Leadership
As a design leader, I take personal responsibility for providing an innovative, supportive and educational team environment. I have been fortunate to lead so many talented UX professionals who have gone on to have amazing careers in design.
As part of my leadership roles, I also lead educational programs to promote design thinking across the organization. Regular workshops, special guest speakers, open design reviews and user testing are all part of the culture of UX that I provide to my organizations.
UX Team Ingredients
UX Teams can be a combination of many different UX professionals. For larger organizations, additional team members such as animation, illustrators, 3D designers can be added as team members.
I have found that design system front end developers as part of a UX organization benefit from the close connection with the research and design team as well as their connection with the individual development team customers/users across the organization.
I have lead teams of up to 70 UX professionals. The key to growing a UX organization is to find people with a passion for their craft, provide opportunities to grow their careers and learn new skills and promote healthy cross organization connections with the other teams.
UX Team Roles
The roles within a UX team should be clearly defined along with a career path for each role within the UX organizaiton. It is the responsibility of the UX leadership team to grow the skills of the team members to keep up with the latest in technology, design techniques and methods.
I have defined new roles over the years as design includes newer technology such as generative AI. A position on UX teams within the next few years will undoubtedly include a position for AI expertise in the creation of content, UI, illustrations and design systems.
Amazing Products
Talent
Culture
Process
Collaboration
Design System
Research
Personas
UX Team Foundation
There are foundations that must be in place to create amazing products. All of my UX teams are built on a strong foundation of UX process, deliverables and consistency. My UX teams have been composed of talented individuals with backgrounds in consumer and enterprise software, various vertical markets and diverse career and life experiences.
My role as a leader is to design the foundational building blocks and then empower my teams to use those blocks to build amazing products.
UX Nourishment
Thriving UX Teams need nourishment and support. Training is a key part of any design organization - new products, new technology, new skills - these must be developed for each UX team member for their career growth.
With all of my UX teams, I request that we use an 80/20 rule for our time. 80% dedicated to current product deliverables but 20% put aside for learning new technology, research on competition, education for new skills, and time to attend conferences and meetups.