I've been practicing product design at Calendly for the past 4 years and another year at QGenda before that.
Object Oriented UX Self-paced online course
Better Together: Design and Research with User Testing Meetup group in Atlanta, GA.
Throughout the years I have honed my process as a senior product designer. While things don't always go to plan, I always lean into this process to get started and evaluate where to move forward. This can be encompassed by my favorite idiom: strong opinions, loosely held.
There are also different ways in which process presents itself: in design strategy (establishing a problem, working on solutions), with the squad (PM, engineers), and within a design team. Common threads between these are communication, alignment, and collaboration. The same way we do retros with our squads at the end of every sprint, it's important to bring that into evaluating whether our processes are or aren't working across a team, department, or initiative.
Using the beginning part of the double diamond, I lean on this to help create a program for an initiative or project.
Some tools I use here:
- cross functional workshops
- evaluating existing research
- identify research methods
- define deliverables and align with leadership
- define partners and stakeholders
It's easy for designers to get entrenched in the day-to-day of working with out squads. Designers need to have the space to share solutions, sketches, ideas, and challenges to foster a culture of support, openness, and well.. awesome design
A few things I've done in the past to help with this on our growing team:
- created a space to talk about components and our design system
- hosted lunch and learns when switching or introducing new tools
- shared work early and often so others felt that they can do the same
- set up time with designers from another group to make sure we're in lock step on new functionality being introduced.
We wouldn't be here without our squad and product and engineering partners! As a designer who has supported multiple squads at once, they truly have their own personalities, process, and micro cultures. Here are some of the tools and methodologies I've brought to working with squads:
- create openness by asking questions
- schedule syncs to show design work that's in progress, just starting (showing a vision), or getting ready for dev
- provide structured design files and links to prototypes
- retro on our ux/dev process so we can continue to improve
