Jon Simmons

If we're not talking about design maturity, agile process, or craft, then us designers are probably talking about ✨quality.✨ I certainly see my interviewer's eyes light up when I mention this magical word. "Design is the one that has to hold the quality bar," I tell them. But what if that didn't have to be true? For a truly high-quality product, I don't think it should be design holding the line. It has to be something baked into the organization - everyone holds the quality bar. Even though "quality" is a slippery thing to define, if we can define it and hold ourselves to it, we can reduce the tension in the org and start to think less about the mere baseline quality for the product and more about raising that bar - delighting the user. I very much enjoyed Luke Anthony Firth's take on how they folded quality into their product building process. Have a read! https://lnkd.in/g4SenmYZ #designleadership #productprocess #productdesign #productquality #designquality #opentowork

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Do you want consistency between designers and front-end developers? Use of design tokens. When everyone uses the same terms, it simplifies things for both teams. Here's Google's introduction to design tokens and how you can implement them: https://lnkd.in/gpWMwqVz

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The more that designers can think with a business mindset, the more effective they can be at influencing key stakeholders and driving desired outcomes.

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Companies are finally seeing the value of super-senior ICs! But career ladders and expectations for staff+ designers are often unclear, leaving lots of people who reach this level feeling unsupported. To help, I took my own 14+ years of experience as an individual contributor in high-impact roles at tech companies of varying sizes and made a highly interactive course. Join us starting Feb 3: https://lnkd.in/eqg4e2vx We’ll cover: 💡 Common expectations of the staff+ designer role 💡 Effective communication with senior leaders and executives 💡 How to set and uphold boundaries to focus on high-impact work 💡 Techniques to manage up and show impact Over the span of three weeks, you'll build a network of super-senior peers and acquire tactics from me: a designer who's been through these exact challenges. Grab your spot now! P.S. Thanks, Adekunle Oduye, for the kind words!

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Determine high-priority features in less than an hour. Get everyone in a room. Pass out stickies. Document every task users perform on your app. One task per sticky. Write furiously for 15 minutes. Group similar stickies into feature sets. (Below you’ll see a photo of a workshop I led where we condensed ~70 tasks to 17 features.) Vote for the 3 features you believe are most important to the user. Initial beside your desired feature to cast a vote. The two features with the highest vote count are your high-priority features. Congratulations. 1. Document 2. Group 3. Vote sinpl rlly 🥂

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Here's a slide from my October 2024 talk about triaging UX, showing a word cloud of several things we can do to help drive the discipline forward. Which ones stand out to you? #ux #realuxtalk #uxtriage

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My thoughts on what’s happening to the design industry as of lately: - Rise of product designer + product manager hybrids. - Rise of design engineers. Designers who know more front-end. - Return and prominence of Design Agencies. Or large corps hiring agencies to do work instead of full-timers. - Talented UX researchers with data skills. Words of advice: Time to upskill or seek roles with a design agency.

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❓ I have a question for product designers ❓ How do you understand that you’ve reached a certain grade or level in your career, such as transitioning to a senior role? Do you rely solely on performance reviews, or are there other ways you evaluate your growth? And what if there’s no formal performance review process? I’m asking because I often get questions about assessing one’s grade or level. So, I’m curious — do you have a similar need or interest in this topic? Let me know your thoughts!

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Really annoyed at Figma's price gouging here. There is no reason other than greed: https://lnkd.in/gfdrEiWH Oh, and I emailed them about it and this line from their reply was particularly poignant: "Additionally the minimum for enterprise is a $5k invoice minimum. 6 enterprise seats or made up with other products." To put that in context... our monthly Adobe bill (for 8 CC, 7 PS, 6 Acrobat licenses) is ~NZ$2k... Amazing how quickly enshittification sets in... #Figma #Design #SoftwareLicensing

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Etsy was recently seen A/B testing AND eventually shipping a more visible search with the help of a higher contrast orange background button color (instead of a ghost-like icon only approach). Full screenshots: https://lnkd.in/gVJThW3W Now I don't work for Etsy (as much as I'd love to design some experiments for/with them) so we can't see the actual numbers beyond this feint probabilistic residue from the public domain. However, the amazing Andrey Andreev who runs experiments at Metro recently ran a very similar one and shared a solid result on GoodUI - with a positive impact to sales and searches. N = 896,009 SRM Check = Pass p-val on Increased Sales = 0.0139 (I know some people might like this to be even lower for a primary metric; but there is also reinforcing evidence on increased searches with an even lower p value at "ultra stat-sig" levels using Ron Kohavi's language; p < 0.00000001). I inverted the a/b test and categorized it under the Filled Vs Ghost Button pattern - further weakening the ghosts and strengthening the high contrast filled button styles on multiple metrics. https://lnkd.in/gmD8Exvc Thanks Andrey for a somewhat of an unintended replication, as I know your source of inspiration came from somewhere else on this one. :) Have you tested anything similar or different. If so, what did you discover? I'd be super curious to see more examples where increases to search have either ❌ failed or ✅ succeeded. Please share independent of outcome. ps. We also have a handful of similar "visible search" experiments where companies tested adding or hiding search: https://lnkd.in/gvWqzrK5 - further supporting this direction. [EDIT]: Note the additional confounders / variables in the Metro test - a stronger border, a change in background color of the search box as per Jakob Nielsen comment. They may be similar along the lines of the increased visibility theme - but possible additional variables nevertheless. #experimentation #ecommerce #replication #optimization #ui #ux

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Many designers still confuse a component library for a design system, but understanding the difference is critical for creating scalable, cohesive products. In this gabble of words I've explored how major companies like Airbnb and IBM do it right? 🧐 #UXDesign #DesignSystems #ComponentLibrary #ProductDesign #DesignVsDevelopment #Collaboration #Figma #DigitalProductDesign #TechDebate #DesignThinking https://lnkd.in/gGmxyKED

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The fee for standing on another's shoulders is making our own shoulders wide enough to climb on. Generalize that component, Document that design decision, Name that entity, You know #DesignSystems #Documentation #ProductDesign #workflow

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UX leaders: Better understand what motivates designers and how you can help them thrive by taking 3 minutes to read this excerpt from Scott Berkun’s new book “Why Design Is Hard”: https://lnkd.in/ev6XyMss

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"UX is the Business." Some great thoughts by Troy Parke about his lens on UX and connecting it to the bottom line. This is an interesting read in a time when UX must show business value. https://lnkd.in/g5ec5qUS

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Are you ready for the rise of fractional design leadership? Here's my prediction: 👉 By the end of 2024, companies will commonly engage design leaders in a fractional capacity. 👉 This could either look like... A. Design leaders engaging in contract roles to strategize and lead specific product initiatives supported by in-house teams. or B. Design leaders joining agencies specializing in fractional leadership, creating a leadership-as-a-service model. This could include additional support from teams sourced from either the agency or the client. 👉 Companies right now are balancing cash flow with growth and innovation. The increasing risk of disruption in every industry underscores the need to adapt to survive. Fractional leadership can jump-start areas where product teams feel 'stuck.' Moreover, fractional opportunities can unlock significant career-growth opportunities for designers, a path that is traditionally more scarce and has lower turnover than IC roles. What's your take on this? Is fractional design leadership the future, or am I completely off? 🤔 #management #technology #careers #leanstartups #future

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🚀 Are Companies Cheating UX Maturity with Design Systems? In a recent blog post (https://lnkd.in/etYdAjDW), I shared how some companies attempt to fast-track their design maturity by adopting a design system before determining the best designs to use in the system. The result is a false sense of UX sophistication followed by surprise, and the system doesn't meet expectations. In a recent conversation, a startup was eager to purchase an out-of-the-box design system but still needed to define their product market fit, audience, or user flows. It's like handing over the keys to a Lamborghini to a first-time driver—exciting but potentially disastrous. Imagine trying to build a spaceship without a blueprint—you might end up with a shiny but ultimately useless rocket ship. A well-defined UX process ensures you have the right tools for your specific product needs suited to your brand. How is your organization focusing on the tools or cultivating a culture? If you need guidance on integrating a design system or getting your organization ready for one, feel free to reach out to @Akendi. We're here to help you navigate the journey to design maturity effectively. 🌟 #DesignSystems #UXMaturity #ProductDesign #DesignCulture #Startup #Akendi #UXDesign

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There are several different ways to assess #uxresearch maturity 🔍 And in her recent talk at HOLY UX, Sina Schreiber went over 5 focus areas that appear in most existing UX (research) maturity models. Check out her post to learn more! 👉 https://lnkd.in/gB2mv_8T

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