PRODUCT MANAGEMENT + UXARIEL SNAPP

About Me• Global enterprise, remote disbursed teams • 18 UX / UI practitioners varying level of skill

and expertise • UX Director/Manager • UX Leads, UX Strategists, UX Research,

Analytic and Insight • UX Design, UI Design, UI Front End

Engineering

• Mother• Leader• Manager• Designer• Strategist• Marketer• Synthesizer• Artist• Innovator• Writer

About My Team

Topics  Product Manager and User Experience:

Definition and Application to Job Roles

  Feedback study: themes and quotes

  What makes great teams?

  UX as a Mindset: Being User Focused

  Q&A

WHAT IS UX? !!!

WHAT IS PRODUCT MANAGEMENT?

User Experience (UX), noun –

User Experience is the practice that informs the design of a system’s user interface. This encompasses all aspects of an end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products.

A user interface is not User Experience. User Experience focuses on the study of, and improving how a user interacts with a system’s user interface.

“User experience is the changing feelings that a user gets when using a device, service or system.”

- Christian Kraft

Product Management

“to discover a product that is valuable, usable and feasible.”

– Marty Cagan

PRODUCT MANAGER + USER EXPERIENCE ROLES

Source: Nick Kellingly

INFORMAL STUDY: UNDERSTANDING THE PRODUCT MANAGER & UX/UI RELATIONSHIP

Respondents across Product Leader, Product Manager, Product Owner, UX/UI for differing product lines in HR Software

Do you feel that UX is the responsibility of an individual or an organization?

Summary: Overwhelming response was both.

“UX is much more all-encompassing that people realize. Our interactions are guided by our experiences and needs, especially when interacting with computers/software/products.  It’s the responsibility of an organization to understand the need for UX strategies and individuals to pull and digest UX data. Similar to culture in organizations, UX thinking should be pervasive throughout many areas.” 

How has UX affected your work as a product manager?Summary: Critical difference in perception of what UX is and how someone has worked with differing people with different UX/UI skill sets significantly influenced the answers.

While UI/UX and Agile do not always play nicely together, product managers acknowledge the need for data to drive decisions.

“By learning from my UX colleagues, I became obsessed with user-centric design. I was able to sharpen my skillset by learning how to leverage design thinking principles into my work, because I wanted to able to think in the same way as a UX practitioner.” 

“UX gave a name to the ways I perceive the world and how I could manage the intersection of literal backlog features and human reactions.”

“Without a solid backlog of refined tickets, UX becomes the bottleneck.”

What 1-3 things (behavior, process or tools) could a product manager adopt that would help them better support UX and UI practitioners?

Summary: Education and immersion in user experience practices, processes and hands on “doing” UX yourself or in partnership with specialists.

“Understanding the “why” it is so important. And  until you have some practical experience of incorporating the user research, it may not seem obvious that the value it brings.” 

“I find that some PMs tend to let their own history/knowledge dictate all of their perspective – which can be pretty ill-informed.”

“Become informed; educate yourself about human-centric approaches. Learn more about the process, customer empathy, ideation, testing, prototyping and ensuring you are solving the right problem.”

What 1-3 things could a UX / UI practitioner adopt that would help them work better with product managers?

Summary: If UX is too “heavy”, it can disrupt development planning to the point where both the research and the design are not adding the necessary value.

UXers need to really, deeply learn the domain or the will not be successful at solving root issues.

UXers need to have great relationship and communication skills.

“I would like to see the UX team work on building relationships and demonstrating the value of UX insights in everything they do.” 

“For me, TIME is everything. Low-fidelity wireframe is perfect for conceptualizing.”

Think of the best working relationship you have/have had with a UX or UI practitioner. What made that partnership work well?

Summary: Mutual respect, communication, collaboration, curiosity and real listening skills are the key to a good working relationship with UX and Product Managers.

“Constant communication, lots of collaboration, lots of iterative design approaches, lots of research done in partnership.” 

Think of the worst working relationship you have/have had with a UX or UI practitioner. What made that partnership not successful?

Summary: Drop egos at the door, people. Opinions are just that, let it go. Crucial conversations are part of being in business, get it out on the table and move on.

“Egos.” “I’ve been exposed to challenging relationships and it’s clear to me that some ego tends to get in the way from the business, technical, and UX sides – collaboration is missing in those cases.”

WHAT MAKES GREAT TEAMS?

What makes a great team?Focused on team and outcomes not individual glory

Ability to adjust and adapt communication style to fit team dynamics

Balance of personalities with ninja skills / native genius

GETTING IN THE UX MINDSET

“UX thinking should be pervasive throughout many areas.” 

Empathetic Investigators. Everyone’s needs are different, I’m not going to assume I know everything from the onset without discovering:

What makes certain people tick? What are their biggest unsolved or poorly solved pains?

Always a Beginner. I challenge assumptions by being open to possibilities and discovering something that might be hidden beneath the surface.

Story tellers. Story is what connects people and allows for shared understanding. Most UX methods are based around discovery and story telling to better highlight opportunities for business and world improvement.

“UX thinking should be pervasive throughout many areas.” 

Value Detachment. I am willing to detach from the outcome and be proven wrong. My ideas are just that.

Opportunity Obsessed. Even though its natural for humans to get a “high” from solving problems, UXers love to spend lots of time discovering problems and their counterpart: opportunities.

Adaptable, Change Lovers. UXers tend to challenge the status quo and adapt to ever emerging trends. They are comfortable with the discomfort of not knowing all the answers up front. They trust the process of discovery and iteration.

FROM TO Diversity

of Thought Singular "

Point Of View Shared

Knowledge Embodied Knowledge

Unifying Storyteller

Super Hero

Validated, Iterative Design

Intuitive Design

Collective Individual

A marriage of lean, user-centered and agile philosophies