On building robust UX teams — Rhys Nealon

I met Rhys Nealon when we worked together at Nile in Edinburgh. We became friends over the years; and since many of you were asking me about an interview with someone who knows a bit or two about assembling a design team, I went to Rhys straight away. Since our departure from Nile, Rhys worked for some pretty big clients — currently User Experience Lead at Designit, a global strategic design consultancy.

This interview isn’t short, but it will tell you a lot about setting up a good UX design team, so read it and enjoy the wisdom.

Warning: the next paragraph of this text is in Polish. Then, the interview continues in English.

Ten wywiad mo?esz przeczyta? w polskiej wersji na moim blogu. Dzi?kuj? za uwag?!

Wojtek: Rhys, can you introduce yourself to us first, please?

Rhys: I’m an Edinburgh-born but Barcelona-bred user experience and service design specialist. I’ve worked across a variety of client types and industries over the past 12 years. Examples of that would be media companies like Scottish Television, as well as digital agencies, consultancies and large banks.

I came to UX from the research side. I am focused on observing behavior and looking at human factors — I am generally interested in how people interact with technology. That's what got me into user experience and that's ultimately what I still care about today. Whether things actually work for people.

W: Thanks. You have quite a lot of experience in leading UX teams. This is what we want to talk about today. Perhaps we should start with something really simple... What are the necessary qualities of a UX team?

R: I think that it really depends on the type of problems that a team has to solve. So a UX team in a full service agency, for example, could be quite different to a UX team at a large financial organisation.

It makes sense to think about the outputs the team has to produce, but also the kind of interactions that they have with others. If, for example, you've got a design consultancy, ask yourself: Is it more important for them to actually design things that are meaningful, or to just produce wireframes or visual assets? They may need to be comfortable being in front of clients and running workshops. Whereas if you're in a large financial organisation you might find that having people who are really good at producing wireframes and prototypes quickly is more important than being able to interact with difficult stakeholders in a collaborative design setting. So the context of a team is a super-important factor. I wouldn't say that one size fits all.

W: I agree. There is no ideal recipe. How would you approach creating a brand new team from scratch? If you just walked into a company with such task in mind?

R: Things have to grow organically. I've started teams from one person — being that one person myself — and then I was bringing in somebody else, and then bringing in somebody else again... In other cases I've inherited teams that already existed. You have to structure things differently depending on either of the circumstances.

I would say the organic growth is one way. A lot of small companies may have a team that is purely development focused. They might have one or two developers that have pretty good UX skills already. But the truth is, you've got a hot developer spreading themselves too thinly by doing UX work — so you've got that need to bring in your first UX person. That person will focus on UX only, which is going to allow your developer to focus on the things that they feel they're stronger at. By forcing somebody, like a really good front end developer, to do UX work for you, you might be shooting yourself in the foot. Perhaps they prefer doing something else? Have you asked them whether they really enjoy doing UX work? That's a key factor in determining whether you're ready to bring a specialist in.

W: So does that mean that in a situation where you need some people around you, you would always go and search for externals?

R: No, not always. But things can get difficult. I'll give you an example. Recently we wanted to fill a role with someone internal — a person who I have a lot of respect for, who’s got all the right motivations, some strong skills and a massive passion for filling out a UX role.

However, we couldn't give them the role. Their core UX skills were limited. It was the first role of its type, and the level of exposure that that individual was going to be up against was massive. We didn't want to put them in that position. We needed to make a safer bet. In the end we chose to bring in somebody external, who was a better fit for the role we needed.

I wouldn't limit myself to just looking at internal candidates either. I would always look at broadening the opportunities for bringing in fresh candidates. Sometimes it surprises you. You might find people aren't what you thought they were.

W: Can you elaborate on this a bit, please?

R: Sure. See, for example, you think you are looking for a UXer that is also comfortable working with visual design. So you go out and then bring somebody in who’s got that flair for visual design but is weaker on the UX side. Then you talk to them and you find out that they have incredible natural storytelling abilities that blow your mind. This actually happened to me; I met a person like this and employed them straight away. Their skills became secondary to this incredible talent of telling stories.

W: This is very interesting from my perspective, as I believe that skills — UX methods, prototyping, research — can be learned, but there’s something in the gut of a good designer that has to come around naturally. What do you think about that?

R: I think that anyone who wants to work in a UX role has to at least have some knowledge of or experience doing research. Even if they haven’t done it themselves yet, they have to have a basic understanding of methods and a keen interest in it. It’s one of the core skills. I would also expect them to have at least a minimum level of design skills. Visual design skills that is, and they don’t have to be great, but capable enough of working with others. A little design finesse, a good eye.

W: How about their personality?

R: I am not one for strong personalities. I believe it’s a bit of a fallacy that we believe in, that a person employed in a leadership or a senior design position has to have a really strong personality and take over the room with their creative ideas. I am not very fond of that. But I do think somebody’s personality is important. By that I mean someone to be relaxed enough to be themselves and still focused on the job. Whether they’re what we often describe as introvert or an extrovert doesn’t matter that much. They need to be able to grow, that’s it.

W: Thanks. Let’s change a subject slightly. Who do you think is necessary to be embedded in a team? What skills does a good UX team must have?

R: Let me use a cheap and overused triangle diagram here! It’s so cheesy — and you can describe anything in management with it (laugh). So, the first thing will be design, from the perspective of visual design and execution of research findings. A team would also need a researcher. And then, we’ll need someone with the knowledge of strategy and business. The problem here is that, no matter what we think, not too many UX professionals are truly exposed to anything else than design in its visual sense. They rarely do research or engage in business activities. They can be very siloed in their thinking. To me, strategy is almost always to do with working as a part of a wider team and seeing challenges that others and the business face. It’s looking at a broader picture, having an interest in the bigger jigsaw.

W: So in your view an ideal team should have all three of these individuals on board?

R: It’s more to do with mixing specialisms and knowledge. Not everyone has to be a great researcher and not everyone has to be a fantastic strategist. Imagine a startup, where one of the people who started it have really good, solid understanding of the product they’re trying to develop. You may find that their passion and knowledge totally nails the strategy and just needs complementing with the skills of someone who understands design well and is able to visualise. Bring the product to life. That’s all you need.

It might be more difficult in large organisations where departments compete or even try control the strategy or the visual aspect of the product. But even there, it’s still important to have that holistic view.

W: Thanks. So what are some of these biggest challenges when it comes to setting up a proper design team? In my view it’s to do with design still being seen as putting colours on a pig. Of design being thought as entirely visual-driven.

R: Ah, that’s the story of my life. There’s no single week, you know, when somebody doesn’t come up to me and say ‘oh, can somebody in your team help me put together a slide deck?’ — and then of course one part of me wants to be really collaborative and help, and the other… You know.

W: I know very well. (laugh)

R: Then I might say: ‘I am sorry, we’re trying to redefine the digital strategy of your company — so let’s focus on this rather on just making this slide look cool’. Sometimes the person that comes has another story to tell. There might be something really interesting in there, that could actually really determine the whole future strategy of the company. Saying ‘no’ wouldn’t do anybody anything good, but refocusing can be a great idea.

And here I think lies what you’ve earlier hinted at; the attitude. I think that any design team has to be open and collaborative. Sometimes you have to say no to things, but you shouldn’t always do that. It’s important to understand the problem you’re really helping solve.

Another thing I see a lot here in the UK is that, even in really mature organisations, design is something that’s seen as supporting IT departments. It’s seen just as a small component, despite all the recent chat and buzz about digital transformation. Unfortunately it’s still not seen as it should be, as a driver.

W: How do you then fight for prominence and importance of the design team in an environment like that?

R: I think it’s about proving worth and demonstrating that you can add value. It’s to do with being humble and listening, finding opportunities where you could improve things with small effort. That’ll buy you some proper design time. Once you have that focus, though, it gets harder because you actually have to deliver. Perpetually, whilst continuing to get attention. That’s difficult. We used to say that we, as designers, need a seat at the table. Now we have it, but how do we sustain it? Do we deserve to sit at it?

I’ve always tried to get user experience design seen as a tool for creative problem solving. If you have a designer who's really good at facilitating workshops and working with stakeholders, you don't need to focus them on design production. Let them empower others to open their eyes and steer the organisation towards doing things better.

You have to lead by example — that’s the only way, by getting into the minds of certain people, about challenging their assumptions. That makes them respect you. This is what’s opening the door.

W: This sounds very sensible.

R: We often forget, as designers working within organisations, that we have internal customers. We need to be able to deliver our products and processes for them accordingly to user-centric methodology. This is internal strategy. It’s important to be able to communicate value within an organisation. To share successes and to tell stories. For that you need to build allies, and to become a part of their stories.

This is dangerous, though, because you might easily find somebody who wants to be seen as putting design at the centre of the organisation whereas all they actually do would be to run around and use buzzwords. That’s a very difficult environment to be in and the sooner you realise that it’s the case, the better. Such people are not allies. You’ve not even started a battle and you’re wasting your time already. This is back to the main topic, as I think it’s something I often see in large places — that it’s hard to attract the right, true talent.

W: Why do you think it’s hard? Shouldn’t it be easier once an organisation is at a certain scale?

R: Most of the teams I’ve grown are smaller teams, but I also often work with clients that rapidly have to grow their teams from four to to twelve or so designers, and then they need 10 teams across 10 different labs and offices. And this is when things get really hard. If we go back to this concept of three core skills: UX/UI, research and strategy, then it’s worth remembering that it’s not necessarily about everyone in your team having those skills. It’s about the sum of their skills. The orchestration and enablement of these disciplines becomes key.

But when you’re scaling a team like that or you’re scaling a number of teams and trying to replicate the model you don’t always have the luxury of nuances. It’s then worth bringing people in who can be mentored into new roles, who can learn rapidly. What you then want to do is to replicate the combined skills across teams. That’s sometimes difficult and you can miss all the subtle shades of grey… And for me UX is mainly shades of grey, not so much black and white. The danger of doing it this way is that you might end up with design teams that are very executional — and not very good at challenging problems that were brought to them in the first place, or pivoting them. Which is the core of UX.

W: How can we keep people in the team once we have them? How to keep them so they don’t go elsewhere?

R: I think most jobs have that problem; people moving around a lot. I think that we have to get used to that; the desire of people to stay for a long time in one place is simply not there. Let’s be honest. So I think being aware of this from day one is good. You might spend half a year looking for a designer and they will only stay with you for half a year or a couple of years, and that’s ok. Get on with it! In fact, I think we need to be open to this, and welcoming to change. There’s no point trying to make someone feel like they have to stay if they don’t want to. Be genuine from the start; don’t lie to them. Don’t tell them there’s loads of really cool opportunities that they’re going to get if there aren’t any. Focus on the positives, but be realistic.

I do think that a lot of organisations oversell themselves when they try to hire people. And then when people come through the door they’re disappointed. Then, we of course have terrible HR departments that can’t really do proper onboarding, or no onboarding at all.

W: Yeah. I’ve been in situations myself when I was expected to figure everything out on my own, with no support, no clear line of progression, nothing. It’s shit.

R: That’s a really bad way to get a person working with your team. They’re going to hate it straight away. It’s really important to give them something meaningful to do from the start — and it doesn’t have to be big, but meaningful — so they can start believing in themselves and their new job. It’d also help you in estimating their real skill level.

In terms of keeping them for a longer while, it really depends on things that are out with the realm of UX.

W: Oh?

R: Yes. I think it depends on the product you’re working on for the organisation, and on what kind of leaders this organisation has. Hopefully all these things are good — the product makes sense and leaders are supportive and understanding — and if so, then all you have to do is to make make people feel welcome. Making them feel like they’re a part of the team. They should be able to share openly and don’t have to come too formal. Get them together once a week to talk about design work, for example, so they can talk about things that interest them. But give them space and respect, don’t treat them all like sausages in a factory. Allow them to be different.

Try not to direct them and say that ‘this is the way the design team works’ — keep an open mind, as they might actually have a better idea than you on how their team should be working. Take their views into consideration. Teams are made of people, and they have their preferred way of behaving; give them a chance. Don’t put them in boxes.

W: Thanks for that, man — some amazing insight there. Ok, to close off; as you know, this will be read by my readers in Poland. Mostly aspiring UX designers, who have found themselves in a situation where they have to assemble a design team and they don’t know how to go about it. Maybe you could give them a bit of a final advice before we conclude?

R: Hire people that have the desire to learn. Don’t hire them thinking they’ve done a course, but hire those who want to learn continuously. Those are the people who will help your organisation and product grow. If you’re looking for someone to handle wireframing, get a person who’s good at that but make sure they can respond to different challenges. You don’t want them to tell you ‘it’s not my job’ when you ask them to help you with something else. You want people who have the hunger to improve. It’s all about their attitude beyond the basic skills.

These people are super rare, though, so keep your eyes open for them. Good luck!

W: Thank you, Rhys. That’s awesome.

R: Thanks a lot for having me.

Links

• Rhys Nealon on Twitter
• Polish version of this interview — wojtekkutyla.pl

Credits

Portrait of Rhys has been kindly captured by Sylwia Kowalczyk and Simon Crofts