1. Building a UX Team
Based on: http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?awesome=no&u=7e093c5cf4&id=cfe9dbcac8
@bruno2ms
Aaron Walter
Director of User Experience at MailChimp
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4. MailChimp UX team of one
generalist professional, who:
Designed UIs; Wrote front-end code;
Built prototypes; Interviewed customers;
Conducted usability tests; Responded to Customer Support;
Back in 2008
Aaron Walter
Director of User Experience at MailChimp
5. A Team of Generalists with specific skills:
4 design researches
2 UI designers
1 expert email designer/developer
Aaron Walter (Leader)
In 2014
6. When you focus on wireframes and
workflows things get lost in translation as
ideas are passed to other departments
A team filled with specialists but no
generalists creates silos.
Don`ts
8. Because it`s easy to hire someone who`s mediocre, but
it`s really hard to fire them.
Look for passion, curiosity, selflessness, openness,
confidence, communication, skills, emotional
intelligence, and intrinsic motivation, too.
Hiring is hard
10. Can this person say “we" instead of “me”?
Can they let someone else have the glory?
Can they put in their best work, then leave control
to someone else to take it further?
Ask Yourself
12. Great designers need to understand
engineering enough to empathize with,
listen to, and respond to the people who build
what they want.
13. Respect between design and development is
critical. It don`t happens organically.
It has to be a core value of the company,
demonstrated by leadership daily.
15. If failure is not an option
in your organization,
then neither is success
16. Team needs autonomy to follow their gut.
When big decisions need to be made, team
autonomy has to give way to the
perspective of the whole company.
20. 5 weeks release cycle followed by our UI design,
front-end dev, and engineering teams.
It works for refinement but restricts deeper studies.
The cycle for deep research is considerably longer,
and happens parallel to the rapid cycles of app
development.
21. Having in-depht research continually tricking
into rapid iteration cycles helps ensure that
we`re not only moving fast, but that we`re also
moving in the right direction.
28. Research can`t create change in an organization
until it has been turned into a compelling story.
research is much more influential when it`s
made accessible to others