Gaining Insights

So much of UX is about gaining insights from our users, so that we can better solve their problems. In the widely followed design thinking process from d.school, we can get to insights by following the non-linear phases of Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test, Assess. This is a tried and true process that allows designers to solve human-centric problems.

However, there is a way to breakdown the “Ideate” section further, to create even more expansive ideas.

In Seeing What Others Don't: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights, Gary Klein details two parts to our “thinking” about a problem. First is an incubation phase, where we stop consciously thinking about the problem and let our unconscious mind take over. We put it on the shelf, relegate it to the back burners, not forgotten but not actively engaged with. He advises to “seek out mental relaxation and stop thinking about the problem.” Next, comes the illumination stage, “when insight bursts forth with conciseness, suddenness, and immediate certainty.” The aha moment.

If we lean into the two loops of incubation and illumination on any given design-thinking process, how can we optimize these loops to yield more and better insights? During illumination, while the conscious mind wanders, the unconscious engages in what Einstein called “combinatory play” - taking diverse ideas and inputs and finding new ways to bring them together.

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STAND-UP EXERCISE

“But insight cannot be taken back. You cannot return to the moment you were in before.” ― Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

How do you define insights - both as an individual and as a team?

How can you further exploit the incubation and illumination loops to reach more insights? What do you do to help incubate an idea? Are you spending enough time on this portion of ideation?

Evangelizing UX

Even organizations that have had UX practitioners for some time may find themselves in the situation of needing to defend their practice or processes. While generally speaking, everyone agrees that “we must listen to the users”, the ferocity in which UX approaches this can be off-putting to other disciplines. Folks in Marketing for example might feel that they can achieve necessary results without input from UX.

“Evangelizing UX is a never-ending process and requires perseverance. Knowing what’s good for UX is good for your organization provides a great incentive for driving the UX message home every opportunity you get.”

— Pabini Gabriel-Petit, Editor of UXMatters

UX can be a constant act in persuasion of stakeholders. But luckily, persuasion is convincing someone through reason, and it can be easy to align UX with business goals. If you can prove to stakeholders, on their terms, that usability improvements will help them meet their revenue or conversion goals, those improvements have a high chance of being implemented.

So how you get the word out is important. One way is soliciting involvement of folks across the organization. Reviewing a wireframe and asking for feedback can be done by anyone in the organization, as can usability testing. Asking stakeholders to actively get into the mindset of the user through these activities can be a valuable exercise to reframe their needs and benefits. There are other hands-on ways to involve others and evangelize detailed in this video by the Interaction Design Foundation. The most important part is making user experience an accessible and understandable concept by the entire business, and then continually using UX principles and gains to move the needle on improving both the user-focused product and the bottom line.

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STAND-UP EXERCISE

Ask the team to read or skim “Evangelizing UX Across an Entire Organization” from UXMatters and/or watch the above video from the Interaction Design Foundation. Start a discussion with how can we continue to or ramp up our current efforts with evangelizing UX within the broader organization. What are some tangible ways we can advocate for our practice area or get our message out to a wider audience? How can we better distribute our findings? Who should we be specifically targeting with this message / who should we be talking to that we aren’t?

Inclusive Language

As product leaders, we have the ability to set the tone in product teams and working groups. For the culture of the ream, it is therefore necessary that the language we use be inclusive and accurate. Using appropriate terminology is a vital part of being an effective communicator. Using inclusive language is a way of showing consideration for everyone we work with, and goes far beyond asking someone their pronouns (though that is important too!)

Once you begin to really listen, using inclusive vocabulary simply makes more sense. It is often times more illustrative and interpretable, in addition to being more welcoming. The most important thing is to avoid hurtful, stereotypical language that makes groups or individuals feel excluded, misunderstood, and/or disrespected. One way to do that is by focusing on plain language, which is words or phrases your audience can understand the first time they read or hear it, no cultural context needed.

The Information Technology team at University of Washington put together a site that explains why language is important in IT as well as problematic vocabulary and substitutes. This is the best resource I’ve seen regarding specific language used in technology teams. And it is not just academic institutions evaluating and changing their language. Github renamed their branches in 2020 to move away from previous language that had racist origins. Buffer has an informative article that is a bit of a primer about thinking through the greater principles of inclusive language in technology.

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STAND-UP EXERCISE

Have your teams look through the list put together by UW-IT. What language have they found themselves or their teams using that is on this list? What has made them uncomfortable in the past? What alternatives might be acceptable?

Sharing Knowledge

Sharing knowledge has many benefits, as outlined in this Northwestern article “Knowledge Sharing: Leveraging Trust and Leadership to Increase Team Performance”. But beyond performance it also helps team members connect and become stronger as professionals.

However, communication within a team or from one team to another is often difficult, and so it is always good to practice those skills. One way to do that is help folks identify what types of information would be useful to others. Types of information could be isolated into categories around - info/training on tools and processes, updates to project work or product enhancements, new capabilities discovered, or pain points / risks that have been found or escalated. When we come across this type of information, who should it be communicated to - internal team members, other teams (dependent or not), leadership, external vendors, users, etc.

Learning good communication skills can start small. Stand-ups can help stretch those knowledge sharing skills.

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STAND-UP EXERCISE

Go round-robin with the questions:
What is one thing that someone else on the team could benefit from knowing you are working on? Said another way - what is one interesting thing you've learned/done in your work recently?

Measuring Burnout

I suggest everyone on my team keep an eye on Product Hunt at some level. It is a great place to see a wide variety of new apps and platforms across a variety of verticals, and can reveal useful products for both our business and personal lives, or just be a source of inspiration. On their site one of my UX designers pointed me towards Care, a burnout prevention tool for remote teams.

The Care app/site is both an assessment tool and a recommendation engine. After a quiz, it scores your stress, focus, and recovery level, and then provides potential fixes in the categories of personal well-being and team health. They offer a Slack plug-in or an online assessment. The assessments are free, or you can sign up your teams for a subscription and see even more metrics, comparisons, and recommendations.

Understanding your team’s burnout levels is always important, but perhaps even more so in this age of labor-market upheavals, evolving work-from-home norms, and macroeconomic uncertainties. With remote teams that can be even more difficult, as creating a maintaining personal connections is more difficult, as well as understanding someone’s true input / work hours. While burnout is often a result of exacerbated workplace stressors, it is not just a couple companies experiencing burnout culture; it is everywhere, as this American Psychological Association article details.

The first steps are understanding where your team members see themselves in terms of stress and burnout. Then you can look to the solutions, for themselves and their teams.

Note: burnout can/does affect all participants in a workplace. As a product leader, be sure you are also checking in on your managers / yourself.

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STAND-UP EXERCISE

Have your team take the free self-assessment from Care prior to stand-up. You as a leader will be able to see the team’s overall results. Discuss with them if they were surprised by any part of the assessment. Were there any questions they wished were asked that weren’t? Is the action plan that was provided feasible or unrealistic? Are there items missing? What are ways in which we can combat burnout culture as a team? (Perhaps have those interested read this Entrepreneur article “5 Ways Leaders Can Fight Burnout Culture”.)

Encourage your product managers to perform this exercise with their own teams, and discuss how product teams can support each other.