Presentation based on the Post from MailChimp UX Newsletter. by @aarron http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?awesome=no&u=7e093c5cf4&id=cfe9dbcac8

1. Building a UX Team
Based on: http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?awesome=no&u=7e093c5cf4&id=cfe9dbcac8
@bruno2ms
Aaron Walter
Director of User Experience at MailChimp
post by
slides by

2. USER EXPERIENCE

3. research
development
design
customer
support
UX

4. MailChimp UX team of one
generalist professional, who:
Designed UIs; Wrote front-end code;
Built prototypes; Interviewed customers;
Conducted usability tests; Responded to Customer Support;
Back in 2008
Aaron Walter
Director of User Experience at MailChimp

5. A Team of Generalists with specific skills:
4 design researches
2 UI designers
1 expert email designer/developer
Aaron Walter (Leader)
In 2014

6. When you focus on wireframes and
workflows things get lost in translation as
ideas are passed to other departments
A team filled with specialists but no
generalists creates silos.
Don`ts

7. EASY TO HIRE, HARD TO FIRE

8. Because it`s easy to hire someone who`s mediocre, but
it`s really hard to fire them.
Look for passion, curiosity, selflessness, openness,
confidence, communication, skills, emotional
intelligence, and intrinsic motivation, too.
Hiring is hard

9. These things
can`t be taught,
most skills can

10. Can this person say “we" instead of “me”?
Can they let someone else have the glory?
Can they put in their best work, then leave control
to someone else to take it further?
Ask Yourself

11. RESPECT

12. Great designers need to understand
engineering enough to empathize with,
listen to, and respond to the people who build
what they want.

13. Respect between design and development is
critical. It don`t happens organically.
It has to be a core value of the company,
demonstrated by leadership daily.

14. AUTONOMY

15. If failure is not an option
in your organization,
then neither is success

16. Team needs autonomy to follow their gut.
When big decisions need to be made, team
autonomy has to give way to the
perspective of the whole company.

17. Absolute
Autonomy
leads to
CHAOS
Sometimes

18. "Autonomy sometimes lead to
miscommunication. Meeting are often vilify,
but there`s great value in short, regularly
scheduled check-ins."

19. PARALLEL CYCLES

20. 5 weeks release cycle followed by our UI design,
front-end dev, and engineering teams.
It works for refinement but restricts deeper studies.
The cycle for deep research is considerably longer,
and happens parallel to the rapid cycles of app
development.

21. Having in-depht research continually tricking
into rapid iteration cycles helps ensure that
we`re not only moving fast, but that we`re also
moving in the right direction.

22. CREATE A CULTURE OF EMPATHY

23. For a UX team, nothing
is more motivating
than watching users
struggle with your app.

24. THAT`S
SERIOUS

25. The outcome of these tests is always the same:
We`re made so uncomfortable on their behalf
that we`re compelled to make things better
immediately.

26. as your
customers`
experiences
become more visible
your team will become
more empathetic.

27. TELL STORIES

28. Research can`t create change in an organization
until it has been turned into a compelling story.
research is much more influential when it`s
made accessible to others

29. tl;dr;

30. When smart, capable people with
complementary skills are united by a deep
desire to help customers,
great things happen.

31. http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?awesome=no&u=7e093c5cf4&id=cfe9dbcac8
THANK U
Reference: