Before leaving my short stint as a UX designer at Hypoteční banka, I thought about what this experience had given me in terms of my UX education. One can read a lot of theory, but some things have to be lived through. Personally, I now lean towards the view that UX design is much more about communication, argumentation and “translating” terminology, vocabulary and ideas between IT, analysis and business analysis than about working with some UX prototyping tool. That does not mean that GUI prototyping is not an important end product of a UXer’s work, but it is only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Misunderstood analysis and business requirements will always lead to bad UX, however talented at prototyping one may be. That is also why I think practice bears out my assumption that a UXer stands, cognitively, in a peculiar position between creativity and analysis, between chaos and order, and has to master both modes of thinking very well. Which is one of the points of my “empirical” ten commandments.
  1. Ideally, log everything you work on.
  2. Before you design anything, make sure you understand and know the business and analytical documentation well.
  3. Learn the terminology of business, analysis and development, so that you are able to communicate your UX ideas in their natural language.
  4. Since you will be communicating with business, analysis and development, be prepared to write down their ideas and comments. Not only to be sure you remember things, but also to have arguments for why you designed things in UX the way you did.
  5. You work with talented and intelligent people. Even so, not everyone has your talent for picturing a user interface, animations, interactions etc. in their head. So try to communicate your ideas in concrete language, without needless abstractions. It still holds that a picture, or better a prototype, is worth 1000 words.
  6. Prepare for meetings. Draw up an outline of what you want to discuss. Make sure the room has a projector, the necessary equipment, cables etc.
  7. Don’t be afraid to use free meeting rooms for drawing on whiteboards and rapid prototyping. It is good to leave the software environment now and then and pick up a pencil or a marker. It will boost your creativity.
  8. In Axure or another prototyping tool, use a monochromatic colour scheme. Use striking colours to highlight important interactive elements or statuses.
  9. If you have experience in visual design, be careful not to make your prototypes too detailed and “high-fidelity”. In other words, tame the artist in you, pamper the designer.
  10. UX is a creative but also an analytical activity. Cultivate both modes of thinking.