Jakomi Mathews

Thanks Steve. It's a noble quest, for sure. An effective answer should be one that will unlock someone's understanding of design, and cause them to act differently as a result. I think you are close. To me, a definition using design as a strategic capability should include the things you've mentioned. I feel it should also include bringing the ambitions to life (eg a future state experience vision of sorts). As you know, strategy is also as much about what you say no to as what you say yes to, and being very clear about the path you take to get there. Those decisions could be made with any number of customer insights or lack thereof, and therefore I would include the fact that design can play a part in prioritising, defining horizons and also de-risking the big bets.

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This article from Vision Australia shares five simple tips for designing accessible web forms. #Accessibility

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One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned from designing user experiences is the importance of truly walking in someone else's shoes. Recently, we undertook a significant onboarding project to help users in our courier network—many of whom are not native English speakers—navigate complex requirements and regulations in Australia. Our main goal? To make the onboarding process as intuitive, accessible, and engaging as possible. We prioritised clear communication by simplifying UX copy to reduce ambiguity and ensure users could easily follow instructions. Avoiding technical jargon helped make the content approachable and easy to understand. Providing feedback at every step—whether completing a form or reaching a milestone—built trust and reduced confusion, while micro-interactions kept users engaged without overwhelming them. We focused on accessibility to improve readability, adjusting contrast, typography, and colour choices to meet universal standards. While these adjustments were critical for non-native English speakers and users with visual challenges, they also enhance the experience for all users by creating a more inclusive, intuitive interface. Accessible design isn’t just a checkbox—it’s essential to delivering a seamless experience that benefits everyone, ensuring clarity and ease of use across the board. At the heart of this project was empathy—understanding that the users depending on our platform aren’t just fulfilling tasks; they’re trying to earn a living in an unfamiliar system. Ultimately, designing with empathy means walking in the shoes of our users and creating an experience that genuinely supports them, every step of the way. What are your thoughts on designing for empathy in complex environments? Would love to hear how others approach this! #UXDesign #EmpathyInDesign #Onboarding #InclusiveDesign

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Great insights from the AI by Design Community Roadshow in Melbourne! 🚀 The evolving role of prompt engineering, AI's impact on design, and the idea of designing for mistakes really stood out. It’s fascinating to see how AI is reshaping both strategy and execution, requiring more agile and collaborative approaches. Definitely worth a read for anyone interested in AI’s impact on design and tech. 👏✨ What are your thoughts on designing AI systems to provoke user review rather than just offering quick solutions?

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Another great Macquarie Design Blog post by Leah Ochroch went live this morning. Insightful, practical tips to ensure your design is accessible for all. #design #experiencedesign #uxdesign #accessibility

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🚨 SERVICE DESIGNERS 🚨 Before the 2nd of September, complete this survey! Your responses will help ensure that Strategic Design, Service Design, and related disciplines are properly recognised in the updated ANZSCO classification #servicedesign #design #strategicdesign #strategy #systemsdesign

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"1) When hard decisions need to be made, have bias towards the customer, 2) Customer discovery should not only ask questions from the customer but how you innovate on behalf of the customer, 3) Observe and find that emotionally held customer pain point even when the customer cannot see it, 4) Leverage techniques from other industry leaders and finally, 5) Commitment to measuring customer's love for the product and iterate until you get it right" https://lnkd.in/g6zu7NAH

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🌟 Research methods 🍎 This week in facilitating RMIT Online's User Experience Research course, we discussed different research methods, tools and sequencing in projects. I shared with students what I've learned in working with dozens of clients over the last 7+ years of working as a designer, researcher and project lead in industry. 🤷‍♀️ Looking back at the start of my career, I remember feeling overwhelmed by the volume of tools and terminology in design research. There's so out there, and it can be hard to know where to start or what to choose in which scenario before you have a portfolio of projects behind you. 💪 Here are the methods that I see most often in design research: - Interviews (group or 1:1, but most of the time 1:1) - Surveys (100+ participants) - Paid ads, lead generation and landing pages (often bundled in a layered sequence) - A/B testing - Usability testing - 5 second testing 👀 But wait, what about AI? AI can be used to help you develop assets, note take and analyze results for all of these methods. 🗺 You don't need to master every method or tool in existence to be a great design researcher. Start with the ones listed above, learning: When to do them, how to do them, how to layer them, and how to pivot when new information is learned. ❤️ Share your favorite research method, tool or tip below! What do you wish you knew about design research, now or in a past moment in your career? 🚀 Need help in understanding, preparing, conducting and/or analyzing design research in your team? Send me a DM or email at [email protected] and let's chat. FreeFlow Collective Taylor Black Studios #design #research #innovation #tools #methods #tips #servicedesign #userexperience #customerexperience #venturebuilding #hcd #designled #project #venture #teaching #AI

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🤯 In 2024, interfaces like this should be officially banned by the international high council of interface design (of which I hereby promote myself to be the chief director of the board). There’s a core principle to interface design which I have long called (only to myself) the caveman principle. Me want. Me grab. Any time you take an interface away from that principle to something like “I turn this knob over here, in order for this thing over there to work” you have to have a strong user-based justification for why that’s a better interface. Keep interfaces logical, simple, caveman proof. Is that so hard world? 

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If you are any kind of design leader, consider starting offering a new service called the Strategic User-Driven Project Assessment (SUPA). This will move you from being seen as an implementor to a strategic lead. #DesignLeadership #SUPA https://lnkd.in/gY3wFAKR

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Never write these kind of posts but Trello why have you totally messed up the interaction design of check lists? It worked so well for years and you have made some arbitrary decisions to make it harder to use. 1. Massive cognitive overload with meaningless icons everywhere for functions that were previously intuitive. 2. Forcing users to confirm every new checklist item by locating and clicking a tick icon rather than just hitting enter for a new line item. Made worse by having the cancel icon 20px right of the confirm tick so you accidentally hit it. 3. Making it equally complicated to delete items as the functionality is hidden. 4. New drag and drop also sucks and was totally fine the way you had it, just adding more confusing icons to the UI. Massive fan of the tool but did you do any user testing as struggling to see what would have got you here? What user need have you actually solved with this change? Fortunately I just use Trello for domestic workflows like holiday planning as I'd be even more frustrated if it was for work! #uxfail

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This is becoming a regular thing. For our Friday chat this week, the amazing Karen Monjo joined us to give us an insider's look at the job market. The biggest takeaway for me was, “Treat your interviewer like a customer, make the complex (your role) simply (what you did)” Your cases studies and portfolio should be as customer centric as all the work you put out into the world #JobMarket #Designers #Portfolios #CaseStudies #Skills #Experience #ProblemSolving #CareerGrowth #DesignThinking

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We often talk about UX maturity in organisations, but what about the maturity of the practitioners themselves? 🤔 In this article, I dive into how UX practitioners can grow and ultimately elevate the overall UX maturity of the company. Big thanks to Sean Vöckerodt and Arun Kumar for their feedback 🙏 If you’re a UX designer, researcher, or work alongside them, I'd love to hear your thoughts: - What level of UX maturity do you see in your team? - How do you approach the growth and development of your UX practitioners? #UXDesign #UXResearch #UserExperience #UX #DesignLeadership

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Event Reminder: Digital Accessibility! Date & Time: Wednesday, May 22 | 5:30 - 7:30pm AEST Location: Exclaim IT, 316 Adelaide Street, Level 8, Brisbane City, QLD 4000 Discover the Power of Inclusion with Digital Accessibility! Join us at Exclaim IT for exclusive insights and discussions about the importance and impact of Digital Accessibility in today’s digital-first world. This event is ideal for product owners, and businesses looking to enhance user experience and tap into new market opportunities. Why Digital Accessibility? Digital Accessibility ensures that digital content and applications are accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities. It’s not only a pathway to a potentially untapped market worth $8.5 billion, but also a vital aspect of ethical business practice and legal compliance. Speaker: Amanda Mace We are delighted to host Amanda Mace, a Subject Matter Expert in Digital Accessibility from GrackleDocs and the W3C (Web Accessibility Initiative). Amanda will be traveling from Perth to share her extensive knowledge and experiences. Her work as one of the only two Australian-based W3C evangelists positions her perfectly to lead this conversation. What to Expect? Expert Guidance: Gain insights from industry giants like Adobe and Microsoft and learn how inclusive design can significantly enhance your consumer reach and revenue. Practical Strategies: Understand the legal and ethical imperatives of digital accessibility and how it can give you a competitive advantage. Inspiring Stories: Hear how leading companies are effectively implementing digital accessibility strategies. 🌐 Reserve Your Spot Now: Register Here https://lnkd.in/ebpabvHm Don’t miss out on this opportunity to learn about digital accessibility and how it can help you and your business become more inclusive and successful. #DigitalAccessibility #InclusiveDesign #BusinessEvent #Networking #BrisbaneEvents #TechInnovation

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My session with People In Product is up on youtube! watch it here ⬇️ How Product Managers Can Leverage Design Teams For Growth. https://lnkd.in/gZvT83Ba

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I just finished #Config2024 in San Francisco this week, the mecca conference for UX designers! I noticed a theme throughout the speakers and topics of two quite contrasting approaches to UX design and it’s something I have been picking up on for some time… what do my fellow designers think? The most iconic moment (and my favorite) encapsulates it perfectly, when Figma CEO Dylan Fields interviews CEO of Teenage Engineering, Jesper Kouthoofd at 35:18 minutes in: Dylan: “Do you believe in user testing?” *brief silence* Jesper: …”no” Video pans to Dylan’s blank face. This was actually my favorite interview of the entire conference. I absolutely LOVE the candid and unfiltered Dutch vibes of Jesper, but moreover, he is challenging a belief in UX design culture. UX culture has reverberated a certain “right way” to UX design. We all know there’s a whole lot of bad ways to do UX design, so it’s not terrible to highlight some good ways. This “right way” emphasizes designing for your users, user research, designer feedback (which sometimes democratizes design decision making for better or worse,) and quick pivots to find product market fit. I would call all of this “empirical based decision making” in design. It’s all really good and essential, especially to a SaaS or other software product. But it’s missing something. Does anyone else feel like we’ve thrown “intuition” out the door? Let me share a little more of the interview before I go on. The previous question sheds more light on Jesper’s approach at 35:52 min in: Dylan: “When do you design for yourself and when do you design for others?” Jesper: “I always design for myself. If I wouldn’t buy it or use it, then I would be… actually I would be super depressed.” Why is this so significant? Jesper Kouthoofd, an icon in design, reveals a very intuitive, personal, and opinionated method to his design. In fact, he shares that he controls the early-stage design process of every product in his company. Just him. Designer of 1. His vision. His opinions. His product. Figma invited a number of iconic creatives to share in this conference. None of them talked about “user testing” and pivots based on user feedback and optimizing the user experience… their achievements actually came out of their own intuition, creating something personal to them, something they saw as beautiful and impactful. I think Figma has been picking up on this too. What is the role of intuition and true creativity in UX design? Continue reading here: https://lnkd.in/gmudxYm8

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Hard truth about process This is a classic problem in design portfolios: lengthy case studies where the designer shares a detailed breakdown of every single step they took and how “user-centered” and “data-driven” everything was—only to land on underwhelming designs and even more underwhelming results. Design thinking, double diamond, agile, scrum, lean UX, design sprint. Humans seek formulas. Formulas sell books, classes, and courses, and feed multi-million contracts where consultancies come in to fix teams that are misaligned and can’t get work done. Watch out for Trademarked Processes™ that claim to solve all your company’s problems. Instead, find what works for your team and your users. Read more...

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Oof. I feel this one in my bones. The ‘forever war’ of all the labour input above and beyond doing the actual job can be demoralizing. The Canadian public service sorely needs UX and design talent to modernize services to a standard that meets public needs and expectations, but we won’t succeed if UX is simply relegated to a single team or function (or better yet, several siloed teams 😜) within a broader organization that needs to shift its ways of thinking and operating. While we rarely question the expertise of lawyers, doctors, or engineers, expertise in UX, design, and digital communications areas is dismissed and invalidated on a regular basis. Over time, some grow tired of fighting. I’ve watched friends and colleagues leave lucrative government jobs due to burnout and a lack of institutional support and understanding for their work, a lack of respect for and recognition of best practices established over decades of research that have flown under the radar of those who are unaware of or only recently learning about this entire field. So far, I stay because I’m passionate about the mission. I believe we can provide better services to people who need them. But it needs to be a group effort with everyone on board —from the top down and bottom up, across siloed verticals. I hope we can build mutual understanding, be dissatisfied together, and collaborate as agents of change. I deeply wish I could just do my job without disrupting the status quo, but that’s just not how it works. Take care of yourself and support each other out there. ❤️✌🏻

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