So, why I left Earlier company’s UX group?
(Disclaimer: these are my personal views)
There are many things which UX MANAGEMENT needs to look upon and rethink. And SOME OF THESE REASONS made me quit.
- UX analysts, interaction designers are not WEB DEVELOPERS, GRAPHIC DESIGNERS, HTML CODERS, UI BUG FIXERS OR JS EXPERTS.
- Client is certainly not a King and UX ANALYSTS ARE NOT THEIR SLAVES. Which I thing onsite coordinators and offshore managers should understand. DONOT FEAR YOUR CLIENT. Rather be open and frank. DON’T LIE YOUR CLIENT.
- HIRE RIGHT CANDIDATES and for right jobs. Don’t get IITians and Nidians, HFI certified to make HTML mocks ups. You don’t have projects for this people with this background. (Creating html mocks is not interaction design or interface design.)
- OPEN UP the methodology diagrams which is “TRADE MARKED” (so called backbone of the UX) and see which the activities are followed so far and in which projects. Is this methodology followed????????
- “TRANSPARENCY” in Management, projects, work, rating members.
- “SHARE” the presentations with UX team members. Let them know which clients, what projects, who did it. (two years of my employment I didn’t see any of these, hope others will see it sooner or later)
- cultivate good “WORK ETHICS”
- Identify who is good at work; DON’T JUST GET CARRIED AWAY WITH IMPRESSIVE RESUME. Test each team member’s strength, encourage the team members at the same time rate their Critical success factor based on their work/performance.
- Stop measuring your group success with just numbers/revenue. Revenue is not what your team wants, give them challenge.
- Lastly, challenge people, give them wicked design problems not wicked UI bugs and WORK on the above suggestions.
Few things which are unique about earlier UX group, which makes team members to enjoy their work
- Diverse team, yet very experienced team, ( atleast few whom I have worked with)
- Good vision to take the group (sadly I saw it only PPT)
- Only group who has foreseen the market for RIA and invested heavily on RIA (this is one of the best thing done so far, I guess management have done fairly good in hiring right people for this group atleast.)
- Great onsite opportunities.
BTW things which I miss the most are “Tapri” and all the jhingoors from pune team. 
4 comments:
Vinay,
I am cognizant of your agony/ frustration,because most of us are facing the similar problem.
By the way,I am working as Usability Expert in Delhi.
Most of the companies think that delivering a product in time is more important than delivering the quality product,hence everything goes for a toss.The urgency to deliver and count money is the major culprit.
The design we suggest,user centric, is always belittled and side lined for the simple reason that it is time consuming which needs lot of iterations.
Unless the business promoter understands the value of usability and promotes it nothing can happen. Sometimes I feel that I am doing manager(delivery head) centric design instead of user centred design.
Having said that,the IT heads, business owners and clients should realise the importance of this usability feature, otherwise I dont see great future for such companies in the long run.
People like us should come together to promote the awareness and best practices of Usability / UCD
Hey! I agree with you, companies should be critical thinkers in hiring new talent. Anyways, let them to do what they need to to run the business.
And for all talent around looking for change, make sure to check the background of company / group they are joining in. Remember, Money is not everything :-)
:) Wonderful post..
Very Insightful..
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