Nathaly Coutinho

Way back in March I ran a workshop for designers to discuss the potential impact of AI on our roles, and on the people who run and use the services we design. I finally, FINALLY wrote it up here: https://lnkd.in/eHfr-gCD

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We recently started a new ritual in our design team that we're pretty excited about. We've called them UX Watch Parties, and they're a great way to help us understand user behaviour, identify issues with the product and bond with our peers on the product team. Learn more about how you can successfully host these yourself in my latest blog post: https://lnkd.in/gyaKN35V #designops #productdesign #teambuilding #designteamrituals

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Course as simple as #Lottie Short,sweet and exciting! #Figma to #Lottie course

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Life has a way of asking us who we are. Some people have an answer, others don't. For a long time, my answer for who I was depended on my job title, and I experienced fulfilment and bliss through work, but I've also spoken to people who don’t have an answer. It matters if we have an answer or not, because the World often shapes one for us. My latest essay for mindfuliving.substack.com explores this idea through three historic examples: Theseus, John Donne, and the Tor-Kwagh-Hir—a mythic warrior, a Renaissance poet, and an African visionary. These stories show us how to overcome even the most dire situations. *Link to essay in the comments*

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Some interesting perspectives in this post and the comments. It has been disheartening to witness the shrinking and devaluation of UX and research in the US in the past few year after a decade of growth. At the same time, “product” has continued to lead influence - which aligns with the American executive mindset discussed here - with top-down feature-driven roadmaps and fast delivery focuses to *try* to maximize profits. One idea that could help is to more closely connect product leaders and researchers specifically. Researchers should be the right hand to a product managers, partnering to set meaningful roadmaps that align to validated user needs. What about switching the common title of UX Researcher to Product Researcher? How about more Senior UX designers switching to Product Management? I beleive UXers have the skills to be much stronger product owners than many PMs already out there, and can guide these valuable partnerships. This is a major time of change for our industry. Let’s try some new strategies to accomplish what we all strive for - making better experiences for users.

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I recently spoke with FLUX about my career journey and product design leadership. Kristie Craft was a stellar interviewer, which helped me articulate a few things that I've been noodling on over the last little while... 👽 After years of struggling with impostor syndrome, it was when I chose to be brave and have the audacity that the best opportunities came. It's not easy, but it starts with the core belief that you are deserving of your dreams. 👀 The prerequisite of being a great designer is curiosity. Get curious about an aspect of craft, process, leadership, or business and dig like you're doing a deep dive on the hand in the IG story your crush just posted. 🏀 Put in your 10,000 hours. Practice makes perfect, the cliche is true. Whatever part of your skillset you're trying to grow, be patient and put in time — before you know it, you'll be an MVP. 📣 Great communication is a hallmark of a great leader. Great communication and feedback is clear, succinct, and aligned to the business. 🖼 Visual design craft excellence is a hot topic in product design lately. I have a love for graphic design, where I started my career. I just got this book, Sun Ra: Art on Saturn, a collection of sketches and album art Sun Ra created for his works. Very different than what most PDs are looking at every day, which is precisely why I recommend it. Look for inspiration outside of a screen. Check out the full interview and let me know what you think.

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In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, shadow IT is a growing challenge. Teams are adopting tools outside of approved channels, creating security gaps and leaving IT departments scrambling to keep up. We at Swif, are tackling this issue head-on! 🔐 Introducing Swif Chrome Extension: Access Management for Shadow IT With our latest release, you can now: • Automatically capture and retrieve employee account access data • Manage and control access with precision across all tools • Provide employees with secure, seamless access to the tools they need—without compromising your security policies https://lnkd.in/gpGMuXGe I’m proud of what our team has built to help businesses address the hidden risks of shadow IT, while empowering IT departments with robust access management tools. Together, we can make enterprise environments more secure and efficient! #AccessManagement #ShadowIT #ChromeExtension #MDM

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Check out this mobileLIVE blog article on the dos and don'ts of design thinking! Some of my thoughts have been added :) #designthinking #design #uxdesign #ux.

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Great design isn’t just about aesthetics; it’s about solving real business problems.🎨📈 When design decisions are made in isolation, they can clash with business goals, leading to missed opportunities. By embedding business considerations into the design process, we can create products that not only look good but also drive growth and user engagement. ✨The key is to keep communication open between design and business teams, ensuring both are aligned on the same objectives and working in the same direction✨ How do you ensure your designs contribute to the business’s success? #ProductDesign #BusinessGoals #DesignStrategy #DesignForGrowth #BusinessImpact #DesignAndBusiness

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How do we stop designers from thinking that accessibility is an extra step they need to take? Maybe we should all start to make accessibility a design fundamental. Start your design process with accessibility in mind. Research - How do I reach more people? Can I conduct interviews with people with disabilities? How could I diversify my participants? Define - While defining a problem, try to look into the research data deeper. Never overlook a problem mentioned by your participants (no problem is too small) Ideate - While ideating, always try to find a solution that is accessible Design - I am pretty sure most of us know this already. Check your WCAG colour contrast, question every single click, question if some of the images/graphics are necessary, and don’t forget alt text! Test - Test your design with more diverse participants and you will learn something new So are you ready to create a more accessible design?

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Some really useful tips from my good pal (& redundancy buddy 😂)

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Double Talk Last year as Properly we're fortunate to help establish the identity for ETHWarsaw, and this year I'm happy to share some insights about Branding in WEB3 during my time at their 2024 edition. On Thursday you can join me at 11:00 am for a panel where we'll discuss "The Importance of Brand in WEB3" and how it can help push progress forward while at 4:30 pm during the presentation I will talk a bit about: • How to build such branding, • What branding is in general, how to measure the effectiveness of branding, • How to build strong brands in WEB3, • How we do it (K.T.P.M.E Framework), • what are the differences between branding and and rebranding. Whoever is willing to attend is invited, and I hope we'll high-five! 🤜 🤛

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Remember the days when we would test paper prototypes and lo-fi mock ups with users? I first learnt this from Mark Boulton who was also a big proponent of showing our clients lo-fidelity work so we could discuss our thinking and ideas rather than the execution. Do we do that anymore? Over the last six years or so since the surge of Product Design as a field and designers working with Design systems, I’ve noticed this is often a gap. We seem to jump straight into Figma and show stakeholders and users highly polished designs. Of course they then get fixated upon the details and forget the big picture. Let’s bring back scrappy sketches, paper prototypes and wireframes! #ux #userresearch

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As an industry we appear to now be really excited and driven by enhancing our products with new features and innovation to simply match or better competitors. It's driven by product insights. It feels like progress. New capabilities. New ways for people/teams to add value etc etc But here’s the catch: with every shiny new feature, complexity creeps in. What was once a clean, easy to use, and streamlined product starts to feel cluttered, confusing and inconsistent. And users, overwhelmed by options or inconsistency across products and platforms end up frustrated and abandon a product. The overall quality and user experience is compromised and the product is left with UX and tech debt. This is the paradox of feature addition. From a design system perspective, this challenge becomes even more crucial. Every feature that gets added introduces new/updated components, patterns, interactions, behaviours etc. A design system, once a source of consistency and clarity, could quickly become a tangled web of rules, exceptions, and edge cases. The more we build, the harder it becomes to maintain that seamless consistent user experience we set out to create. ✨ So, how do we break this paradox across digital products? 👉 Making it intentional: It’s not about how many features we add, but about how aligned they are with user needs and the product’s core value. If your product value is ‘ease of use’ and ‘overall user experience’ is adding feature after feature better than addressing fundamental user experience issues across a product? 👉Use and adopt the design system: A mature design system should be a safeguard and foundation against unnecessary complexity and to support future innovation. Every new component or pattern must be scrutinised: Does it fit within our system's principles? Is it flexible enough to scale without breaking consistency? Is it of an exceptional standard for reuse and scaling across features, products and platforms? 👉Maintain simplicity: Design systems are meant to simplify, not complicate. Features should enhance, not overwhelm. Sometimes, the most powerful thing we can do is say no to a feature that maybe isn’t as important as the fundamental usability of a product. The real challenge in digital products isn’t just building more, it’s building better with great consistent scaleable UX. Let’s prioritise clarity, consistency, and a seamless user experience over a feature arms race.
 Going forward, how do we make sure digital products balance feature growth with consistency, simplicity and wide spread adoption of a design system?

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I joined to Dee Scarano's workshop facilitation webinar because I am specifically interested in the topic - but really I think those tips are useful for any design professional! Her notion on how to always adapt based on the context is universal and it reminds me of something I realised last year when working on something totally different - a research project that led me to rethink the Jobs to be Done framework. Are the best practices or frameworks you're following limiting you or leading to an incomplete outcome? Why not adapt them. They should be used as support and guide, not a rigid set of rules. Same idea can be applied in product design all the time. Thanks for the free insightful session 🥸

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I wrote a little something for Lyft Design+. It provides a bit of insight into the our Design System team and our process. If that sort of thing tickles your fancy give it a read, like or share. Have you contributed to a design system before? If so, I’d love to hear about your biggest learnings and the challenges you faced along the way. https://lnkd.in/dfiMMBU5

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💡 Let’s Talk DesignOps! 🎨 DesignOps is one of the most exciting shifts in how design teams operate—it’s all about scaling creativity, optimizing workflows, and driving seamless collaboration across disciplines. It’s not just about processes; it’s about empowering designers to focus on what they do best: solving problems and delivering impactful user experiences. A huge shoutout to Dee (Denise) Sadler 🙌 for her incredible LinkedIn Learning course, DesignOps: Scaling Design Success. Your expertise helped me uncover some powerful ways DesignOps can transform teams: ✨ Build scalable frameworks that empower design teams to thrive. 🤝 Improve cross-functional collaboration between design, product, and engineering. 🎯 Enhance the use of design systems to maintain consistency and adaptability. What I love most about DesignOps is how it bridges creativity and operational efficiency, ensuring teams can scale without losing their spark. 💥 👉 Now, I’d love to hear from you! How has DesignOps impacted your team or workflow? Are there tools, strategies, or lessons you’ve found especially helpful? Let’s keep the conversation going about this powerful evolution in design management! 🚀 #DesignOps #ScalingSuccess #DesignLeadership #EfficiencyInDesign #ThankYouDeeSadler

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We got our first website accessibility audit in quite a while done recently. It's important not to be daunted by the report you get back – we are thoroughly working through it to make the improvements needed. We're trying to design and develop things in a robust way, and a nice bonus was some big recently shipped work had no known issues. It just shows that when you build accessibility in from the start it makes a huge impact. #accessibility

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🎨 Working with a creative agency? Follow these six simple steps from The Other Hand to write the perfect brief.

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