2020 reading roundup: adopt a test & learn mentality

As year 2020 comes to a close, and as I archive my day planner, mounds of sticky notes, and work journals for the year, I found a few quotes and insights I highly recommend to my community of UX professionals. Do you make it a practice to ask yourself how the next thing you design can maximize your opportunity to learn about your business, brand and users?

"Customer feedback is information you collect from your customers about their experience with your product, service, website, or business as a whole. You can use this feedback to improve customer experience by removing or reducing areas of friction and increasing positive touchpoints."

Hotjar's Understanding Customer Experience

"Expertise can be the gradual accumulation of many modest insights."

James Clear’s Blog | Author of Atomic Habits

"This generation has never been more informed than ever, but at the same time remarkably not reflective."

Unknown

"it’s critical to track the effects of your experiments both quantitatively and qualitatively”

“Whether we use KPI’s, Usability, Credibility, or other measures, having an imbalance in either direction leads to a lot of guessing.”

Business Thinking for Designers

“Always Have two goals when testing hypotheses…

The key to creating good product experiments is to start with two viability goals at once: a primary goal that changes and a secondary goal that stays the same. In other words, the primary goal is something the team wants to achieve without losing something else…

For example: Our (primary) goal is to increase revenue while keeping costs the same (secondary).”

Designing with Data

Bonus book recommendations

Make Time

• Incredible collection of practical and easy productivity tactics to maximize the finite hours of your day. From the creators of GV's Sprint.

7 Habits of Highly Effective People

• This 'old school' book is incredible for any working human. Having read it later in life I’ve realized it’s the clear foundation for many other popular business leadership and productivity books that followed it. This book is actually in my list of top 10 non-fiction books of all time. I officially understand what all the the hype is about following Franklin Covey and the years of success the organization has had helping professionals. I especially recommend this read to graduating High School or College students just coming in to the working world.

Review: Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller

I recently stumbled upon the Building a Story Brand book at an airport kiosk. After a quick skim I found the writing style refreshingly concise and compelling. Before the end of my flight I had read the entire book and discovered author Donald Miller’s equally interesting podcast and online course geared for busy marketing and sales professionals to clarify their brand’s message by framing their value proposition message around the age old Hollywood hero's journey story arc. 

Value proposition messaging

As an experienced designer day to day I totally agree with Miller's mantra that getting your brand message dialed is arguably the most important foundation underlying sales collateral design, especially marketing websites, and sales PDFs.

Note: this book does not cover the value prop canvas but is getting very clear on marketing sales pitch messaging, and design.

In essence, the book encourages the creative or business stakeholder (you) to orient your business’s offering to take your hand as the magical oracle guide to be lead to a new world of pain relief by way of a a predictable, outlined journey to win the day.

As we know as User Experience Designers, understanding our customer's pain point is an essential prerequisite to crafting compelling copy and content design. Once the headache type is understood, we can cleverly agitate that pain through psychological levers or inspiring motivation and present our brand as a trustworthy relationship that serves the resolution.

7 essential parts to every story brand

• Main character

  • The customer, AKA the Hero trying to win the day

• The Problem

  • The pain point you've identified in the customer to which your brand provides pain relief, wisdom, etc.

• The Guide

  • The brand, the business, the service provided, the voice articulating the value proposition…(take my hand)

• The Plan

  • A clear articulation of what your customer is expected to do with you (the brand) to achieve a mutually understood notion of success

• Call to action

  • The action to take, such as contacting sales, submitting a web form, adding a product to a cart, checking out, and waiting for a package to arrive...

• Stake if fail (loss)

  • The FOMO...agitating what life will likely continue to be without your product in their life

• Stakes if succeed (win)

  • Reiteration of what success will look, feel, taste like, etc.

Exercise outline: creating value proposition website sections

• A. The Header

  • i. Does it answer the questions: 

    • What are you offering?

    • How does it make our customers’ lives better?

    • Where can I buy it?

    • How can they buy it?

  • ii. Do the pictures you intend to use support the sales pitch or confuse customers about what you are selling?

• B. The Stakes

  • i. What is life going to look like if the customer does not buy your product or service?

  • ii. What negative experiences are you keeping your customers from having to deal with?

• C. The Value Proposition

  • i. What positive results will a customer receive if they buy your product?

  • ii. What does your customer’s life look like if they buy your product or service?

• D. The Guide

  • i. Empathy: what empathetic statement can you make that expresses your care, concern, or understanding about your customer’s problem?

  • ii. Authority: how can you reassure your customers you are competent to solve their problem?

  • iii. Testimonials iv. Other: logos, statistics

• E. The Plan

  • i. Three or four steps: What is the path a customer needs to take before or after buying your product?

  • ii. What are the benefits of each of those steps?

• F. The Explanatory Paragraph

  • i. Simply use your one-liner* followed by your BrandScript script to make this section simple, clear, and easy.

• G. The Video (optional)

  • i. Decide on video

  • ii. Decide on title

• H. Price Choices (optional)

  • i. How will you visually display the price or prices of this product?

• I. Junk Drawer

  • Misc. information, anything else you feel is compelling to say or include.

Buy the book!

The book is an excellent read and these highlights I found most interesting are no replacement for reading the full text. Purchase it here, and explore the podcast! I receive no kickback for sales proceeds, I’m simply advocating UX Designers and my readers consider this cool shot in the arm book for better understanding marketing experience design.

5 Great Design Books for Your UX Library

Starting a UX library in your studio? Here’s a list of some of my favorite UX books and a few key takeaways. Enjoy!

A Project Guide to UX Design

By Carolyn Chandler, Russ Unger

There are a ton of well-reviewed books and readers for the general UX practitioner available. However, this one still stands out on my shelf as a great primer to get your head around UX for most projects. The project guide illustrates how UX Design connects multiple design disciplines including business strategy, research, interaction design, and engineering.

Explore Book (GoodReads)

Now, Discover Your Strengths

By Marcus Buckingham, Donald O. Clifton

I first learned of this book listening to a video blog from UX designer, Sarah Doody. The book is a well researched albeit prescriptive method devised to make you aware of your innate professional talents and intuitions and learn how to best harness them in the workplace. Arguably, It's most sustainable to build your career around your natural superpowers and curiosities above pure ambition and will. Check out this book and accompanying assessment (worth it) and you might be enlightened.

Explore Book (GoodReads)

Lean UX

By Jeff Gothelf

An extension to the canonical book, The Lean Startup, Lean UX provides an ultra-concise, principled overview of UX Design’s role in agile projects. It also provides thoughtful, sustainable action steps for integrating the lean approach to organizations of various shapes and sizes.

Few of my favorite takeaways:

• Progress = outcomes, not output.

• Create the first version of the thing rather than spending half the day debating its merits in a conference room.

• Emphasize learning first and scaling second.

• Figure out what you’re trying to learn, and the fastest way you can learn it.

• Created a shared understanding of design problems and solutions.

• Collaborate: creating together increases the design IQ of the entire team.

Explore Book (GoodReads)

Everybody Writes

By Ann Handley

The more screens I design, the more I appreciate the value of written communication as a digital designer’s skillset. Understanding the people who use the product your designing should include comprehending how to communicate with them naturally, contextually and with relevance to their needs through the business lens. This book will help you write with intention and consistency for the web and in business communication in general. I picked up this book up on a whim and am so glad I did. 

Explore Book (GoodReads)

Universal Methods of Design

By Bella Martin, Bruce M. Hanington

100 design techniques to try when approaching a design challenge. Concise summary of each method and good perspective on usage.

Explore Book (GoodReads)

Conclusion

Tangible books may be a slowly dying technology as digital formats take over. Thankfully, all of these titles are available in digital format. Either way you prefer to read, I suggest taking notes in the margins of books or on sticky notes. And once you’ve completed any great book, try synthesizing your notes to help a friend or colleague understand a few of the most valuable highlights. Educating someone else is a great way to retain newly gathered information.

Happy Reading!

Design is a Job

Here are a few anecdotes from an amazing book I picked up called, Design is a Job (Dan Brown). It's a concise, and powerful jolt of wisdom and philosophy that's relevant to any designer working today. Get the book here.

Some key points: 

• While working constantly ask yourself ‘why am i doing this and who benefits’. 
• Don’t work in a bubble for too long:
• No tasks longer than 2 weeks
• Pull in other team members to validate your progress direction.
• Instead of 1, 12 week project, go for 12, 1 week projects when estimating/scoping projects.
• Prioritize lists visually and keep it concise or you'll lose motivation.
• Make more small choices/decisions, its easier when you're wrong.
• Don't copy competitors. Establish your value props against them. 
• Be proud about providing less, especially if you’re a small business. It can be easier and more quality focused.
• Build an audience by teaching them stuff! Be Informative and educational over promotional. It will create more loyalty.
• Be genuine in all you do. Imperfections can foster real connection.
• Writing is today's currency for good ideas. Hire the person who can write better (no matter what job it is).
• Don't try to hide or spin bad news to your customers—the truth will eventually surface anyway.
• If you Apologize, accept responsibility, explain your actions to prevent it occurring next time. Think how you'd feel if you were given 'that' apology.
• Get back to people quickly. Answer personally.
• "Culture is the byproduct of consistent behavior." Don’t force culture.
• If you're small company don't be afraid to sound 'small' in your tone of voice.
• Write to be read. Keep personality.
• Save emergency language for real emergencies!

Get the book here.

Review: Articulating Design Decisions by Tom Greever

I recently finished Articulating Design Decisions: Communicate with Stakeholders, Keep Your Sanity, and Deliver the Best User Experiences by Tom Greever, and have to say it is one of the most useful design books now on my shelf. Regardless of what type of designer you are, this book is highly relevant, well-written and includes a ton of great insights for helping you make your case, and follow a sound strategy that anyone on your team can understand and adapt to.

Here are some of my favorite quotes and takeaways from the book. 

Empowering Design

Position your designers high enough in your business hierarchy to make and influence product decisions. Your app must connect with your audience on an emotional and contextual level to foster any notion of engagement. In a nutshell, your app, website, social media channel content are your brand, and designers iterative and abstract problem solving and insight, are as if not more valuable than the pleasing photoshop graphics they can make.

"Your ability to properly set, justify, and communicate expectations is more important then your ability to crank out killer designs on a daily basis."

Meetings

Meetings can easily become a circus of distraction and inaction without an effective design leader knows who knows how to properly set the stage for a productive, accountable dialogue regarding design decisions.

Use shared, living documents for your meeting notes (GoogleDrive). Every design meeting you hold should have an agenda plotted in the meeting notes ahead of time with attendee names, prioritized discussion items, and a section for follow-up tasks. Respecting everyone's perspective and insight is as great a skill as knowing when to speak. Always send a recap of each meeting within an hour and provide all attendees opportunity to comment.

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place”

“Lock in agreement. Put them in a position of needing to respond to you and keep the project moving forward."

“Before we move on, are we all in agreement?"

Ego

Designers need to understand self-awareness in order to more objectively see where their ego, personal taste, and and self-fulfilling biasses end and objective design work begins.

“The reasons why something went wrong is not nearly as important as fixing the problem.”

“When your ego is getting in the way that value is lost…Anytime you think that you're right and they are wrong you should be cautious.”

“By removing your ego, you create the space you need to form a response that will be based in reality and logic instead of opinion and stereotypes."

“Give up control of the outcome so that we can allow other people to provide feedback on the project."

“No matter how great you think your designs are, if the problem still exists, you are wrong.”

 

Stakeholder TIPS

“We have to approach our stakeholders with the same care that we would our loved ones."

“Propose something, even if it's wrong. Hopefully, that will give you the space you need to continue the dialogue without feeling like everything's going to be ruined unless you solve it now."

“Build in some space for you to regroup and consider the best approach, even when you agree with what's being proposed."

Design Iteration

A clickable prototype maybe faster to create than explaining it with documentation and diagrams.

“Any solution you propose – even when it's not ideal – will create a conversation that demonstrates there are more ways to address this problem."

“Remember that data tells you what the user did but not why."

“Remove the word “like” from your vocabulary. Ask questions to uncover thought process so because your feedback on designs not the designer review work in advance and have a list of questions or concerns ready for the designer."

If any of this interests you, grab a copy of this book. It makes a great case and is extremely well articulated and applicable.

• Buy on Amazon
• More reviews on GoodReads