Designer Hangout AMA - The Business of UX
Crowdcast link to the original webinar
Bobby Meeks from Autozone started out when UX was called “customer advocacy,” designing nurses stations in hospitals. Then onto FedEx and accessibility.
Bobby has a great boss at Autozone. You have to have an executive sponsor who knows design and business!
He learned design thinking from peers, conferences, and webinars. Soak up all you can!
For UX culture change, you need:
- Top-level exec sponsoring design (it’ll take time!)
- Allies on the ground.
- A need to change the world!
Autozone nurtures growth in the company, but loses customer focus in the process. “Personas are key to engaging the audience.” Personas communicate user research to executives, and make them empathize with customer. And execs love to share their knowledge!
Being patient with managers during culture change in the hardest thing. Get them engaged! “This will be a long meeting!”
Executives are used to their own silos. “Let them talk,” then decide where they best fit.
A company that’s “too much design-centric” is a nice problem to have! The best designers trust limitations and feedback.
“Get 3 ideas, don’t be bothered if they hate it.” -advice from Bobby’s former boss. Give them 1 to 2 to have, they’ll pick one!
The person who reins in designers has to be their boss.
Designers have to face reality of the business solution. “Who is the biggest moneymaker?” Is the solution worth it?
Get personas into the convo, so you have a place to start with execs.
Many times, the “resources to make things happen just aren’t there” regarding maintenance. You need patience, it’s tough!
When you have a client already with concrete features, it’s a “tough spot! Depends on what you’re paid to do.” Do sticky note exercise voting.
Good UX is expensive. It involves delicate relationship of confidence and trust.
Client who already with concrete features—“tough spot! Depends on what you’re paid to do.” Do sticky note exercise voting.
Good UX is expensive, it involves delicate relationship of confidence and trust.
Business owners and designers need to trust each other for success together. Pick relationships over little battles.
“People don’t like being told they’re stupid!” You have to trust the design process. “Never shoot anything down!”
Bobby mentions Airbnb changing star to heart—engagement ⬆️ 30%! It’s about relationships.
Rapid prototyping with tools like Sketch or Invision is the future. Get good tools, but it depends on needs. “Every musician needs to find their own instrument.” So many low-cost tools out there to prototype with.
“Everything starts out with a sketch on paper.” Though Bobby Meeks can do a quick Sketch prototype in 30 min. That’s important to execs! Execs “love shiny objects” to justify their UX dept. Use the right tool to show audience. YMMV!
Inventorying features and getting execs engaged in prioritizing them is important. Hard to get them together, but worth it!
Years of design experience gives you good intuition about who you’re designing for.
Legacy is hard on longtime employees! Restricts design but “something to be said for old things that just work.”
“If you have to persuade your direct manager, they don’t really trust you.” Need more time or work or vision. C-suite execs need research and financial proof. Do that research!
If it’s a great UX and will help the customer, “you don’t really need to sell it.”
You always need to make a case for anything that costs money. Sell you, sell your experience to get resources. Since Bobby’s work at Autozone is in-stores, he can pop into the stores and do impromptu user research!
“You need healthy respect with what can and can’t be done with tech” Know code, but focus hard if you do both at once.
“How do I make it easy for someone who’s never sold car parts to sell it to a customer who doesn’t know cars?” re: Autozone work.
A company who assumes direct customer feedback equals UX is tough. “You gotta jump on it. Work on it while you can, later.”
“Beating the accessibility drum” gets people paying attention. But selling to execs requires empathy. Test, make sure design is compliant yourself.
For gauging actual user reactions and not opinions, Bobby uses Screencast-o-matic. Watch for facial reactions, and mouse-hovering! Users often still their mouse when confused. Definitely do not ask users if they like something—they’ll say yes to move on.
“If you’re battling selling yourself to someone who has no idea what you’re selling, anything you do will sound sales pitch-y.” This is why top-level exec buy-in is so important!)
Re: evangelizing UX in tough environment: “patience is power.” Plant seed, leave it time to grow. Give people tools. “We UXers all have each other’s backs!”