Recently received some feedback that gave me pause. The feedback was that I was not fully engaging and partnering with product management. This prompted me to review what I was doing and change my approach and behavior.
Reflecting on the feedback, I realized a key mistake I made was in not applying a principle that I try to use with every engagement with stakeholders: “Two ears, one mouth.” Listen more than talk, and understand what the person I was engaging with needed. And not just what I can do for them, but how do THEY want to work together?
So, in the interest of sharing my lessons learned, here’s my thoughts on a “go-forward” approach on how UX’ers (either individuals or a team) can best partner with product management.
UX Ownership
In my opinion product design is “owned” by the product management team, and the UX practioner(s) responsible for executing their vision based on their key performance indicators and business drivers. That being said, UX should never be “order takers”. They should apply their experience and best practices to make the UI as usable as possible.
While everyone will have strong opinions, UX designers should not mandate or dictate design direction. Instead you should revise and tweak based on collaborative conversations. Product design is a team sport.
Providing “Evidence”
When UX and product owners “agree to disagree” on experience matters, look to user research to “break the tie.”
Leverage User Testing to share interactive prototypes to validate the design is “direction-ally accurate” or to identify showstoppers that inform potential changes… And also use the results as “evidence” to convince product management on the appropriate direction. Just be mindful to take your personal opinion or biases out of the test cycles – you are not the work, and you will often find that a design you think “works” doesn’t really make sense to users.
In an agile environment, you can utilize sprints that have very little UX work to do research and testing on designs required for upcoming sprints, so you will have a “backlog” of designs ready to implement.
Competitive Analysis
A UX Team should always represent the interest of the users, but they can also add analysis and opinions that can help inform roadmaps and features. One way to do this is through competitive analysis of comparable offerings from other companies. This can be done fairly quickly, and should be revisited on a regular basis.
And don’t just look at competing products – look at what the popular apps are on the platform, to see what “de facto” design standards are reflected in the open market. As I often say at conference presentations, your product isn’t just competing with similar products, you are competing with the last best experience your customers have had.
Setting “Service Level Agreements” (SLAs)
While I don’t want to get into pedantic “service level agreements”, A UX team needs to be responsive to product management’s requests and asks. As long as there is not a higher priority all design requests and changes need to be “turned around” within two to three business days – more or less. The more impactful the change, naturally the longer it will take. Clearly setting expectations with product will help prevent misalignment and frustration.
Communication and Collaborative Design Sessions
The priorities of product managers change constantly – more so if the product does not have an agreed-upon roadmap. A UX team needs to be available and flexible in order to service these needs – whether it comes to quick chats or email discussions. Regular checkpoints are recommended as well – preferably one-on-ones.
And when it comes to product design, I recommend collaborative design sessions with product whenever possible – getting into a room and doing sketches on a whiteboard allows you to have a creative fun experience that also gives product managers a direct sense of “ownership” of the design direction that come out of this activity.
Patterns and Standards Definition
Legacy applications often have no defined UI patterns or standards, and this sometimes leads to disconnects and confusion when it comes to affecting changes and creating new screens. The UX Team can help bring clarity to the product team by defining these “rules” to follow. Like with all design activity, this should be collaborative exercise with product management and should start documenting “current state”.
And when building these artifacts, keep cross-platform responsive design in mind when applicable. How will the UI “reflow/refactor” when viewed in mobile? This should be agreed to and documented.
Defining UX Strategy
UX teams can provide some valuable activities to product management when it comes to informing product roadmaps and new features. This is done through user research and facilitating Design Thinking workshops. This motion can generate new user stories for the backlog and or identify new or untapped markets for the product owners to look into.
Additionally, defining an overall “UX Strategy” that aligns with product management’s goals and KPIs can layout the long-term work to either modernize or incrementally improve the product portfolio.
Closing
Hopefully this will help you and your team when it in how you work with product owners. I’ve always said, feedback is a gift, and internalizing the feedback that prompted this piece will (hopefully) make me a better designer… And a more effective collaborator.