall in love with you. sinpl rlly 🥂

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Have you thought about the physical accessibility of your digital designs? Getting physical controls right is really hard, and industrial designers spend a lot of time learning about how to use data as a starting point for making design decisions. As we create digital designs that we interact with using our bodies, it's going to become important for digital designers to understand physical ergonomics too.

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Wondering why startups should invest in UX design and why the current UX hiring market sucks? Wonder no more: https://lnkd.in/eeJzmrNH Genuinely let me know what you think, I'm trying to improve my writing constantly, as well as my understanding of why UX matters :)

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My top 3 project selection tips for design leaders doing portfolio presentations: 1. Pick projects that have a good mix of what you did directly plus what the team did. Very rarely is anyone looking for a pure people manager while hiring a design leader. Your personal contributions need to stand out in your work. It doesn’t have to be IC work (but if you do that, show it). It could be a doc you wrote, an insight you uncovered, a strategy you formulated etc. Differentiate between what you did yourself, what you directed the team to do, and things the team might have driven independently. Make this distinction clear as you present your portfolio. People want to see you can do smart stuff yourself, can direct a team well, but will also build a high functioning team that does good work. Also, if you would like I can do a separate post in these 3 modes of operation for any design leader. 2. Pick projects based on the role you’re applying for. It doesn’t have to be and most certainly won’t be a 100% match. But for example, if what the team needs is scaling a successful product, pick examples where you enabled scale. This needs to be deeper than “I’m applying for fintech so here’s another fintech project”. Your project selection should show you understand the challenges for the company and have transferrable skills. 3. Pick projects where you can show both macro and micro user insights. Scale the macro according to your seniority and level. For example, if you’re applying for a Director role, you better have projects that show you driving user insights at Director scale (for instance something that drove resourcing decisions). At the same time, the project should also show micro insights appropriate to role. For example, key interaction design flows redone by your team for the goal. Or even things like font/color selection and how that drove impact. Use these guidelines and apply the filter for what fits with your past experience and this new role. If you have the same portfolio presentation for completely different roles, something is off somewhere. You only need to present 2-3 projects in a presentation, pick the most appropriate ones. If this sounds complicated and like a lot of work, it is. Project selection is THE foundation for how your presentation will play out.

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Portfolio tip for design leaders: Unless your values/leadership style/‘how I lead’ slides are unique or clearly showing why they make you a good fit for this specific role, skip all that in your portfolio presentation. It’s a waste of time and if it sounds like what all the other candidates are also doing(which is true 90% of the time), it will make you blend in. Not good: Generic words like empathy, team building, servant leadership etc Good: Super specific values that apply to this role Better: Super specific values that are actually then evidenced in the work you will shortly present

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Why do most people recognize 💾 even if they’ve never seen one irl? Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about metaphor in design: 1️⃣ How it permeates the interface 2️⃣ How visual metaphors slowly evolve into their own distinct objects 3️⃣ How those symbols persist even after the original becomes irrelevant For my newsletter, I wrote a short exploration of these ideas. 📰 https://lnkd.in/eQSaec3X #uxdesign #design #designthinking

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Service Designers: if you’re looking to explore how to best leverage AI in your work, why not learn from a Service Design luminary, and from history? Mauricio Manhaes, PhD, ran and scaled the Service Design Master’s program at SCAD, then scaled the Service Design team at Truist, and now he’s been exploring how AI can lead to better design, leveraging his unique mix of academic and practical experience.  AlphaGo Move 78, he’s discovered, is an inspiration and suggests a 3 stage process any designer can follow. Curious? His next workshop is this week – the previous 3 have sold out.  To find out more, see links in comments. 

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What exactly is an AI prompt and why does it need to be designed? 🤔 If you don't know how to effectively prompt AI, getting the information you want can be challenging. Brady Sammons, UX Architect, and Cassy Funk, UX Senior Director, share 7 tips for designing prompts. Find out how to provide clear context, keep AI in its lane, and write purposeful prompts to get the answers you need. #DreamDesigners👇 https://lnkd.in/e4gMyuWq

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Worth revisiting this article on the topic of Design Audits. https://lnkd.in/e7t4FUV #design #designthinking #designbuild #designstrategy #product #producctdesign #productmanagement #productstrategy #designprinciples #innovation #designers #digitaltransformation #ux #uxdesign #uiux #uidesign #designinnovation #application #software #softwaredesign #usability #userresearch #research #usercentereddesign #productleadership #uxwriting #designsystems #empathy #interfacedesign #usabilitytesting #userexperience #productdesign #accessibility #ui

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Exciting to learn a new European Accessibility Act (EAA) is enforced. It is crucial for those designing products for EU market! US has Americans with Disability Act (ADA) UK has Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) Australia has Disability Services and Inclusion (DSI).Act EU now has European Accessibiliy Act (EAA) #accessibility #disabilityact

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Research is a function of strategy.  "According to CB Insights, over 90% of all products fail, most commonly due to no market need." Leave yourself time to ask big questions about whether any actually needs your product or service before you decide to launch it. #UXstrategy #UXresearch #Marketresearch

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As I refine my hiring process I have question. What would you guys prefer? 1) In person/remote 30min white board session 2) Challenging design assignment done over a week 3) Mock podcast recording where we have a conversation about design.

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If we're not talking about design maturity, agile process, or craft, then us designers are probably talking about ✨quality.✨ I certainly see my interviewer's eyes light up when I mention this magical word. "Design is the one that has to hold the quality bar," I tell them. But what if that didn't have to be true? For a truly high-quality product, I don't think it should be design holding the line. It has to be something baked into the organization - everyone holds the quality bar. Even though "quality" is a slippery thing to define, if we can define it and hold ourselves to it, we can reduce the tension in the org and start to think less about the mere baseline quality for the product and more about raising that bar - delighting the user. I very much enjoyed Luke Anthony Firth's take on how they folded quality into their product building process. Have a read! https://lnkd.in/g4SenmYZ #designleadership #productprocess #productdesign #productquality #designquality #opentowork

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Just attended a UXR session where we discussed the state of UX Research. While it's been around for a few years, it's still in its infancy. Early adopters of the practice are already seeing a significant competitive advantage. In fact, in the next 10 years, it's likely that every company will have a UX Research team. Don't be left behind - invest in UX Research now to stay ahead of the game! #UXResearch #UserExperience #CompetitiveAdvantage

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With enough #compute, one could imagine a cloud-hosted UX research platforms like @UserTesting building specialized analytical models. But it's likely out of reach for most small UX research teams, and certainly for any #independent UXResearcher. https://lttr.ai/AR3uS #UXResearch #UXDesign #uxresearch #HundredThousandPounds #UXR #Freelance #LargeLanguageModel

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Every business is held together by duct tape. The further up I go in any organization, The more a client lets me peep behind the organizational curtain… The more I am convinced that everyone’s business is in the same state: A SHIT SHOW, to varying degrees… Chaos. Uncertainty. And a bit of disbelief that things are going as well as they are, considering how fragile the whole endeavor is. We hide this from the public, of course. But behind every dialed-in brand is a business owner waiting for the next shoe to drop. — Relax a bit and let go of the need to do things the “right” way. Your posturing is causing you to grip things too tightly. And that’s going to limit your creativity. Creativity is a wave. Whether it’s brand improvements, new product offerings, or new strategies for an emerging market. The best ideas come from flow and a sense of play. Loosen up. Do the best work you can do each day. Increase the surface area for luck to strike. We’re all figuring it out as we go. Take the pressure off and you’ll build a better business. 🥂

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I recently wrote about design system metrics, including adoption. Adoption can be pushed as a mandate. Having seen hundreds of design systems up close Dan Mall points out that there is no definitive evidence that high adoption doesn’t hurt. But, it certainly doesn’t differentiate between useful design systems and that frankenstack monster that has documentation in Excel with hundreds of links to a private Git repo along with multiple swim lanes with infinite scroll. The only reason why adoption persists as a common metric is because even really bad design systems have the ability to generate significant value. Full article in the comments.

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