‘When you want something done right, you must do it yourself’, or so the saying goes. What I gather to be the true meaning, is not the desire to oversee an entire project. Instead, we seek control over the outcome. So, how do we control the outcome and ensure a successful project?
In my experience, a perfected piece of software always needs a capable set of hands. Sometimes, a great idea requires a second opinion. Other times, great execution requires a second set of hands. Just when this should happen is up to you and your team.
But ideally, you should know the signs. Every team can have its limits, or milestones, for when to ask for help. In a moment, I will take you through them.
A UX Refresher Course
I’ll first give you an overview of the playing field.
UX stands for ‘User Experience’. It is a term covering any part of a system faced and operated by the end-user as they achieve their goal. This could be a website, an app, a physical product, or even a customer service interaction.
User Experience Design, or UX Design, comprises of the creation and management of User Experience components . Essentially, it is the process of understanding your users’ aims, behaviours, and talents.
What’s Required?
Anyone with a search engine can ‘do good UX’. But compelling, quality UX – well, that’s an art form.
A qualified team will know how to think in the shoes of your potential user, through Design Thinking, and human-centred or object-centred design. User research plays a substantial role in this as well, with multiple techniques involved.
As part of the UX process, teams will map customer journeys, create wireframes, prototypes, interaction and visual designs, user testing, as well as consistent iterations of the models. UX Testing - not to be confused with User Testing - is also a valuable part of this process.
Bonus: Don’t Have the Expertise?
UX is a valuable discipline. A highly experienced in-house team UX requires a great deal of commitment from their parent organisation. This involves time and resources. When this is not seen as feasible for the company, they look towards outsourcing their UX teams, for direct access to expertise, with flexible cooperation arrangements.
Who’s Involved?
Good UX involves a great mix of minds and matter. The stakeholders with interest in your project may be involved directly, or indirectly. Consider the users, the beneficiaries, as well as internal or external team members.
Some examples are Management, Head of Project, CEO, the Marketing team, your existing UX team, as well as the client, and end-user.
UX Process Problems
Getting it right means knowing the warning signs. Be sure to remain attentive to these potential problems, as your organisation may relate to many of these issues:
Budget Uncertainties
Even the most meticulously organised projects will face some degree of budgetary deviation. In fact, the more ambitious, or exciting your app development idea, the higher the likelihood of difference.
A critical problem is a lack of definition within the budget. This can come from a lack of experience and know-how. The full scale of design and development requires awareness of each component of the process. When factoring in a changing UX, with updated demands, that job becomes much harder.
Perhaps the client wishes to see more branding reflected within the design? Maybe an additional step is needed when signing up new users? With changing requirements, a budget can balloon, and quickly.
Setting a budget is always an educated guess. Consider the time required by the various members of your design team. Furthermore, when aligning a budget to the goals of your project, and you are unsure of the capabilities of your in-house team – consider raising this budget or look towards outsourcing some project competencies.
Existing Team at Capacity
This is not only a monetary issue. In many ways, your team may have severe limitations, mainly when producing in-line with ever-changing UX design methodologies. Sometimes, even the most experienced staff don’t have the latest credentials. In other cases, you may lack the appropriate amount of team members to help bring your project in line with your strict timeline.
When ideas, scope, or scale of product expand, often, the team must expand. Skills bridging is vital in this case when you require a particular area of expertise. But when you’re on the hunt for a niche skill - but are unable to justify the cost of hiring a dedicated full-time developer - what do you do?
Timeline is Encroaching
A few missed milestones can be the signs of a deeper issue. Keeping a project under control means making sure everything stays on schedule. Sometimes, struggling to maintain this timeline is symptomatic of a lack of resources needed to take on the project in the first place.
Tight deadlines can also put adverse pressure on teams, stemming the creative potential on which your company may take considerable pride. In any case, an all-hands-on-deck attitude is practical – but could be an early sign that you are already pushing at capacity.
Industry Difficulties
If you are venturing into a new area or business environment, you may be unfamiliar with good UX practices. That comes from know-how in functional apps and programmes, and which may be invisible to the conventional developer. An example of this is in E-Commerce platform designs.
Examples of issues could be poorly designed descriptions, unclear or missing contact information, checkout form issues, or a misguided focus on unimportant features. Feel free to read more on e-Commerce UX design mistakes to get an even better idea.
Common Solution
Your UX team might be the most coveted and boast experienced people with a talent for their craft. But from time-to-time, even the experts can feel the pressure. The above scenarios are valuable warning signs that your team’s effectiveness is bursting at the seams. If your team experiences even one of the above circumstances, then the chances are that you will require additional assistance.
Identify a UX Partner
Many organisations shy away from such an option. And there are good reasons for it. There are the anxieties of trust. “Where can I find a competent and reliable team?” Even the initial search can seem a drain on resources.
In those cases, your project team must soul-search. Assess your needs and resources as an organisation. You may only need the work of a freelancer or scale up a niche skill with a design studio. For more ambitious projects, a multidisciplined Agency would be a sensible option.
Bonus: Traditional Options
Outsourcing is a possibility for many projects and involves moving production overseas, often in faraway destinations. Many organisations simply opt to offshore an entire idea and the production that goes with it. The side-effects, here, are evident. Your organisation needs to maintain control and end-product quality. Failing to meet standards will cost your team through constant iterations, delays, and loss of value.
Agencies, as mentioned earlier, offer layers of competence and production capacity. That competence comes at a high price. When the often excessive ‘agency model’ does not suit your organisation, you may be forced to compromise production to meet your budget.
Extended Team Model
Take an agency model and apply it individually to your needs. This would be the extended team model. Here, you can add individual team members, from a highly-functional remote team. In these cases, your organisation can scale the size of your prospective team, thereby adding and reducing, based on requirements.
With this arrangement, you would augment your capabilities to match what you need. Seek individual staffs with unique skillsets, and at price points to match most organisations. What’s more, is they are, by nature, highly communicative and functional.
Conclusion
When assessing the status of your project, look out for the above warning signs that your team may need to upgrade its capacity. The probability is that your organisation may not sound the alarm in time. UX is a highly-competitive artform, and requires a great deal of expertise, particularly for ambitious projects.
Therefore, I encourage you to take the time to identify your prospective UX partner. Many organisations make the mistake of over-compensating and seeking agencies or ‘band-aid’ solutions. For many niche capabilities, a simple skills-bridging may be just what you need. For that, consider a remote extended team.
Whichever your calamity, your UX design team will always need an eventual hand. When it comes to perfection, I never shy away from seeking out help. Neither should your organisation!
