Communicating the UX Vision: 13 Anti-Patterns That Block Good Ideas

by Martina Hodges-Schell, James O'Brien

This book identifies the 13 main challenges designers face when they talk about their work and provides communication strategies so that a better design, not a louder argument, is what makes it into the world.

It is a fact that we all want to put great design into the world, but no product ever makes it out of the building without rounds of reviews, feedback, and signoff. As an interaction or UX designer, you ve felt the general trend toward faster development, more work, and less discussion. As we spend time crafting, we become attached to our own ideas and it gets all too easy to react to feedback emotionally or dismiss it, when we should be taking the time to decode it and explain or adapt the design. "

Communicating the UX Vision" helps you identify the skills and behavioral patterns to present your work in more persuasive ways, and respond more constructively to feedback from coworkers and stakeholders.
Learn presentation tips that make stakeholders and other departments take your designs more seriouslyUncover valuable techniques to make feedback sessions more productiveUnderstand how to improve empathy with business stakeholders and learn to speak their language betterDiscover how to better understand your behavior and identify your personal anti-patterns"

Genres: Design, Nonfiction

329 pages, Paperback

First published October 24, 2014

About the author

Martina is a User Experience Consultant at Method who specialises in user-centered design, experience strategy and design research. She has over 15 years experience in interactivity for web, desktop and devices, with a background in brand development.

Martina holds a MA in Applied Imagination from Central Saint Martins, where she conducted research into methods for multi-disciplinary collaboration and adoption of user-centered thinking to support creativity and innovation.

She co-founded UX Tuesday and mentors at Seedcamp and Lean UX Machine to bring UX expertise to startups. She serves on the UK UXPA committee, is a co-organiser of UXcamp London and a regular speaker on a wide range of user experience topics.

Reviews

[André · Rating 3 out of 5]

- paid EUR 8 (shipping included, good used condition), not EUR 35
- my rating: 3/5 stars at 35 euros and 4 stars at 8 euros
- could have been half the pages
- mixed bag of no-brainers and useful tips, sometimes redundant
- some photos and illustrations, glossary
- content is organized around 13 bad habits and manners of thinking in UXD stakeholder communication, each described with indicators, countermeasures, and a 2-3 page real-world anecdote from an UXer, which isn't just decoration
- the authors make "the case that what we design isn't an experience until a user is experiencing it", and provide "better interpersonal patterns and ways to keep discussions on track" and "how to harness testing and user feedback to tighten feedback loops and make better product decisions as a team" (p.240), it consistently argues against silos
- it's not a book about the subtleties of front-end, user research, strategy, product definition, information architecture, interaction design, visual design, branding, ...
- text was printed too close to the fold throughout the book, but makes the outer margin wider so that you can write more notes there