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thatquirkypixel · 4 years

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Reed Enger | Designer google | Design Systems

PART 2

Exploring the souls of design systems13 min read

Nathania Gilson

• Aug 16, 2019

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Reed Enger is an artificial intelligence experience designer at Google. He’s also the founder of Trivium Art History, a digital platform that shares the stories behind 30,000 years of creativity.

After graduating from the University of Northwestern in 2009, Reed left behind his training as a print designer. Employers at the time were more interested in hiring web and user experience designers. “The term ‘experience design’ was kind of frowned around early on,” Reed remembers. “It seemed a little indulgent, like, “I’m an experience designer.” Well, come on, man. You make websites.”

Reed describes his post-graduation years as the best time to build a big portfolio quickly at many of the local agencies—back then, user experience was still maturing as a discipline.

Reed Enger, the man himself.

As Reed’s knowledge expanded, he realized that experience design was more than just building websites: “I have to never take it for granted that I might have to learn a brand new language, metaphorically, to tackle new problems.”

In 2017, after spending a few years embedded in New York agencies, he moved to Seattle to join the Google Cloud team. Here, he was tasked with driving a seamless experience of design systems for one of the technology giant’s most important divisions at the company.

“You should have fun when you’re designing. I would love to think of a design system as just a box of toys.”

This involved having a direct impact on how people interact with products and services like computing, data storage, data analytics, and machine learning every day.

We spoke to Reed about design as a form of patience and caretaking, contemplation as a kind of counter culture, and why it’s a good thing to remain skeptical about the future of design systems.

[Be secure in the future of your own system with InVision Design System Manager]

ID: Why is it important to keep human-centred design in mind when building design systems?

Enger: It’s that idea that you need to design for a person and, to do that, you have to understand what they need and hopefully some of how they think. That’s, I think, what you can do with a design system.

Because a lot of design systems sort of grew out of code repositories, because developers were way, way ahead of designers when it comes to modular, flexible, reusable kind of componentry. So, I think that as part of that legacy you do wind up with design systems that are pretty formal and sort of optimized for Ctrl+F. They know exactly what they’re looking for and then know how to get to it. It’s a resource and less of a guidebook.

UX can make design systems more of a guidebook—an invitation.

Design systems can get a bit of a bad rap because they’re seen as a constraint. The thing is you can’t do whatever you want, because you’ve got to work from the system. But, just like a box of Legos, a design system applied correctly is a creative tool. It’s not a limiting tool.

ID: You described yourself as a caretaker for the design specifications of the Google Cloud when you first joined. I wondered what made you use that word and how you take on the responsibility of the caretaker role in your design practice.

Enger: Caretaking is humble work. It’s not particularly flashy. It’s playing bass, not lead guitar. Working in design systems I found to be very patient work, and I don’t think that that’s a bad thing.

I’d come out of the sort of rock-and-roll New York agency scene, which was really, really fun. It was an interesting adjustment to then go to a place where a huge part of my job was just listening and identifying the challenges that future teams were working on and then supporting them however I can. My job was not to create something that had real sting, real flavor. It was to melt it away until it was strictly function and could be applied anywhere.

It’s a very invisible sort of design, working on a design system. I really came to love that. I found it to be kind of egoless. You just want the thing to work really well. You want it to be clean. You want to sweep out the cobwebs in the corners. You want to Marie Kondo that design system. It’s that same satisfaction you get from lining up your shoes in front of the door in a really nice straight line. It’s that sort of thing. Caretaking, I think, has its real benefits.

ID: How would you explain a design system to someone if the phrase didn’t

exist?

Enger: I would call it a box of Legos. I would say, “Here’s a box of toys.”

You should have fun when you’re designing. I would love to think of a design system as just a box of toys. Lots of possible combinations. And then somebody comes along every now and then, gets creative, and lights all of the toys on fire and builds a new one, which is great.

It should also be participatory. You should involve lots of people. You should share your toys. If you have a really nice toy, you should add it to the box.

ID: In your experience, how can you make a design system less intimidating

and more useful?

Enger: Edit, edit, edit. Documentation can be so long, and most of the time you don’t need the majority of it. Describe everything as simply and concisely as possible. Use visuals when you can rather than words. Provide very simple overviews that somebody can breeze through and glance their way around. Make it fast, and make it simple.

“I think that you have to get comfortable with the fact that many things can be true at once.”

It’s funny, a design system is like any other experience. You have to design it for elegance and optimize it for efficiency in the same way that you would any other experience.

ID: Can you talk a little bit more about the process of optimizing for efficiency when building a design system?

Enger: I think it’s about providing entry points that speak to different types of users. I’ll think of an example here. Someone who’s really familiar with the design system is going to want to get to what they want as fast as possible. So, you need to build in a search page. You need to have lists with the keywords that they need so that they can just get right to it. You’ve got to make sure there’s power to use your features.

Icons from Trivium’s design system

Even all the different heads on the same design system can be a big factor in how efficient something is. We had an engineering-focused portal for the design system that was basically just a huge, long list, and the engineers loved it. It was super fast. But then, for the designers, especially because the team that was growing really fast, we needed to onboard people. So, we had a visual overview that showed images relative to components.

The system should present itself in a way that is clearly understandable to the user that is using it.

ID: How do you think your knowledge of UX shaped the way that you approached living in the world on a day-to-day level?

Enger: I used to worry that being a visual person and a designer and a writer was making me dissatisfied because so much of trying to develop taste is learning to identify when something is off. It’s that carefully curated sense of dissatisfaction that lets you improve as a designer. I used to worry that it was going to turn me into a grouch.

I’ve been very relieved to discover that what it’s actually done is just develop my curiosity more, because, if you see something that feels off, that feels wrong for some reason… Maybe it’s type that’s kerned poorly. Maybe it’s a door that opens in instead of out. When you start to pay attention and notice those things, sure, you can be a grump about it, but you can also be curious about it, and you can try to figure out why that was made that way. Was it an accident, was it intentional? Maybe there’s something going on that you don’t know about.

It opened up this sense that there’s always something to learn. So I try to exist in that space of being excited to learn and keeping my eyes open to see what I can learn next.

ID: Earlier this year, you gave a talk at the Awwwards Conference in New York on how design systems have souls. Your talk alluded to the fact that everything has a soul—what do you mean by “soul?” How do you know it’s there?

Enger: When I talk about the souls that are in design, I’m using the word in an esoteric sense. There’s a variety of long, dead philosophers and scientists and nuns who referred to objects having an inherent purpose and unique and specific purpose. And everything had that purpose. A person had it, but so did a tree. So did an apple. I love that idea. And I think the thing that I like about it is that it forces you to ask the question, why is this here? What is the purpose of fill-in-the-blank? Apply it to anything at any level within a design project.

I think it’s also a really kind of lovely way of equalizing many disciplines, If everything has a unique purpose, then that purpose accounts for not only its functional behavior as a UX person would craft, but that unique purpose needs to be served by the visual design. That purpose needs to be served by the copywriter who creates the snappy call to action. That purpose is applicable to everyone who touches it, and everyone needs to be responsible to that purpose.

Then that purpose is also something that relates up and down. It’s that as above, said below hermetic thing. So, you have the small element. Is it harmonious with the larger themes of the product, the website, whatever it is that you’re working on? Everything has to make sense from the top to the bottom, the bottom to the top.

You’ve got this symphony of elements and components and design styles, and they all have to sing in tune. Their souls have to be aligned for the product to feel good.

When everything’s lined up, when all the souls are being expertly crafted and they’re all singing the same tune, then you wind up with something that feels complete and finished.

“If everything has a unique purpose, then that purpose accounts for not only its functional behavior as a UX person would craft, but that unique purpose needs to be served by the visual design.”

That kind of goes back to that idea of dissatisfaction. If you’re crafting that dissatisfaction, then you can start to see where things are out of alignment. I think that that’s what all good designers do. That’s what all good writers do. That’s what a good UX designer does. They identify where things are not serving their purpose. That’s it.

ID: In that same talk that you gave, you mentioned the word ‘glanceability’ as a key component of design systems. Why is that important?

Enger: People don’t read. People just don’t read.

ID: Why do you think that is?

Enger: I think it’s because we’re in a hurry. You know? We’re on a deadline.

A timeline of 40,000 years of art, taken from

But also, documentation and design systems tend to be pretty dry. I think that’s kind of the other component. It’s really rare to run across writing that is pleasurable to read in a design system. It’s not impossible. It’s out there, and god bless the people that put in the time and love to do that. Make it glanceable so that somebody can whip through it as quickly as possible.

I think it’s just a matter of kindness. To try and describe a dropdown menu in words is … It’s terrible to write, and it’s terrible to read. If you’ve just got a little animated image of a dropdown opening and closing, you get it right away.

It’s just easier on everyone. I mean, even better, if you’ve got a little live snippet of code, and you just have the dropdown menu there. Then somebody can go in, and they can click it, and they can see it open, click and see it close. It’s just merciful to everyone involved to try and keep things visual and short.

ID: When it comes to the history of design systems, key moments have included the publication of Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language, Jenifer Tidwell’s view of design systems as shortcuts in the 90s, Brad Frost’s theory of building systems, not pages, and the introduction of Google’s Material Design. Let’s look to the future, perhaps 50 years from now: what do you see as pivotal—and hope will exist—in 2069? How far could we go?

Enger: We’re in a weird spot right now with design systems. They’re primarily used by large-scale products. A lot of enterprise-level products. A lot of products that are used by millions if not billions of people.

What we’re seeing is a radical standardization in design systems. And how could you not standardize? These things have been exhaustively A/B tested, optimized down to the pixel.

So, now what we have is an extremely narrow range of highly-performant elements that are recognizable and efficiently usable by the greatest number of people possible. We have arrived—or we are close to arriving—at a point where there’s something like a design supersystem, and everybody’s kind of just using variations of basically the same thing. That’s extremely, extremely efficient.

“A good system would know when you want to use tool A versus tool B versus watch YouTube. That’s what a hyper-personalized system would allow.”

I think it’s going to flip from being a standardized design system to being an individualized and generative design system where every individual person has their own design system [assigned to them by the product], and they’re probably not even aware of it. The system’s probably being generated based on the patterns that you yourself have as you move through space, both digitally and the real world, when you interact with your devices; when you walk into a Starbucks.

The massive awareness that is being sort of slowly created, the coverage that we have now with sensors and transactions I think is going to be enough to inform a hyper-personalized design system for the individual that will then build your experiences and your tools, probably from some insane fleet of microservices.

A good system would know when you want to use tool A versus tool B versus watch YouTube. That’s what a hyper-personalized system would allow.

ID: Do you think there is such a thing as healthy skepticism about all of this?

Enger: Oh god, yeah. I think that you have to get comfortable with the fact that many things can be true at once. The same slice of code that could be hugely empowering could also be used to reinforce a surveillance state. I think skepticism is really, really important.

The potential is so incredibly, incredibly strong. It could be absolutely, radically misused. It is every day. But it could also be wonderful. You want to keep making stuff that pushes it in a wonderful direction

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vsplusonline · 4 years

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Online classes abound in Covid-19 lockdown, human contact missed - Times of India

New Post has been published on https://apzweb.com/online-classes-abound-in-covid-19-lockdown-human-contact-missed-times-of-india/

Online classes abound in Covid-19 lockdown, human contact missed - Times of India

BENGALURU: Amid Covid-19-disrupted academic year, cancelled classes and examinations, students across India are using every technological tool available to pursue studies.

Some of the popular tech tools, enabling online learning through audio and video links, include Zoom, Skype, Whatsapp, Cisco Webex and Microsoft Teams.

“We, humans, have never experienced anything like this. I am sure most of us were not prepared for such a situation. It’s a first of its kind experience,” Payal, an English teacher at an international school here, told IANS.

From school pupils to civil services aspirants to doctoral students, all are engaging in this online learning, happening across the spectrum of education institutions. And the scale is mind-boggling.

With over 14,000 educators powering students to prepare for more than 60 kinds of examinations, online learning platform Unacademy is offering over 1,500 live classes a day.

On March 12, Unacademy, set up by former IAS officer Roman Saini, announced that it would offer 20,000 free live classes to students during the lockdown.

“Live classes on Unacademy platform ensure that education is not obstructed amid the coronavirus pandemic. These classes are available across examinations, like UPSC, banking and railways,” an Unacademy spokesperson told IANS.

According to Unacademy, the effort is aimed at promoting the indefatigable spirit of learners and encouraging students’ determination to crack their examinations.

English teaching app ELSA has associated with 40-50 schools to engage students through their principals to be in touch with the language.

UXReactor, an online training platform with offices in Hyderabad and California, is catering to the needs of UX designers, teaching visual communication, user research, wireframing and prototyping and information architecture.

“After the coronavirus outbreak, we are seeing a decent rise — about 150 per cent — in traffic every week, as more people are looking for opportunities to upskill and reskill during the lockdown,” Prasad Kantamneni, co-founder, UXReactor, told IANS.

Byju’s, Oliveboard, Vidyakul, School of Meaningful Experience, Schoolguru Eduserve, Canadian International School, including fashion designing institutions, like JD Institute of Fashion Technology South, are offering online learning solutions to bypass the lockdown.

Despite the audio and video features the tech tools are offering, most people are of the view that no technology can ever replace the classroom setting and the human to human contact in real.

“My personal experience with online learning has its ups and downs. One positive feature is the mute button, which helps dissolve all the background noise and allows one to listen more clearly. This can’t be done in a normal classroom setting,” said Aryan Jain, 11th standard student of Greenwood High International School.

Despite the advances in technology, Jain said multiple disconnections would take place in an online class, forcing students to say ‘Ma’am you are not audible’.

“As online platforms try to provide interactive class sessions, the proximity with students is missed. Personally, I like the fun group study sessions with friends as they help us share ideas effectively and create an emotional ties between us children that will last a lifetime,” said a student.

Corroborating Jain, Payal said holding the attention of all online students was not easy due to lack of physical monitoring.

Transitioning from Zoom to Microsoft Teams, Payal teaches 10-25 students per online session. “Sometimes when students are asked questions and they don’t know answers, they log out of the session. Students tend to choose the classes they want to be a part of. We have little control over it,” said Payal.

She said in school such mischievous action would not be possible.

With the Covid-19 lockdown uncertainties, it remains to be seen how long online learning will replace the real classroom teaching.

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#Canadian International School #Coronavirus #greenwood high international #Greenwood High International School #Microsoft teams #online classes #prasad kantamneni #Roman Saini #Career

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noahdnicholus · 7 years

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The Key Points to Consider When Building a UX Team

The field is new and filled with lots of uncertainties for the decision makers of an organization, but it is promising and filled with tremendous opportunities!

Being a User Experience designer right now is an interesting and rewarding experience for the fact that the scope of exploring unknown lands is infinite and I feel proud to be one.

The Internet obviously has a major role to play in the upkeep and growth of this field, and it has lived beyond its expectations up to now. There is a lot of stuff happening around UX nowadays. There are UX conferences, more blog posts explaining the need of User Centered design, and people surely are getting a better picture of the topic, day by day.

While this really is great news for us UX designers, we have miles to go ahead until we reach the pinnacle, where UX design will be considered most pivotal in a system’s design and development process. For this to happen, inclusion of Experience design in an enterprise scenario should be justified, i.e., UX should yield results in terms of tangible values like increased hits, high user conversion rate, improved task completion time and so on.

I work for a large enterprise where people don’t have time for elaborate UX sessions and detailed demos on the benefits of embracing UX holistically. All that matters is the revenue, and it is the single tangible entity that defines the importance, or rather, it is what defines whether something deserves respect or not.

Fortunately enough, the team which I am a part of within a large enterprise took the bold step of taking UX seriously and demonstrated the benefits of doing so, in our own way, to the top management.

This post makes use of my personal experience and wisdom that I have collected over time working in large enterprises, and I will try to present a detailed analysis of key points which will be decisive towards the making of a User Experience team, that delivers.

What is the Need of a UX Team?

The scope of this post is confined to large enterprises where revenue matters the most, where things are already working fine (in terms of revenue) and where there is very little awareness on the need of a good UI. In other words, where the word ‘user’ is often forgotten and has taken the backseat!

The result will be ill-designed applications with significantly diminished user experience, insanely long task completion times and a huge dent in the reputation of the company, when it comes to the quality of interaction and the overall experience with the product.

Though these negatives are obviously visible, people never realize the missing link, the reason is being unaware of the importance of a good UI, less tech-savvy customers who never demand a better experience and, most of the time, simply the lack of proper resources to get the job done!

Push for a UX team here! The challenge lies in convincing management, that this is the solution which connects the dots effectively. It’s just the beginning. Challenges will come like a landslide upon you, and only perseverance will work.

Building the Team From Scratch

I am not a perfectionist, and I fully understand that there is no ‘perfect’ team. But without understanding what you are looking for, you will never be able to identify if you have found the right person or not.

A great UX team is not one which is solely comprised of highly qualified or certified professionals, but one with productive, passionate and positive thinkers who have the right skills. So it’s not only important to identify passionate people, but equal weight should be given to identify the right balance of skillsets, before you go on a recruitment drive.

My understanding so far on the right ingredients for a UX team has worked out well and I take that gut feeling forward.

1. Bring in the experts

Like every other trade, there is no replacement for the wisdom that experience brings to the table. Experienced and seasoned professionals are an integral part of any team. Make sure you have experienced professionals who are self-driven.

In many cases, people land up recruiting misfits just because either the hiring team didn’t have an in-depth understanding of the required profile, or the process of evaluating the candidate was not effective enough. This is where the importance of effective recruitment process comes into play.

Be focused on the specifics of skill-sets you are looking for when you set out to hire a person. For example, while recruiting a front-end engineer, look for his preferences of tools and techniques, which will give you a better first-hand idea on his expertise and way of working.

This has worked for me most of the time. My point here is, make your recruitment process more creative and find out your own ways to get great talents aboard. Also remember, always be on the lookout for better talents than you, and create a team of greats and not a team of dwarfs!

2. Fresh people bring vibrancy to the team

Often, in my experience, freshers (trainees) are the most underestimated resources in a team. I believe if you are recruiting a passionate and enthusiastic fresh soul to the team, the amount of positive energy and raw talent that these people bring into the team is unimaginable.

If harnessed and directed in the right way, they can be one of the best sources of productivity for a team. Provide clear direction to the trainee, clearly set goals and checkpoints along with continuously motivating and directing them to reach the target and let them grow to their strengths.

The key lies in identifying their interests and letting them grow with those interests and passion. The dividends being paid back will surprise you.

3. Certification is not the ultimate benchmark

Professional education/certifications definitely is an added value but not a necessity. Personally, I have worked with people with certifications/design education and also with passionate self-educated professionals, and most of the time the quality of the output was directly proportionate to the level of passion displayed rather than the education/certification.

My point here is, let’s not take certification as a benchmark while recruiting an experienced professional. As I mentioned above, there are gems waiting to be discovered, and the only way to find them is to adopt some really creative recruitment methodologies. This is really important for a domain like Experience design, where passion is paramount.

4. Referrals might not always work – screen thoroughly

I decided to include this point based on some of my bitter experiences in hiring referrals. The ideology behind bringing referrals onboard is to increase the coordination and productivity of the team, assuming that people will find it encouraging to work again with their ex-colleagues or friends.

But this might not always work unless you have a solid screening process in place. Blindly roping in a preferred candidate can be suicidal at times. I am not completely against referrals, but my point here is to never take anything for granted when it comes to building a team that matches your expectations.

Backfires in hiring can prove fatal for the team in the long run, and can seriously hamper the team spirit and productivity if not dealt with in the right way.

5. Never go with the numbers – assess based on the quality of work

Numbers can be deceiving and may not necessarily be proportional to the productivity/quality expected. You might come across a beginner who does magic with code while you may also tumble upon a veteran with no basic knowledge at all. So lets come out of the number game and give respect to those who deserve to be on the team.

6. Make training/sessions/workshops mandatory in the appraisal cycle

Creative designers feed on constant inspiration, and that is one single thing that can drive the show forward. It is essential for a design team to conduct frequent knowledge sharing sessions, and exchange ideas.

Make training sessions and workshops mandatory; this will help bring fresh inspiration to the team and will promote sharing and bring a sense of pride.

Key Roles in a UX Team

While I am not a veteran professional with many years of experience, I’ve had some career defining moments where I have been closely associated with teams struggling to establish the right balance in the team when it comes to Experience Design.

The diversity in my career (a video post-production artist to a web graphics designer to a front-end engineer to a User Experience enthusiast) has been most helpful for this state of mind. It has enabled me to look at my team from a variety of perspectives and identify shortcomings and positives. From my limited experience, let me suggest some key roles which can make the difference in a User Experience team:

1. User Experience Architect

The User Experience Architect is the team’s visionary. Every product thrives on its own vision, and unless the vision is clear, the influence it has on a user’s mind cannot be directed in the intended way. Designing a good experience is meticulously planning a chain of events in which the users are involved, and helping them find what they are looking for easily and smoothly.

A UX Architect’s job is to carefully sandwich the vision into the product, while helping the user to be happy and satisfied in using it.

Should have extensive experience in driving the Experience design processes, as they might have to make key decision just based on his past experiences and wisdom.

They should be passionately associated with a product’s life cycle.

Knowledgeable in UX best practices and processes.

Ability to generate a User Experience Document based on personas and scenarios.

Deliverable will be in form of User Experience Document, Personas/Scenario details and a close association with the team at every stage to make sure the product is shaping up as they wanted.

2. Information Architect

The Information Architect is the authority when it comes to the information design of the product. A skillful Information Architect should be able to cruise along when presented with the challenge of organizing the information in a huge data-driven application with complex scenarios and screenflows. He will be responsible for laying out information and plays a key role in deciding the screen flows and interaction patterns to be followed.

Should be an expert in various wireframing tools like Axure, Omnigraffle, Visio.

They should be a master of IA techniques like card sorting.

Extensive knowledge in standard UI interaction patterns.

Deliverables will be wireframes, screenflows, sitemap and interaction design documents.

3. Visual Designer

The role of a visual designer is crucial to a UX team’s success. Though the efficiency of a product is not skin deep, the skin does matter. The UX vision of a successful product is driven by a visual designer.

While there will be numerous apps and services offering the same service or experience, the first impression, and the visual aesthetics plays a very important role in carrying forward the experience of the product.

A visual designer should be a magician when it comes to color combination, typography, visual hierarchy and importantly should be a great communicator of ideas through whatever medium available, as design is all about communicating ideas.

Madly passionate about visual communication, colors, type and aesthetics.

Share the passion and ideologies of the UX architect and carry forward the UX vision the same way as he would have imagined. This is a key requirement for a UX team to click, and this is often ignored and overlooked upon.

A pixel perfectionist, and a critic lover.

A Photoshop rockstar.

Should have an open-minded approach to design, questioning each design decisions, and contributing to the Experience of the product in his own way.

4. UX All rounder (UX+ VD+Frontend engineering)

From my diverse career experience, this is a role which I feel will make the difference for any UX team. Someone who understands each stage of an Experience design process and who will be able to connect the dots seamlessly across each phase of the Experience design process will be an asset for the team.

They will make sure that the UX vision of the product doesn’t get blurred across each phase. The primary job of this person will be to be involved in each phase of the Experience design process, collaborate with the experts of the respective phases (eg. visual designer, while in the designing phase, information architect during the wire-framing phase and front end engineer during the prototyping and front-end development process) and make sure the product gets transitioned between them smoothly.

This includes guiding the visual designer in authoring graphics/UI elements which doesn’t fall out of the scope for a front-end engineer, or which is entirely non-implementable from a front end development perspective.

Diverse and extensive knowledge in UX practices, Visual design tools & techniques

Front end development concepts, tools & techniques

A trend watcher

Should be on the bleeding edge of all updates, tools and techniques

A good communicator, and importantly a great team player.

The key is communication in this profile, as this person would be working closely with almost all members of the team.

Should have a strong hold on the concepts of each phases, and his/her experience will be put on test, while team discussions, as this person holds the baton for making convincing statements to bring the team to a common understanding and to clear out conflicts that are bound to arise in each phases of the Experience design process.

5. Front-end engineer

This is a key role in a UX team in my opinion, and I am surprised at the level of ignorance some enterprises (at least in the country I work in) show towards this role.

Front-end development is when the product jumps into the first phase of life after much conceptualization and designing from other members of the UX team, and for that matter, this is the most vital part of the Experience design process.

Front-end engineer’s responsibility will be to give life to the concepts and mockups and make them work on a browser or any other medium on which the product is expected to work on. The challenge lies in translating the ideas which are in the form of wireframes, documents, and visual mockups into a working prototype. Working closely with the ‘UX all rounder’ will yield good results for a front-end engineer.

In short:

a front-end engineer brings together the 3 forms of an application, namely content, presentation and behavior.

A rockstar in HTML/CSS/JS based techniques.

Should be a cross-browser compatibility samurai.

Should give attention to detail and should be able to appreciate design.

Well versed with optimization and performance boosting concepts and techniques.

Should have a solid understanding of the technology behind an application in which he/she is working on.

A sharp learner of new techniques and tools.

Ability to bring about a set of processes and standards, and in turn institutionalize the whole front-end engineering process within the organization at large.

6. Content Strategist

It is high-time we start thinking of content as one of the important parts of a product. The role of a content strategist has been a topic of discussion for a long time and the term ‘Content strategy’ itself is evolving. As an Experience design team, content should be considered as an important part of the product, be it web, mobile or any other medium.

A content strategist will be responsible for shaping up the ‘tone of voice’ of the product. He sets the tone of the product by carefully planning the content. Here the content is not only text. It refers to whatever element used to communicate with the user.

A content strategist might even have a call over the design element that the visual designer created, because it communicates something to the user. It is important to convey the right things in the right way to the user for a consistent ‘tone of voice’.

A passionate writer and communicator.

Should have impeccable command over the language and grammar.

Exposure to latest trends and developments in the web world will make a content strategist more desirable.

Ability to appreciate design.

7. Usability Expert

They are the Nielsen and Norman of a UX team. With much established techniques and tools available a qualified usability expert is always an asset to the team. They are responsible for assessing and making sure the product ships out as a usable unit.

Most often, usability comments are best consumed at the initial stages of conceptualization, as keeping the very basic usability issues in mind can help the team move in the right direction.

Also, methods used to conduct user research and similar exercises can prove to be life-saving for highly sensitive which are:

Extensive experience in conducting usability tests and other usability related tasks.

Strong understanding on the working of the product, from a user’s perspective.

A good communicator.

Building a productive team takes time, dedication and lots of effort. Bringing in just the right skills may not always work. It is always important to bring in a balance to the team, by smartly utilizing fresh talent, setting goals and enabling each of them to have a sense of belonging and ownership within the team.

While everything above is based on my experience in the field, there are lots of other factors that some into play while building a team that delivers. The attitude, the passion, the thought processes, everything can make a major difference. Personally, I believe in having members driven by passion and interest in the field, rather than just professional and academic achievements, and this has so far helped us in bringing the right blend of talent to the team.

These are the words of wisdom which my diverse career has gifted me with. I would be excited to know more about this topic from experts and passionate UX practitioners. Share your thoughts, experience, and suggestions on building a rocking Experience Design team!

We now know UX design trends and how to collect the greatest team for user experience. In the next section, we will look at hotel trends. The conversion is really important for websites like these.

from Web Designing Tips https://1stwebdesigner.com/build-killer-user-experience-team/

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