The User Experience Team of One. Leah Buley

who pushed forward, against all odds.

      And here’s the bigger truth: Whether you find yourself all alone or in a team of like-minded folks, we are all individuals with a unique voice, opinions, and diverse experiences that define us. We are all a UX Team of One. My challenge to you: Draw upon this diversity—magical things happen at the intersection of seemingly unrelated ideas. Don’t let a job title define you. Do what makes sense, not what process dictates. And most of all, never stop playing and learning. If we can all hang on for the ride, there is no limit to the places we’ll go!

      —Stephen P. Anderson,

      author of Seductive Interaction Design

INTRODUCTION

      In June 2011, this message appeared on the Interaction Designers Association (IXDA) discussion list:

       I am at a point in my life where I know I want to do UX design after doing Web design for so long and then reading about usability testing, etc., 6 years ago. But my issue is I’m tired of working for orgs who say they care about their customer but don’t do testing to even know what their customers want from them... I’m kind of fed up with working for people who don’t get it.

      This frustrated plea perfectly sums up the challenge that many passionate user experience professionals face. Many organizations have only a modest understanding of user experience. Some have none at all. In such an environment, if you are the key person driving for a more user-centered way of working, you are a user experience team of one. (And that’s true whether it’s your official job title or not.)

      But this is about more than just professional frustration.

      While this book is intended to be a practical resource for people who do user experience design without the support of a large UX team, I’ll tip my hand right here at the beginning and confess that I believe that being a UX team of one is much more than just a job. It’s also an important avenue for doing good in the world. The UX team of one is as much a professional circumstance as a constructive philosophy. And here are its founding principles:

      • UX is a force for good. In an increasingly technological world, designing products with real people in mind helps us make sure that technology integrates in our lives in a human way. It’s a voice of reason, arguing that products and technology can support and even enrich our fundamental humanity.

      • The world needs more of it. As the boundaries continue to blur between the technological world and the analog world, everything that we buy, use, and do will need this user-centered perspective. Companies that never thought of themselves as being in the user experience business before will realize that they are now. We all are. This field can only grow.

      • You can make that happen. Yes, you. The person reading this book right now, whatever your job title, whatever your career aspirations, you have it in your power to spark an awareness of the “user’s perspective” in the work that you do and with the people that you work with.

      This book can help you spread the growth of a new and exciting field, one person, team, and company at a time.

PART I

       Philosophy

       What makes a team of one special is that you find yourself in situations where you not only see an opportunity for a more user-centered approach, but you also need to lead the charge, bringing others along with you. A team of one challenges the mighty forces of the status quo, inertia, and other people’s way of doing things. That’s brave and ambitious work, and it requires not only technical know-how but also vision, conviction, and a soft touch. This part of the book will arm you with all of the above. The approach outlined here can help you spread the growth of a new and exciting field, one person at a time.

      PHOTO BY ANGELO AMBOLDI (FLICKR)

CHAPTER 1

       UX 101

      Defining User Experience

      An Example

      Where UX Comes From

      Where UX Professionals Come From

      If You Only Do One Thing...

      Talking about user experience (UX) can be a bit like looking at an inkblot test: whatever matters the most to you ends up being what you see. People find their way to the field of user experience through a variety of pathways, and they naturally apply their own lenses in how they think about and describe the work of UX. This chapter will attempt to balance out the picture by giving you a simple definition of user experience to work with, a little more information about where it comes from, and an understanding of how it’s different from other fields.

Defining User Experience

      User experience is a famously messy thing to describe. Many people have offered their own definition, and yet no single one has prevailed as the clear favorite. UX, it turns out, is a controversial concept. This is probably because “user experience” is a general term that describes not only a professional practice, but also a resulting outcome. To be a user experience designer means to practice a set of methods and techniques for researching what users want and need, and to design products and services for them. Through good UX, you are trying to reduce the friction between the task someone wants to accomplish and the tool that they are using to complete that task. The resulting user experience that someone has is determined by a multitude of factors so vast that no one person, team, or even technology can claim to be responsible for it (see Figure 1.1).

FIGURE 1.1 Often, the term user experience refers to the encounters that people have with digital products, like software or a Web app.

      In a simple working definition, you might say that a user experience is the overall effect created by the interactions and perceptions that someone has when using a product or service (see Figure 1.2). User experience is a fancy term for what people often describe with words like “love” or “hate”; or phrases such as, it’s “easy to use,” or “a pain in the butt.” You may recognize user friendly as a term that has worked its way into popular usage. For example, when someone says a product is user friendly, he is basically referring to the user experience. Given that we transact so much of our lives through technology, how easy or difficult it is to use is what really matters. And that’s what user experience is all about.

FIGURE 1.2 User experience is not just restricted to what you do on your phone or your laptop. This shopping mall directory has an interactive user experience, which impacts how easily shoppers can find what they are looking for in their physical environment.

      As a field of professional practice, user experience encompasses several disciplines. The main contributors are user research and user experience