Team UX is the same as "Tech" UX

“If you want to go cheap, prepare to spend a lot of money.”

Joshua Blair, PMP

Have you ever thought about how important user experience (UX) is when navigating the vast ocean of technology platforms? I would go on a limb and say it is the most important part of any successful outcome between your business and a (potential) customer. Spending money on such experience can come in two forms, quick and cheap or targeted and right.

Have you sought out input from customers about the UX (this is a rhetorical question; certainly, hope you did)?

What about taking the same framework for UX development and apply it to teams? OK. Hear me out for a minute.

“Why guess when you can know?”

-        Joshua Blair, PMP

Leadership is a vital part of organizational success. What “leadership” means in organizations can vary. Designing successful teams is a research based (and time consuming) job (or at least it should be). Rather than guessing at what could make up a good team or relying on the need to hire rather than researching a best team dynamic, just keep in mind, going cheap will cost you a lot of money.

Joshua Blair with Brand thumb brought up some interesting points that had me thinking. UX is vital for customers, so why shouldn’t the same general concepts apply to designing teams? We will call this model Team User Experience (TuX). 

“Team” is self-explanatory, but in applying “User” this will be synonymous to the end-customer served by teams. “Experience” relates to the outcome of team/customer interaction.

TuX Model encompasses eight factions made up of traits that unify and create a balanced approach to team dynamics. In essence, ask yourself as a company, is this the right person and if not, did I ask all of the right questions to rule them out?

Let us visit each of the eight and offer a few points to consider. First, what is UX? 

“User Experience (UX) refers to a person's emotions and attitudes about using a particular product, system or service. It includes the practical, experiential, affective, meaningful and valuable aspects of human–computer interaction and product ownership” (Wikipedia 2018).

Now, what makes up the proposed model?

PERSONALITY

“A critical question here is whether coolness further fuels this explosion and if its factors, to some extent, overlap with existing factors” (Raptis, Bruun et al. 2017).

Millennial's today are more apt to enjoin organizations with a trendy, less conventional work environment. Google, Facebook, Adobe, Twitter, InVision and others have environments established with incredible amenities for employees. If you are not modeling some of those same amenities, there is a good chance you are not going to get the kind of team you need in today’s marketplace (8 weeks of vacation time, 100% paid, no-deductible health care coverage, gym access, pet insurance, free food, education stipends). When asking “is this the right personality” first ask “am I able to attract the right personality.”

TIME IN INDUSTRY

“Experience in general covers everything personally encountered, undergone, or lived through” (Vermeeren, Roto et al. 2016).

It should also encompass the things you want to live through. Do not let a lack of time in a specific industry hold back motivated candidates. The only one losing out is you.

SKILLS

If they do not have the skills today, can you teach it to them by tomorrow?  Too many stipulated requirements for a position are often the best way to deflect from a good pool of strong applicants.

MOTIVATION

“Psychological flourishing assesses psychological wealth and well-being which goes beyond positive emotions and life satisfaction” (Partala and Saari 2015).

Set a goal to motivate employees, not expect them to be motivated by the work you are doing.

PROBLEM SOLVING SKILLS

“design activities are undertaken to create variants of rich prototypes with the aim to systematically study aspects of interaction and experience with them” (Vermeeren, Roto et al. 2016).

Give them a problem, something you know is impossible to achieve, see how they react, but make sure they are willing to accept defeat and not fabricate what you already know to be true, it is impossible. That is the true attribute of a problem solver, knowing when a problem cannot be solved (yet) during that moment.

CULTURAL FIT

“terms such as user experience have been introduced to emphasise the importance of the feelings that users experience as they interact with technological artefacts” (Jokinen 2015).

Sit down with the team, bring in the new candidate to chat with them, see if they like this person. If not, ask why, if so, really ask why.

INNOVATOR

Taking the aspect of aesthetics from UX design, we apply it differently here for “Innovator” (i.e., “Intensity”) as a construct within the model. (Jiang, Wang et al. 2016) defines this as:

“Intensity refers to the vigor of what Beardsley calls the human regional qualities of artworks. The intensity of such qualities can be translated into a strong presence of expressiveness” (Jiang, Wang et al. 2016).

Ask yourself, is this person creative? Do they have the motivation to think outside of the box?  What is the craziest idea they have come up with (that is also legal)?

PERFORMANCE

A “central concept in understanding human experiences and also well-being is the concept of psychological needs” (Partala and Saari 2015).

You should be seeking out teams of people who know what it is like to fail, are not afraid to admit it and are willing to show they have learned a great deal from it. Performance is twofold: how you perform and how other people say you have performed. Just because a manager makes a case for a low performance rating does not mean they are a low performer. Any leader willing to classify a team member as a low performer is a low performing leader. The team you have reflects you as the leader, not the other way around. 

The proposed model is framed around discovering a new way to identify qualified team members for the new digital age. Do not just conventionally ask the same common questions, but instead, think about the experience, user, and all things in between.

Ryan A. Starzyk, CIPM, CSM

References

Jiang, Z., W. Wang, B. C. Y. Tan and J. Yu (2016). "The Determinants and Impacts of Aesthetics in Users’ First Interaction with Websites." Journal of Management Information Systems 33(1): 229-259.

Jokinen, J. P. P. (2015). "Emotional user experience: Traits, events, and states☆." International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 76: 67-77.

Partala, T. and T. Saari (2015). "Understanding the most influential user experiences in successful and unsuccessful technology adoptions." Computers in Human Behavior 53: 381-395.

Raptis, D., A. Bruun, J. Kjeldskov and M. B. Skov (2017). "Converging coolness and investigating its relation to user experience." Behaviour & Information Technology 36(4): 333-350.

Vermeeren, A. P. O. S., V. Roto and K. V??n?nen (2016). "Design-inclusive UX research: design as a part of doing user experience research." Behaviour & Information Technology 35(1): 21-37.

Wikipedia (2018). User experience. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia