As a product owner or manager how should you be using your User Experience team? In this quick talk I go over the top three ways to use your UX team to support you in building better products.

1. Top 3 ways
to use your
UX team
Product Management + User Experience = Happy Customers

2. @jeremyjohnson
VP of Customer Experience, projekt202

3. WORKED FOR

4. experience-
driven
application
development

6. “A well-made product is
not enough. A successful
product must meet the
needs and aspirations of
its users”
IDC Report
Building Experience-Driven software:
Insights for Modern Application Development

7. Top 3 ways
to use your
UX team
Product Management + User Experience = Happy Customers

8. How many
product
managers
in the
house?

9. https://medium.com/eightshapes-llc/behind-the-wheel-with-product-and-ux-287dba3e6d64#.duidfgqko

10. How many
of you
have a UX
team?

11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIY20kD9XT4&feature=youtu.be

13. (product)

14. Designers
Developers
Product Owner
Project Manager
Co-Located, autonomous, metrics driven

15. https://medium.com/managing-digital-products/so-you-want-to-manage-a-product-c664ba7e5138

16. Marty Cagan

17. http://www.mindtheproduct.com/2015/09/video-the-root-causes-of-product-failure-by-marty-cagan/

18. product = pilot
UX = co-pilot
“When it should be
more of a partnership”

19. product? UX?

20. product? UX?

21. product? UX?

22. team sport

23. i have a
very
particular
set of skills
as a UX designer

27. http://www.brownwebdesign.com/blog/dont-be-in-a-rush-to-be-a-specialist

29. UX has moved from a practice
of creating screens, to creating
a shared understanding of your
customer’s behavior

30. UX IS MOVING TO…
Tools
Paint
Strategy
Process
Photoshop
Sketch
HTML
Looks Good!
Make it blue.
On Brand!
What should we build?
What do our customers need?
Where can we be effective?
What is your hypothesis?
What methods do we use?
How are we synthesizing the data?
Patterns
Buttons!
Interactions
flows

32. “In 13 cases, the entire team reported
brainstorming new features together,
and in 51 cases, brainstorming was
done about equally by PMs and UX
designers…
…perhaps the most evenly split task
was customer discovery…”
Build Better Products - A Practical Handbook for Product Managers and Entrepreneurs
http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/build-better-products/

33. #1
understanding

34. Understanding the
what and why around
your customer’s
behavior is one of
the top things you
need to do well to be
successful…

35. i have a
very
particular
set of skills
as a UX designer

36. User Researcher: “User researchers are the eyes,
ears and conscience of your product manager,” the
guide explains. User researchers provide the
knowledge that ensures that you “build products that
delight your customers through a great user
experience.”
13 Jobs That Now Matter The Most, From A Digital Perspective

37. “…learning everything about the customers
becomes the most important focus of creating the
product strategy. When companies talk about
features, they are saying, “Look at us. Look at what we
can do.” When companies talk about the problems of
the customers, they are saying, “Look at what you’re
dealing with. Look at how we want to help.””
- Bruce McCarthy

38. Fast Path to a Great UX: Increased Exposure Hours
“It's the closest thing we've found to a silver bullet…”
“The solution? Exposure hours. The number of hours
each team member is exposed directly to real users
interacting with the team's designs or the team's
competitor's designs. There is a direct correlation
between this exposure and the improvements we see
in the designs that team produces.”
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fast-path-great-ux-increased-exposure-hours-jared-spool

39. “..would-be entrepreneurs, designers, and coders
should all get out of the office and into the field
more often. "It’s the Achilles’ heel of the tech
industry," he says of the armchair tendency. "It’s easy
to think you can sit at your computer and come up
with the next big thing."

40. “However, the more we share our work in progress, using a
variety of testing methods at every stage of design, the
more input we can get from the people the design is for.
Multiple research methods ensure that we receive diverse
feedback; and more diverse feedback helps our products
better meet our users’ needs.”
http://alistapart.com/article/sharing-our-work-testing-feedback-in-design

41. “Investing in user research is just about the only way
to consistently generate a rich stream of data about
customer needs and behaviors. As a designer, I can’t
live without it. And as data about customers flows
through your team, it informs product managers,
engineers, and just about everyone else. It forms the
foundation of intuitive designs, indispensable
products, and successful companies. So what are
you waiting for? Go listen to your customers!”

42. “Apple is looking for a Hardware Human Factors
and Ergonomics Researcher to apply user-
centered design principles to product research,
design, and development of all hardware
products. Conduct user-centered research and
testing for design concept models on a diverse
user population…"

43. “…the term "user-friendly" was coined in 1982
at Apple by Don Norman (the grandfather of
User Centered Design), around the time of the
Apple Lisa computer.”
“The first iteration of Apple's WIMP interface was
a floppy disk where files could be spatially
moved around. After months of usability
testing, Apple designed the LISA interface of
windows and icons.”

44. The Case for Talking to Users in the Age of Big Data
“Observing users in person provides you with data that
surveys and behavioral data simply can’t, just as
surveys and behavioral metrics provide you with data
and reliability that qualitative work can’t. You need both
— and you need to do both well”
https://medium.com/@mgallivan/the-case-for-talking-to-users-in-the-age-of-big-data-bca4159e9620

45. “As I watched Pedroia take infield practice, grabbing throws from
Kevin Youkilis, the team’s hulking third baseman, and relaying them
to his new first baseman Casey Kotchman, it was clear that there
was something different about him. Pedroia’s actions were
precise, whereas Youkilis botched a few plays and Kotchman’s
attention seemed to wander. But mostly there was attitude:
Pedroia whipped the ball around the infield, looking annoyed
whenever he perceived a lack of concentration from his
teammates.”

46. “The problem is, no customer experience
technology platform, by itself, can provide deep
insights into why customers do what they do.
These systems can track an infinite number of
transactions, but they can't identify the key
actions the company must take to gain more fully
engaged customers.”
http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/185345/quantitative-customer-experience-metrics-aren-enough.aspx?utm_source=twitterbutton&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=sharing
Quantitative Customer Experience
Metrics Aren't Enough

47. “Users should be a part of the design
process from the very beginning to help
validate concepts and refine final direction.
Your team needs to be open to
experimenting and taking risks and then
quickly learning and iterating…”
http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/marketing_sales/what_every_executive_needs_to_know_about_design

48. “The single most important attribute of any Product Manager
worthy of the title is a fanatical devotion to the customer
(and no, we’re not talking about Monty Python’s Spanish
Inquisition). The customer, and more specifically the end-
user, should be the North Star for whatever a Product Manager
does, says, plans, or thinks about…
…and to know the customer, you have to engage with them
on a regular basis.”
http://www.cleverpm.com/2015/09/09/what-makes-a-good-product-manager/
www.cleverpm.com

49. “I’m also hoping very much to see more
validation of ideas. In other words, let’s stop
just shipping features, crossing our fingers,
and hoping they work. Let’s figure out how
we can test whether we’re moving in the
right direction before we commit six months
and hundreds of thousands of dollars toward
building something.
I also think that we’ll continue to see more
teams using qualitative research in
conjunction with quantitative data.”
http://blog.wootric.com/product-managers-stop-worrying-about-building-the-wrong-thing-on-schedule-a-qa-with-laura-klein/
- Laura Klein

50. http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/build-better-products/

52. What does
understanding
look like?

53. Lots of data.

54. journey maps
We identify every step in your customer or user journey.

55. personas
Through observations we develop a deep understanding of
your users and customers.

56. prioritization
workshops
We make sense of 1000s of data points.

57. roadmap
visualizations
We identify and prioritize your opportunities.

58. Designers
Developers
Product Owner
Project Manager

59. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/dollars-to-donuts/id956673263?mt=2

60. Learning from your users: Ethnography in Software
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Guy-COUbDqI

61. https://creativemornings.com/talks/kelly-moran?mc_cid=aaea7e84d2&mc_eid=5b8ed49fbe

62. #2
visualization

63. we like
post-it
notes

66. we like to
sketch

68. we like to
sort

71. we like to
visualize

77. hats!

78. we like to
translate
requirements
into
experiences

82. #3
validate

83. 1:10:100
“…from $1 invested in UX, you save $10 in fixing
issues during development, and $100 if the
product has been already released.”
http://nearsoft.com/blog/how-to-make-100-for-every-dollar-you-invest-in-ux-3/

84. “15% of IT projects are abandoned and
at least 50% of a programmers’ time
during the project is spent doing
rework that is avoidable.”
http://www.usability.gov/what-and-why/benefits-of-ucd.html

88. http://www.invisionapp.com/customers

92. Jared Spool on Using the Kano Model to Build Delightful UX
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewpz2gR_oJQ

94. #3
validate your ideas
#1
create understanding
#2
visualize as much as possible
Top 3 ways to use
your UX team

95. @jeremyjohnson
VP of Customer Experience, projekt202
www.projekt202.com
jeremy.johnson@projekt202.com
www.slideshare.com/jeremy
Thanks!