About Becoming a Better UX Designer

1. Michał Aleksander
Your UX Strategy – About
Becoming a Better UX Designer
Pearson English Technologies

2. „Poland’s UX Specialists’ profile”
❖ Annual survey of a few
hundred UX Designers from
all over Poland
❖ This year carried out by
Joanna Kwiatkowska,
Tomasz Skórski, and me
❖ For the first time, some
questions concerned the
impact of UX Designers on
the processes in the
company

3. Poland’s UX Specialists’ profile
Survey participants
Out of 207 respondents, I selected 100
who declared working on positions
directly related to UX (Usability
Specialist, UX Designer, Interaction
Designer, etc.)

4. Age
22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38
12
44
2
33
13
9
5
14
13
9
12
4
11
Average age: 29 years old

5. Company size
freelancer startup 10 - 49 50-249 250 - 999 > 1000
23
17
21
25
6
8
The larger the company, the harder it is to have an
impact on the processes

6. Do you have an impact on the processes?
0
20
40
60
80
Yes No No response
3
19
78

7. How is UX understood in your company?
0
15
30
45
60
Correctly Partially Incorrectly Not at all
410
55
28
We still have to justify our role

8. Does your company carry out user needs research (e.g. surveys,
observation, etc,) before the start of the design work?
0
15
30
45
60
Yes, always In some projects No
10
55
28
We still often do not design in order to solve users’
problems

9. Are your designs tested by end users before their
implementation?
0
17,5
35
52,5
70
Yes, always In some projects No
9
62
23
We still often don’t test our solutions before delivering them
to the users

10. Do you have an impact about the product’s final shape?
0
12,5
25
37,5
50
Yes, always In some projects Never
3
42
49

11. Summary
We feel that we can change the processes and that we have
an impact on the product’s final shape, but our designs
often fail to be based on user data or to be tested before
their implementation.
What fails?

12. Information flow

13. Information flow issues
❖ You receive information about a new project, but you don’t know why the product is to
be created and what its chances of success are
❖ No information about the product’s performance on the market and whether it has
satisfied the business requirements and expectations
❖ You receive the business requirements, but without the information whether they
have been created as a result of an analysis of the market and consumer needs
❖ The project is in progress, but there will be no research and testing at its early
stage, so there is no way to predict the potential users’ reaction to the product
❖ The design work is not supported by information about the technical possibilities
and limitations, so you don’t know whether your designs can be implemented and
whether and how they will affect the schedule of the development team

14. What to do?

15. Your design process…
1. I know why the product is being created
2. I know who the product is for
3. I know how others did it
4. I know the limitations on my work
5. I know how to design this
6. I am certain my design is good
7. I know my design is being implemented correctly
8. I know how the product I’ve designed is doing on the market
...based on information

16. UX maturity in your company
UX is in the fabric of the company and is a source
for product initiatives
Level 6
UX is a key value of the company and affectsLevel 5
UX is critical and used in the companyLevel 4
UX is very important and formalizedLevel 3
UX is important, but not profitableLevel 2
UX is not importantLevel 1

17. Your UX strategy

18. Plan your development in the company
1. Determine the current UX maturity level
2. Set a long-term goal for yourself
3. Define the actions that will let you reach this goal
4. Set a plan of action

19. Examples of initiatives in a UX strategy
Development within the company:
Development within the company:
❖ setting the professional development path
❖ compiling a list of competencies for the Interaction Designer and
the Visual Designer
❖ making a list of conferences and trainings necessary for raising
our competency
❖ training in the interpretation of data from Google Analytics

20. Examples of initiatives in a UX strategy
Working with a Scrum team:
❖ supporting the team to have them include testing (preferably
user testing) of solutions in their Definition of Done
❖ preparing a catalog of Agile UX methods
❖ preparing the personas for workshops and internal discussions
❖ organizing the time and the place for regular presentations of
our work
❖ organizing design workshops

21. Examples of initiatives in a UX strategy
Design:
❖ creating a design path including the activities prior to the design
work
❖ finding a source of knowledge about user problems and using it in
the work
❖ creating a categorized and searchable database of knowledge
about the users (segmentation, demographic data, research
results, etc.)
❖ determining strict context for each product (e.g. Journey Map)
❖ writing down design standards (also with disabled users in mind)
❖ paired solution design

22. Examples of initiatives in a UX strategy
Testing:
❖ aiming at user testing of the solutions before their
implementation;
❖ creating contact database of users of the products we’re working
on
❖ setting critical paths, Key Performance Indicators for them,
ongoing monitoring, measuring, and reacting to their changes
❖ ability to conduct testing in the users’ natural environment

23. Thank you! Not enough?
How to become a better UX Designer
A practical guidebook for UX Designers
working in the Scrum methodology
Polish version
ibuk.pl
English version
amazon.com