How UX can get the budget they want

ebrown:

Check out Alan’s post on selling UX to your leadership or potential client. Be warned – you first need to know the numbers and how that equates to the value you bring. Do your homework and then pitch your solution.
Enjoy!

Originally posted on Clunky - Alastair Simpson:

Summary

If you want to get bigger budgets for your UX work, you have to look at the problem from the eyes of your manager and even their manager.  Just as you look at interfaces from the point of view of your users, what angle is your boss looking at the problem from?  And what is your hook that will make them sit up and listen to you?  An exit rate of 10% due to poorly formatted error messages and form fields? Or $2 million dollars in lost revenue?  Which is more compelling to your manager?  You have to frame your arguments in terms that will appeal to your boss, or face always feeling like they are never listening and you are not getting the budgets you deserve.

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UX Mentoring

I recently read a short piece by Oz at UX Beginner and feel he is spot-on! The article is about finding a UX Mentor.

Key take-aways for mentors:

  • Help set expectations
  • Be on the lookout for opportunities to network your mentee
  • Be on the lookout for possible job opportunities for your mentee

Key take-aways for mentees:

  • Drive the relationship
  • Show initiative
  • Be accountable to your mentor

Thanks Oz for your insights and this timely post. Read the full article for more details.

Google Soon To Add Mobile UX To Ranking Algorithm

The implications could be enormous for every site on the Web that competes for Google ranking. Good UX is more than look and feel. Make sure you have a seasoned UX professional on your team to maintain a strong Web presence.

Google can currently look at the user interface and not just see specific font sizes but see how a user would see the fonts on different mobile devices. Google is also able to see how a user will see how a page scrolls on a mobile interface; are the buttons large enough to click on; is the interface confusing to mobile users?

If the mobile version of a website has tiny fonts, once GoogleBot renders the page, it can see that because it actually renders the page as a user would. For example, if the HTML has a 14px font size, then once rendered with JavaScript and CSS, it might have modified those to 8px instead. This on a tiny view-port could lead to a bad user experience.

Read more >

New Look & Feel

Finally bringing WeirdGuy blog into the present. I will be playing with the look and feel of the blog over the next couple months but you can still expect the regular awesome content you are used to. Don’t worry, the blog should continue to be responsive to the device you are reading on. Drop me a note and let me know if there is anything you’d like to see or miss from the old blog design.

Cheers!

-eb

Repost: A Reply To Greg Zapar’s Article On UX Hiring Strategy

I came across this post on We Can Only Be The Future. The article resonated with me as I had a very similar discussion at lunch today with a tech recruiter. Here are a few nuggets:

  • Articulate your organization’s UX strategy in a manner that illuminates the challenges and opportunities that would be involved in me, taking a career step in your direction. Be bold, explicit, brief and transparent.
  • Great UX comes from people committed to helping others meet challenges and achieve their goals. Tell me how you set up employees for success and are committed to increasing opportunities for me to help create value.
  • Let the people I would interact with most often and that I will rely on if I join the team, write the majority of the job description and be involved in the process of interviewing me.
  • Although there is an passionate debate about the boundaries of User Experience Design, there is little debate about what UX Is NOT. Avoid any language or responsibilities that makes it look like your concept of UX is Programming, Business Analysis, Web Design, Marketing, Project Management, Community Management or, Sales….

I hope you find it informative – read more >