Aqib Mehmood

Designing #highperforming teams is both challenging and rewarding for any #designOps practitioner. It involves identifying how teams are organised, defining each team's unique contribution, and understanding how to maximise the impact of each team's contribution. Yet identifying and categorising how #Design, Product, Engineering, and Marketing teams operate both internally and cross-functionally can be difficult. This is where the Team Topologies becomes a great approach to understand teams' archetypical structures and operational models. "Team Topologies" by Skelton & Paiswith, is a book that defines four team types three interaction modes per team. Such a clear simplification allows any Design Operation practitioners to analyse and dissect their teams and design new cross-functional engagement models across Product, Design, Engineering, and Development. The article by Alfonso Franco offers a well-written and clear approach and it's a great read to get started! Read the article here: https://lnkd.in/euahyUGf

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Google releases their new feature to Google Meets: 'Whose watching me? 👀' - Now you can see who's looking at you on a Google Meet call - get HR involved if they stare too long! Satirical Screens | 07 #uxdesign #uidesign #productdesign #satiricalscreens #productdesigner #uxdesigner #uidesigner #productdesigner #Google #Googlemeets #Zoom #Slack #MicrosoftTeams

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A new issue of my newsletter on Design, Innovation and Technology is out now. Please check it here: https://lnkd.in/efAhckE3 #design #designthinking #designbuild #designstrategy #product #producctdesign #productmanagement #productstrategy #designprinciples #innovation #designers #digitaltransformation #ux #uxdesign #uiux #uidesign #designinnovation #application #software #softwaredesign #usability #userresearch #research #usercentereddesign #productleadership #uxwriting #designsystems #empathy #interfacedesign #usabilitytesting #userexperience #productdesign #accessibility #ui

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Went to the BAD CONFERENCE part of Product Design Week London #pdw24 and here's what I learnt.. 🏕️ Anarchist squats in Amsterdam use similar democratic systems as UX research and can in fact lead to a career heading up UX cybersecurity at JP Morgan. Nice, keep it weird 🦉 Nazima Kadir, PhD ✨ Digital mindfulness is a relatively new space with most apps failing to truly help us, but watch this space in digital well-being intervention Rachel Marie Walker 💬 Motivational interviewing can help us go deeper behind the why and get to the heart of a problem. For example, when conducting user interviews don't just ask how important something is from 0-10, also ask why they picked that number and not a lower number. Helping you go deeper Anna Zsófia Csontos 🎓 Dr Gilbreath, one of the first female engineers to get a PhD, while raising 12 children, yes 12!! Her most notable work in time and motion studies revolutionised how we measured productivity today. Thanks for the history lesson Robert Youmans 🔥 And one for the content nerds! Top 4 principles for influential e-commerce content: (1) Think like a shopper (2) Create strong bridges from social (3) Make content embody a brand's essence (4) Infuse the brand's best editorial. Awesome, actionable advice Candice Pires Thanks for having us Tech Circus Product Design Week here's a pic of us clearly having lots of fun Jess Carver 🫶🏼 #behaviouraldesign #uxdesign #uxresearch

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Leah Buley and my 2nd Edition of THE USER EXPERIENCE TEAM OF ONE is indeed a no-stone-unturned survival guide — 294 pages to be exact — for #UX and #ProductDesign practitioners of all kinds. I'm going to put my humility aside and say this: if you're just starting out or are transitioning from another industry, I've got two words START HERE. There is simply no better, clearer, simpler or more practical guide to all you need to know about this job. That was true of Leah's original release a decade ago — and I've done my level best to make sure it's absolutely true now, after ten years of seismic changes in all we do — and all the ways we do it. But don't take my word for it: “A practical, honest, and incredibly approachable handbook for UX designers to build support, get off the ground, and make a noticeable impact as a UX team of one. Highly recommended!” – Vitaly Friedman, founder of Smashing Magazine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “...a must-read for anyone in design, whether you are just starting out or are an experienced product designer trying to push your organization forward. This book is packed with practical approaches that will help your organization, no matter the size, deliver significant impact through design.” — Andy Vitale, Chief Design Officer at Constant Contact, speaker, educator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Joe is one of our community’s most prolific UX voices and contributors, and this new edition reflects his deep expertise and generosity. Were time travel real, I’d gift this to my past self.” — Amy Santee, career strategist and coach for UX professionals” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “It’s always been one of the best books on UX, and this excellent new edition brings it up-to- date with the dramatically changed UX landscape.” – Steve Krug, author of Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Leah and Joe successfully deliver a rich compendium that balances the concrete with the intuition necessary for making a real impact.” – Kevin Bethune, founder of dreams•design+life and author of Reimagining Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Sets you up for success with great advice on everything from choosing the right battles to exercising influence remotely.” – Cyd Harrell, author of A Civic Technologist’s Practice Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Essential... This book explains how to approach a problem, what tool you should use, and why you’re doing what you’re doing.” – Isaac Gertman, chair, Graphic Design, Maryland Institute College of Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Whether you're an actual team of one or just someone looking for a simpler, smarter, better way...this is it:

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Leah Buley and my 2nd Edition of THE USER EXPERIENCE TEAM OF ONE is indeed a no-stone-unturned survival guide — 294 pages to be exact — for #UX and #ProductDesign practitioners of all kinds. I'm going to put my humility aside and say this: if you're just starting out or are transitioning from another industry, I've got two words START HERE. There is simply no better, clearer, simpler or more practical guide to all you need to know about this job. That was true of Leah's original release a decade ago — and I've done my level best to make sure it's absolutely true now, after ten years of seismic changes in all we do — and all the ways we do it. But don't take my word for it: “A practical, honest, and incredibly approachable handbook for UX designers to build support, get off the ground, and make a noticeable impact as a UX team of one. Highly recommended!” – Vitaly Friedman, founder of Smashing Magazine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “...a must-read for anyone in design, whether you are just starting out or are an experienced product designer trying to push your organization forward. This book is packed with practical approaches that will help your organization, no matter the size, deliver significant impact through design.” — Andy Vitale, Chief Design Officer at Constant Contact, speaker, educator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Joe is one of our community’s most prolific UX voices and contributors, and this new edition reflects his deep expertise and generosity. Were time travel real, I’d gift this to my past self.” — Amy Santee, career strategist and coach for UX professionals” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “It’s always been one of the best books on UX, and this excellent new edition brings it up-to- date with the dramatically changed UX landscape.” – Steve Krug, author of Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Leah and Joe successfully deliver a rich compendium that balances the concrete with the intuition necessary for making a real impact.” – Kevin Bethune, founder of dreams•design+life and author of Reimagining Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Sets you up for success with great advice on everything from choosing the right battles to exercising influence remotely.” – Cyd Harrell, author of A Civic Technologist’s Practice Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Essential... This book explains how to approach a problem, what tool you should use, and why you’re doing what you’re doing.” – Isaac Gertman, chair, Graphic Design, Maryland Institute College of Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Whether you're an actual team of one or just someone looking for a simpler, smarter, better way...this is it:

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So glad I managed to attend UX Brighton on Friday. Top notch speakers for an obvious but tricky theme: UX & AI. Some personal highlights: - Pablo Stanley's contagious energy, humour and eye-candy slides somehow managed to show really practical "why did I put this button here" advice. Proper Design class! >> check his Lummi app https://www.lummi.ai/ - Maggie Appleton perfectly encapsulated why AI is breaking the free Internet and what possible (mostly-depressing) futures await us. PS: it's all here >> https://lnkd.in/ek6wJ6V8 - Glenn Jones's text-to-functional-UI demo left some speechless. A glimpse into a future of use-once UIs generated on the fly. - Hannah Beresford's solid research work laid out why AI tools don't work yet and what to do about it. - Will Taylor's historical framework was the perfect conference intro and a useful tool to clarify "which AI for which situation". A few reflections: - There are identified ways make chatbot-style AI UIs more usable... but the single box to "ask anything" is far from the being the most useful interaction paradigm. - AIs are rubbish at context, societal norms and verbal cues. It's best to think of them as a smart alien rather than a human. - Data-led products, like AI-driven ones, need to be user tested in context, with real data. Smoke & mirrors prototypes or static mockups are pointless. - It did made me want to work on AI products and try more AI tools! - Also, not one mention of sustainability?? It feels like the elephant in the room. Overall, such an awesome day with Joanna Rusznica Laura Pison David Man Jess Judge Rachel Ward Kounnas Caroline Gardiner Andrew Wood Rosie FitzGerald Carolyn Letts #uxbri #uxbrighton #uxbrighton2024 #ai #ux #design

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If your main metric for success for design systems is measuring adoption, then consider this: Adoption does not equal value. Value is better communicated by money saving or money generated when it comes to organisations. This can be calculated by time savings for example. Adoption only tells you how much it is being used - without the former you cannot realise the scale of value. #designsystems #design #designmatrics

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Well, that's a wrap - another DesignOps Summit done and in the books!! So many people to thank - but let me thank our Innovation Speakers... Brendan Jarvis 🇺🇦! - you were a killer opener to the day and at 3am no less, your high impact delivery actually had our audience welling up with tears. Adrian Howard - if people didn't know why they need to check their perception at the outset of an innovation initiative.... they do now. Amy Lee Evans - you gave everyone really great practical tips on operational change leadership! Ignacio Martinez - chat LIT UP with your talk sharing Grand Studio's designer evaluation tooling! Changying (Z) Zheng - everyone appreciated your take on AI governance - particularly in an enterprise setting - we can all breath easier knowing that all our base doesn't belong to the AI lords Joe Meersman and Pooria Sohi - let's face it, the design sprint needed your approach to breath some velocity, meaning and value back into the process Jules Monza, MDes 🕊- I couldn't have hoped your session could go any better than it did - and a Rosenfeld Media first! You were the perfect game show host and the audience had a blast! Thank you all! And to everyone who helped make it come together, congratulations on another stellar summit! #DOS24 #designops #resilience #impact #innovation

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Trying to get your head around a new project can be daunting. Working in large orgnisations, you're not always afforded the luxury an induction process – being assigned a bunch of JIRA tasks is no way to start. Resist the pressure to fire up Figma straightaway and book some time with SMEs.

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A bespoke user experience is an amazing asset but then, user information is accessible to third parties when users experience that journey. Should designers keep track of how that user experience is being used after it has gone live?

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Sorry to break it to you, but you’re NOT a product designer (or industrial designer for that matter). Read on to see what you actually are, or at least what you should aspire to become. 🎙️ 𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲’𝐬 𝐠𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐧 The Design Journeys Podcast 𝐢𝐬 William Gordon, 𝐕𝐏 𝐨𝐟 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐚𝐭 BlendJet®. 🎙️ Amongst other things, we discussed why product designers should embrace story telling and how relationship building can propel your career. William’s design journey has taken him from designing sanitary ware at Kohler Co., FMCG at SC Johnson to leading design at BlendJet®. Our conversation goes beyond design—it’s about the 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐬 in building a successful career. We talk about: 🔗 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤, even in difficult times. Your journey is shaped by more than just the projects you take on; it’s deeply influenced by the connections you nurture along the way. William also shares some memorable experiences from his time at SC Johnson and CamelBak, including a funny and revealing story about how Herb Kohler, the CEO of Kohler, would test toilet seats. 🚽 Key takeaways from this episode include: ✔️ Handling challenging work environments  ✔️ Storytelling’s role in design  ✔️ Understanding how design impacts people and society Whether you're just starting out or have many years of experience, this episode provides valuable insights that can help you grow both personally and professionally. 🎧 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐧𝐨𝐰 on all major podcasting platforms including Spotify, Apple, Google Play, and Amazon Music.

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Do you know why UK Startups Are Investing in Professional UI/UX Audits? Picture this: I have launched a product. I’ve built it, and marketed it, but something’s off. Users aren’t engaging the way I hoped. Is it my idea? My marketing? What is it? For many startups, the answer lies in the UI/UX. Sometimes, it’s not the design but how users experience it. A professional audit is like a health check for a website or app. Experts analyze the user journey, identify friction points, and highlight areas causing frustration or confusion. Why UI/UX is a game-changer for startups like mine? 1. User Retention: An audit reveals what’s working and what’s not, ensuring we don’t lose potential customers due to poor design choices. 2. Boost Conversion Rates: Small changes, like simplifying navigation or optimizing buttons, can drastically improve conversion rates. 3. Stay Competitive: A polished, seamless user experience often decides whether users choose us or the competition. Investing in a UI/UX audit doesn’t just improve the product, it shows customers that we care about their experience. If you're looking for a comprehensive UI/UX audit, UIUX.STUDIO is here to help. We provide in-depth evaluations to enhance your user experience and design efficiency. Book a call with us: https://lnkd.in/dtE-2mwD Visit our website: https://uiux.studio/ #UIUX #CustomerExperience

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Design Leaders, how can we manage remote teams better? 🤔 I love this clip from my chat with Bob Baxley in the last episode of 'Design Beyond Pixels' 🎙️ Managing remote teams in the US can be challenging and it's an even bigger challenge when it's cross continent and wildly different time zones. In this clip, Bob explains an amazing way to collaborate with his team who do happen to be in a completely different continent. Recording clips at the end of they day explaining what has happened, challenges you have faced and what the plan is for tomorrow has proven to be highly successful in Bob's team. He has also seen a huge improvement in his team's ability to present their work and story tell, two key attributes that all designers need to have! If you want to hear more of Bob's market leading insights into the design world, check out the full episode in comments below!

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Interesting article on rethinking the role of UX Teams. https://lnkd.in/eN7SQHEm #design #designthinking #designbuild #designstrategy #product #producctdesign #productmanagement #productstrategy #designprinciples #innovation #designers #digitaltransformation #ux #uxdesign #uiux #uidesign #designinnovation #application #software #softwaredesign #usability #userresearch #research #usercentereddesign #productleadership #uxwriting #designsystems #empathy #interfacedesign #usabilitytesting #userexperience #productdesign #accessibility #ui

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I too have long since stopped giving portfolio reviews. The advice I give instead is that designers need to show they have done the work that the hiring manager is looking to hire for. Smart hiring managers have a to-do list already in mind for their new hire. They have a list of things they need the new UXer to accomplish in the first year. (Note: not all hiring managers are smart about hiring. Many are pretty bad at it, in fact. We shouldn’t worry about them. They likely aren’t good to work for.) They describe that list of what they need done in the job ad. And when they are in the interview process, including reviewing an applicant’s materials, they are looking for solid evidence that the applicant has done comparable work. They are hoping to hire someone who has done these things before, because that will get them up to speed fastest. Therefore, I tell folks to create a portfolio that speaks directly to the job ad. Make sure every point in the portfolio references something on that manager’s to do list. The job of the candidate’s portfolio is to grab the attention of that hiring manager. It needs to speak directly to the ad. It needs to scream “I HAVE DONE THIS JOB BEFORE. I CAN DO IT FOR YOU!” That’s the best advice I can give people who ask for me to review their portfolio.

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Designers struggling with NDA's? Wanting to get in the room for that interview but companies want to 'see' the work first? This is for you. I've long had an opinion on this topic, but the power of our Design:Unfiltered series is all about getting perspectives and insights from some of the world's best. Here Dave breaks down tactful and tangible ways Designers facing NDA challenges can overcome. If you're a Designer seeking new work but feeling challenged and limited by the hiring process of 'showing your work' - You have Options! You have ways and means and you are not at a disadvantage over any other designer! In saying that, cannot wait to go live with another stream tomorrow where no doubt we'll be dropping more nuggets of gold! #designunfiltered #designrecruiting #designtips #portfoliotips #designhiring

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The UX of the UK Government website exemplifies how digital services can be designed to be accessible, user-friendly, and efficient. By prioritising clear navigation and inclusive design, it serves as a model for other governmental and public sector websites globally. #uk #ux #design

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⭐ Tips for Designers Seeking Contract Roles ⭐ For all designers struggling to find contract work, try these tips to boost your chances: 1️⃣ Reach Out to Past Contacts 👉 Contact Recruiters or Direct Hiring Managers or Designers you've previously worked with Be Concise: ◾ Include your job title, day rate (inside/outside IR35), availability, CV, portfolio, mobile number, and email in the message to them. ◾ Add a brief bullet point on your key experience (e.g., native app experience, B2C/B2B checkout/conversions, SaaS). Tailor this to the client if you're contacting them directly. 2️⃣ Update Your Portfolio & CV 👉 Highlight Contract Details ◾ Projects: Describe what you worked on (e.g., Native/Responsive app, discovery phases). ◾ Purpose: Explain why you were hired. ◾ Collaboration: Mention who you worked with. ◾ Success Metrics: Define how you measured success. ◾ Role: Outline your daily contributions and processes (keep it brief). ◾ Outcome: Detail the results of your work. ◾ Keywords: Include terms that target specific companies (e.g., SaaS, B2B, data visualization, relevant tools). 🌟Additional Tips🌟 ◾ Tailor Job Titles: If you’re a product designer applying for a UX or service design role, adjust your job title and keywords to align with the position (e.g., UX-weighted Product Designer). ◾ Be Honest: Ensure your experience reflects the role accurately and truthfully otherwise this is a waste of time for you and the recruiter These steps can help you present yourself effectively and increase your chances of securing a contract role. If anyone has any success stories then feel free to comment and this will help lots of people!

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