The best product managers start in UX

by

ProductManager_UX_Venn

Some may find this controversial, disagree or just find it to be utter rubbish, but I believe, in the venn diagram of product management, it’s the background in user experience that truly makes the best product manager. I believe that in time, it will be UXers and UX designers or folks who came up through design that will eventually come to be the best product managers. You can have an understanding of the business. You can have an understanding of the IT. In both of those cases you’re removed from what the user are looking for and what they’re hoping to achieve with the product, and focused on the other facets of the respective discipline.

I also believe that there will be a time, when those designers have to tuck their design experience in their back pocket (design and UX thinking are likely second nature at this point or maybe that was just the case for me) and start to learn about the business and the technical aspects. This pivot is the thing that will leave some designers disinterested, some may even find it unsavory, and because of that I think that many designers will stick with their respective discipline of design, but for those who have that broad-ranging curiosity about all of the moving parts of their product I think it will be the UXer/designer that will be the discipline to lead product management.

Product Management is Product Thinking

by

usage_ux_product_thinking

John Cutler wrote a great article here: We Need Fewer Product Managers. — To a Product Manager, it’s a provocative, and maybe disturbing title, but I definitely get where he’s coming from.

He writes:

“…We need more product thinking, and less product managing.

You don’t need a product manager to:

  • “Get work done”, and keep the team focused
  • Manage projects, and give status updates
  • Manage a team, and advocate for the team
  • Have “accountability” for shipping features/projects
  • Facilitate standups, planning meetings, and retrospectives
  • Talk to customers and users
  • Measure the impact of work, and design experiments
  • Write user stories and requirements
  • Test work with customers and users

We have roles (hats) for these things: project managers, UX, researchers, data scientists, business analysts, team managers, coaches, etc. Do product managers often wear these hats? Sure. Do you need a product manager to wear these hats? No.”

John’s exactly right.

We have roles for these things, for these many and varied disciplines. Of course, especially in the beginning, there’s usually one evangelist wearing a lot of these hats, but as an organization matures towards a product-centric approach, the role typically known as the product manager, rather organically, becomes that of the product thinker. I’m confident that, in time, the natural evolution that brings together, seemingly disparate, disciplines like UX, IT and business needs will be thought of as a whole instead of separate parts. This is the natural outcome of truly undergoing a digital transformation. That evolution is happening, albeit slowly outside of software development organizations, but it is happening.

UX design puts users first

by

UX Design Lansing Michigan

UX design puts users first.

User experience can go two ways.

The first way is the one you design.

With the first way you do research, build personas, do user interviews. You’re constantly testing, measuring and making adjustments. With this way, you know your users, your audience, your customers, etc… With this way, they use the design, and they appreciate the work you’re doing for them. They might even be extremely satisfied with your site, app or product and return time and again, with enthusiasm, because they know you care and are trying to make the most of their time.

User experience can go another way.

The second way is the one that has no design.

People need to use your site, app or product, but you do no research and give no consideration to the user; there are no personas, or user interviews. You don’t know your users, you underestimate them and you don’t value their time. You know that they can get the tasks done, because they’ve found workarounds, and for those that can’t, we chalk it up to “user error” and write it off.

Nobody wants to do it the second way, but sadly, this is still how many Lansing and Michigan organizations operate.

User experience has evolved and matured.

Because UX design puts users first, a time is coming when these kinds of organizations will be discarded. They will be moved to the margins, and eventually replaced entirely, by others that are more enthusiastic, more energetic and more service-oriented, in fact it’s already happening.

Which way do you want to take?

If you’re looking for the best way forward to put your users first and to integrate UX design into your organization, please contact me through the form below:

UX Design for Customer Loyalty

by
UX Design Lansing Matt Borghi

UX design in Lansing is in a similar place.

Actually, wait, hold on…. let me step back. You may recall from a previous post, that a successful Lansing design entrepreneur once told me that Lansing is about 5-10 years behind national trends.

UX design in Lansing is no different. UX design, or user experience design, isn’t particularly new, but it’s something that’s gotten buzzword status over the last few years, so design, and design-adjacent business, folks throw the term around a lot. That’s really too bad, because the UX design process is super useful; it focuses on user needs. And what’s the downside to focusing on the needs of the user?

The Interaction Design Foundation (who are experts on such things) defines UX design thusly:

User experience (UX) design is the process design teams use to create products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users. This involves the design of the entire process of acquiring and integrating the product, including aspects of branding, design, usability and function

Additionally, this diagram that shows the iterative process of UX design is pretty good, too:

UX Design Process Matt Borghi

Working in UX design in Lansing, I talk a lot about user-centered design: Focusing on the user’s needs.

As a steward, for my clients, I have to pass that same understanding down to them.

Basically, it boils down to this: Take care of the customer and they’ll take care of you.

Do you really need an app?

by

I’ve been doing website design in Lansing for a long time. I’ve seen many trends come and go. Specifically, I remember spring 2007, when the iPhone was about to come out and I saw a bunch of people standing in line outside of a Sprint store across from the Lansing Mall. I won’t lie, this seemed a little crazy to me. I had already been through many Apple hype cycles and this seemed to be just another marketing scheme from the mind of Steve Jobs. It was, kind of, but also:

The iPhone changed everything

There’s no questioning this fact.

However, initially, folks didn’t know what to do with this technology.

Right around the same time a series of Apple ads began running with the tagline ‘there’s an app for that...’

See one of the original ads here:

Lansing’s 5-10 years behind

As with so many things, Apple was ahead of the curve and as one of Lansing premier design entrepreneurs once told me, ‘Lansing’s about 5-10 years behind the national trend.’ So, for website design, and it’s outgrowth, mobile design, that put Lansing like 10-15 years behind where Apple was.

‘Bummer…’ I remember thinking. But then, as now, he wasn’t wrong and Lansing website design and mobile development has been trying to catch up ever since.

See, nobody told Lansing that they were 5-10 years behind the national trends, so when people saw ads for apps, they wanted one. Those of us who were doing website design in Lansing at that time saw many apps come and go. That first wave, the Version 1.0 app period, as I sometimes call it, generated a lot of money, a lot of hype and a lot of really useless apps. Version 1.0 of anything often suffers from this type of thing.

‘There’s an app for that’ became the new: ‘If you build it, they will come‘

As a proud skeptic, I steered many of my clients away from the money pit that was mobile app development at that time. Within a couple years, m-dot and then mobile responsive websites were able to do much of the work that apps had promised without the development cost. Also, there was no need to submit apps to a Google/Apple approval process and no need to maintain two different, independent codebases.

However, being skeptical wasn’t the big reason I steered a lot of folks away from apps. The real reasoning was that I knew their users would never use them, because through statistics and user research I could see that their users often didn’t have a user-base that possessed the technology to use a mobile app.

If, as your service provider, I know that something won’t get used because I have the data insight to prove it, I would be an unethical crook to take your money to create it. I want long-lasting relationships with my clients. I’m not looking for a quick pay-out and to move on to the next town. This is old fashioned, probably, but it’s very, very important to me. I want my website design clients in Lansing to be satisfied and well-informed.

And that gets us to the point of this article: Mobile development and design is expensive. Sometimes the expense is worth it, sometimes it’s not, but you won’t know until you do your user research. If your user research shows that there’s a hunger for an app, now you know, build on. If your user research says that they want a website for use over a slow rural DSL, build that. Either way – Start with user research.

What do you know about your users? Do you want to know more about your users. Please get in touch here. I’m fortunate to be one of a few website designers in Lansing who’s also experienced in leading and designing user research. Let me put my experience to work for you.

Great Web Design = Great User Experience

by

I love doing web design in Lansing.  Many folks think of it as a creative act. On some level, that’s true. However, web design is all about meeting user needs. Non-profit associations have members, small businesses have customers and web designers have users; these are the groups that we aim to please with our work. Pleasing them comes in many forms: Great service, reliability, affordability, ease of use. It’s the last one that I want to talk about.

For years, ease of use, or what we know as ‘user friendly’ was hard to nail down. You knew it if you saw it, but you might not be able to explain it. Human-centered design, or user-centered design, as it’s sometimes known, gave us a guidebook to making websites that were easy to use. These days folks call this user experience design. Some use the terms web design, user experience design and UI (user interface) design interchangeably. Words matter, but what’s important is that we’re thinking about the user’s needs when doing web design.

For me, when I’m doing web design, I’m always thinking about the user and the user’s experience with the website I’m designing. Are they going to be seeing the website at their desk or on their mobile phone, are they older or younger? Users vary, as they do in most locations, but you can always count on a mix of ages, demographics, mobile and desktop users. My experience doing web design in Lansing has shown me that I have to aim for the middle: How can I create a great web design and user experience for all types of users?

This is where I practice user-centered design.

Here’s a diagram of how it works: 

Is your Lansing web design firm focusing on user-centered design? Are your members, customers and users their focus when they’re doing web design for you? If not or you’re not sure, get in touch today. Your users are our #1 priority.

The 5 Most Popular Website Design Types

by

Website design types vary, but in my 20 years of doing web design, I’ve worked on all of them. Blogs, eCommerce sites, event websites, online magazines, business websites, nonprofit websites, web forums, portfolio websites. You name it and I’ve probably worked on a few.

Because many of my clients are new to website design, I wanted to create a list of popular website designs. I don’t consider this an exhaustive list. However, 90% of my work falls into one of these categories.

Brochure Website

The brochure-style website is the most popular style of website that I’ve worked on; think of this type of website as an online brochure or virtual business card. It’s usually short and to the point. This type of site is under ten pages and usually focuses on a product or service. Typically, you can make contact via the website, learn about hours and locations. I include restaurants, auto repair shops and other ‘mainstreet’ businesses in this category. I also call this style of website design  “brochureware”.

Informational (Small Business and Non-profit) Website 

The informational website design is for small businesses and non-profits. While this website design is similar to the  brochure style it contains more information. This website could include information around bylaws, financials, organizational mission, vision, locations and ways to connect with officers and staff. This website design is kind of like a grown-up brochure website; more responsibilities and user needs to serve.

eCommerce Website

The eCommerce website can be standalone like Amazon or eBay or it can be integrated into larger informational website. For instance, a small business website for a restaurant might also have eCommerce functionality to purchase gift cards. A non-profit website might sell things related to their mission, such as a construction safety organization that also sells discounted safety equipment to its members. The eCommerce website style varies, but it’s always transactional with the buying or selling of goods and services as its core call-to-action.

Event and Event Registration Website

At the intersection of the eCommerce and informational website is the event and event registration website. I think of the event website design as one that showcases events and provides a way to register online. Event websites can be standalone such as for music festivals or religious gatherings. I’ve also integrated event websites into eCommerce and informational websites. For example, a small business could sell trainings, where a user could register to attend.  A non-profit might hold retreats or seminars where a user can register and buy tickets online.

Blog/Online Magazine/Content Website

The blog, online magazine or content website(i.e. Vice, YouTube or Pinterest) is designed for users to engage and interact with content. Content takes many forms: Watching funny cat videos, looking at retro interior design photos, reading about putting Ikea furniture together or just the daily news. These are the oldest kinds of websites: People going online expressing their views, perspectives and life experiences and sharing them with others. These types of sites have been around for a long time, but they haven’t changed. ‘Content is King’ and  creating fresh content is central to getting website visits and good search rankings.

That’s it, in a nutshell.

When I work on a website design, the goal is always the same: Help the user complete a task quickly. In order to help the user, you have to understand the user and which kinds of website designs work best.

Getting it Right – Navigating Web Design Ambiguity

by

 

Jonathan Walter has written a great article, Navigating Ambiguity, at UX Matters. It’s part of a series of columns that focuses on enterprise UX, or as he puts it ‘designing experiences for people at work’ – That’s what drew me in, initially because there’s much written about new development and design from a UX perspective, but enterprise work is often the overlooked and neglected ‘other’ that’s not considered very glamorous and doesn’t get the attention it deserves where UX is concerned.

As I began reading the article, thought, I realized that he was a kindred spirit of sorts, because I use the phrases: “Navigating ambiguity” or in jest, “parsing the nebula” just about every day when solving problems with digital experience and software functionality development, roadmapping, etc. We, individually, and as a team, have to understand what we’re trying to do before we can map it, plan it, work on it, but particularly, deliver it. Jonathan provides some great insights on that.

Get comfortable with not knowing everything

Jonathan writes:

“Even in situations in which you feel alone in your lack of knowledge, you must become comfortable with saying, “I don’t know.” In his Forbes article, “The Power of Saying ‘I Don’t Know’,” Gaurav Gupta states: “We are conditioned to having and providing quick, confident answers as a sign of competence and leadership. We behave as though any gaps in knowledge should be hidden at all cost. But is this desire to have an answer—and have it quickly—actually helping you? How often do we trade factual accuracy and thoughtfulness for immediacy? Why do people find it so hard to say, ‘I don’t know’?”

Ask (the right) questions

I would say, just ask question, as you don’t know what you don’t know. It’s a journey of a thousand miles, start with one step. Additionally, Jonathan adds:

“…ask the following W questions to reduce ambiguity and approach a problem from a higher-level perspective:
  • What problems does this product or capability solve?
  • Who will use it?
  • Why will they use it?
  • When or in which context will they use it?
“…Once you understand this high-level information, you can ask progressively more specific questions.”

Provide a vision

This has been hugely important for me. I never had any idea how often I’d have to repeat, dramatize, articulate and visually represent my vision for product or experience. Jonathan puts a finer point on this that I really appreciate:

“…your vision—even if it is overly aspirational or flawed—provides a North Star that product-team members can keep in sight as they develop a product. It can also serve as a useful artifact for identifying which features are in scope for early releases and which you should defer to later releases. “Just take care to avoid leading stakeholders to believe that the vision is final.”

I’ve only scratched the surface on Jonathan’s great article, but I highly recommend you give it a read; if you’re interested in UX and process, you won’t be disappointed and the information is as practical and steeped in experience as it is easy to understand and put into practice. Again, you can find that article here.

For web design – Use your backlog!

by

Screen Shot 2018-04-11 at 8.18.27 AM(Graphic courtesy of of this deck from Reinhart De Lille)

 

Interesting article here by Guy Ligertwood – 11 Valuable Lessons I Learned While Working in the Real World of UX. The article, as a whole, got me thinking about the difficulties of agile, UX and specifically some thoughts around my early days of of backlog grooming and development.

Guy writes:

“Put it in the backlog and we’ll get back to it (never)”

 

Sadly, Guy’s not far from the mark. Frequently what goes into the backlog just doesn’t get revisited, mostly because it’s the non-priority, non-MVP (minimum viable product) options that get left behind (See the ‘Backlog Iceberg’ above). Movie editors will talk about losing parts of a story to the cutting room floor; Product manager’s lose stuff that isn’t a priority in the backlog. Backlogs are intended to be living and breathing documents that, especially during the critical start up phase, get much attention, but as market priorities shift, new products are released and organizational focuses evolve, older but not less useful backlog items get neglected. More than once, even right now as I type these lines, I can think of great functionality and features that didn’t make it into a releases I had hoped… the ones that got away… Well, maybe not ‘got away’ because as a Product Manager you have to hold on to those ideas, functionality and features for the right time.

Guy further writes:

“We hear lots about doing the best for the customer and in lots of cases we do, at first. The problem lies when we don’t get back to iterating on designs when delivering becomes more important…”

Again, Guy’s not wrong. As a product manager, you have to always be on your toes — Thinking, grooming and prepping the backlog, because iterations and sprints move quickly and they won’t wait for you. Nailing your cadence, watching the team’s velocity, negotiating stories, etc. are all the things that will keep you prepped and ready to hand off wishlist features and functionality that might not have made it into to early releases. If used consistently, the backlog can be the product manager’s best friend. If we’re doing our jobs as product manager’s well, there will be very few features that ‘got away’…