Comments on: Article: Building and Managing a Successful User Experience Team

By: Sokol Domniku

Sokol Domniku — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 13:10:58 +0000

User Experience team are very usefull. Not just because of their celerity to contribute for different develomeninng aspect’s for the organisation, but the knowledge that is most important in this case to be escort to the other members of the group.

By: Web Strategy by Jeremiah » Web Strategy: Beyond Usablity –Designing using ‘Bottom Up’ Techniques and Mental Models

Mon, 07 Aug 2006 16:06:27 +0000

[...] At many large web companies (I’ve friends in several of these groups) there are entire teams devote to each one of these layers of user experience. At smaller companies, a small group of folks has to cover many of these. Learn more about UX teams from Jared Spool. [...]

By: Daniel Szuc

Daniel Szuc — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 05:34:52 +0000

Design Wall:

Hi Shane, we are doing that very thing at the moment on a project.

Where we have made a small cubicle called the *UX Design Studio* pinning up not only the process before builds, but wireframe sketches, design treatments and providing an opportunity for people to visibly see what is being produced. Its great!

We also have a number of people coming by to visit, look at the walls and we have worked out a system of moving current work (sketches) from one part of the wall to the right as it moves foward and then archives.

Very cool!

By: Zoe

Zoe — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 19:37:52 +0000

I’m the lead designer at a university department. I’ve been really interested in starting to perform usability tests on our sites instead of just blindly producing work and hoping that our users are following our assumptions of who they are, what they want, and how they interact with our sites. I’ve had interest from my teammates about pursuing this, but my problem is that I’ve never performed usability testing. I’ve read about it, so I have some idea how it might go, but what I desparately want is to sit in on a usability test to see how it’s done first-hand. I feel this would make me feel much more confident to go out and start trying to implement a UX team where I work. Does anyone have any ideas of how I could sit in on usability testing? I’d love to find a local usability mentor.

By: Kurt Morris

Kurt Morris — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 12:51:24 +0000

As long as we’re talking UX, may I point out that hyperlinking “here” (”You can read the interview here.”) is generaly considered sub-optimal? It would be much more useful to the user, for example, to drop that sentence, and instead hyperlink the verb “interviewed” earlier in the paragraph.

This would be especially helpful on this page, as the hyperlinked “here” construct is used twice, and in successive paragraphs — I can’t scan the page as readily, since I have to stop to suss out which “here” the link is leading me.

UX isn’t only visual/interaction design. Usability implicitly includes content as well.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 07:47:09 +0000

What a timely article! UX teams seem to be a real flavour of the moment in the UK, where once it was the role of the lone ranger - literally - solely defending the usefulness of UCD.

By: Mia

Mia — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 00:38:30 +0000

It was interesting to read of the roles suggested for a successful UX team and the flexibility of how many people can fulfill these roles. We’ve had several internal discussions about how this team should be structured and what job titles we should use.
The User Experience team at my workplace is made of ‘producers’, who are responsible for interaction design, IA and usability initiatives, and a ‘web designer’, who leads the visual design effort.
The UX team is part of the Product Management department, so we have a very close relationship with the product managers and share business goals. This works well: they are as committed to user-centred design as we are, because they know the result is a more competitive, profitable and preferred web site.
The web designer role was originally in the IT department and we recently shifted it into the UX team. This has proven invaluable as the person can be closer to the strategy and goals of an initiative and we can prioritise their time to be much more involved in user-based evaluations, prototyping etc. instead of them just reacting to a brief and churning through design production.
The ‘producers’ all have different strengths and backgrounds: one person is strong on content, another on usability, two on interaction design, although we all perform tasks across the board.
Our UX team’s growth will focus on bringing in people with specific strengths to fill the gaps, and enabling us to separate design and evaluation, to reduce bias.

By: Shane Morris

Shane Morris — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 00:06:43 +0000

Sarah and Susan mention a few techniques for promoting UX work within the organisation. I thought I’d add one of my favourites: design walls. I’ve had success on many projects by simply sticking up UX work artefacts (especially design ideas) in a high-traffic area of the organisation and soliciting feedback. Whether or not you get feedback, it’s a great way to get across the message that, yes, someone is taking responsibility for the UI!

By: Donna Colarossi

Donna Colarossi — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 19:40:48 +0000

Excellent article. I am interested in other suggestions and ideas that proved successful.

By: Jennifer Dolan

Jennifer Dolan — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 18:40:46 +0000

I agree with many of the points raised by Susan and Sarah. I started a usability/UCD function at my company, and I too started with usability testing. That was the easiest way to dive in - by starting to prove the benefits using an existing project. Eventually, I started to work my way further and further back in the project lifecycle.

I also agree that tailoring the message of UX work to your specific audience is key. Helping each project team role understand the benefits that apply to them specifically goes a long way.