Sam Drury

If your main metric for success for design systems is measuring adoption, then consider this: Adoption does not equal value. Value is better communicated by money saving or money generated when it comes to organisations. This can be calculated by time savings for example. Adoption only tells you how much it is being used - without the former you cannot realise the scale of value. #designsystems #design #designmatrics

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A study found that if every adult in the UK sent one less "thank you" email, it could save 16,433 tonnes of carbon a year — the equivalent to taking 3,334 diesel cars off the road. Did you know that as a UX/UI or product designer you can make a real tangible difference to climate change? Here’s a short list to get you started: - How can you make your digital application more efficient? A simple UI is not only good for the users, it’s good for the planet too! - Can you nudge your users towards more sustainable behaviors? Sending fewer emails, avoiding duplicate work, making more sustainable choices digitally or physically will impact on the environment. - Can you become an advocate for all living systems, not just human users? UX designers became the advocates for users 20 to 30 years ago, making sure their needs and concerns were considered at every step of a design process - now we need to expand and care for ALL living systems. Which living systems do you directly impact? - What are the ethical considerations of your digital application? Who or what is most negatively impacted by it, and what are the opportunities to address that? And with that I’m going to start writing about being a designer in the GreenTech or ClimateTech world. Let me know what you think, is this something you care about? What things do you do to design more climate friendly services? Find the above and a whole lot more on ClimateDesigners https://lnkd.in/etaXcRB6 And make sure to follow me or https://lnkd.in/eaHq5E8d for more like this!

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I too have long since stopped giving portfolio reviews. The advice I give instead is that designers need to show they have done the work that the hiring manager is looking to hire for. Smart hiring managers have a to-do list already in mind for their new hire. They have a list of things they need the new UXer to accomplish in the first year. (Note: not all hiring managers are smart about hiring. Many are pretty bad at it, in fact. We shouldn’t worry about them. They likely aren’t good to work for.) They describe that list of what they need done in the job ad. And when they are in the interview process, including reviewing an applicant’s materials, they are looking for solid evidence that the applicant has done comparable work. They are hoping to hire someone who has done these things before, because that will get them up to speed fastest. Therefore, I tell folks to create a portfolio that speaks directly to the job ad. Make sure every point in the portfolio references something on that manager’s to do list. The job of the candidate’s portfolio is to grab the attention of that hiring manager. It needs to speak directly to the ad. It needs to scream “I HAVE DONE THIS JOB BEFORE. I CAN DO IT FOR YOU!” That’s the best advice I can give people who ask for me to review their portfolio.

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I'm torn - on the one hand a great deal of the web/app/mouse/touch interface patterns have been - solved for. I'm not seeing anything hugely novel required going forward (I've purposefully excluded other mediums of interaction that are emerging) - and as such I genuinely believe we shouldn't over-engineer our efforts to create things 'from scratch'. On the other hand - most of my digital experiences are tending towards extreme sameness - almost as if saying 'so here are the implications of that Martin'... but my observations is that there is a laziness in this re-use... the wrong patterns are being picked up on... Insta is popular and successful - so let us make OUR feed just like instagram.... minimalist, white background, low-impact elements seem cool - so let's take all the colour-ways and shaded elements out of our design... and... in doing so... the information architecture, relevancy and content-appropriate contextual use of medium - are GONE... There are definitely a bunch of interaction patters solved for... but that does NOT mean you should forget about CORE skills like how the information is architected and visually designed to support user needs, how the brand is expressed through the interface to anchor me in knowing and sensing that THIS is the experience I am in and part of, or that you HAVE a unique differentiation as a brand (well hopefully you do) so YOUR context, YOUR medium choice is important to your users (News is not Instagram, LinkedIn is not TikTok - so for god sake stop trying to copy each other) Much has been solved for - but the difference we add as Design is differentiating that experience for Usefulness and Emotional Engagement and Relevancy... Do the work please...

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My first blog post! Take a look at the similarities between goldsmithing and user research 👩‍🏭 👩‍💻  I'd love to hear your thoughts

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Payment solutions that feel custom designed, even if they're white labelled? 👾 That's what I've been working on a lot lately with END Agency 💻 I talk about it a bit more here and why it's so important, especially when the primary need is the smoothness of the UX flow 👇 https://lnkd.in/dfpCu4S9

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I messed up... Business has been booming. BUT - The unlimited design model just isn't the right fit a lot of the time. I quickly realised clients don't know what they need. They want to lean on our expertise and have back-and-forth conversations that help get the best out of the design and build of their product. That's why I made the decision to pivot the model and add two new models to Technically Creative's offering. We won't just blindly rely on your team to submit design briefs they 'think' the business needs. We integrate into your businesses channels and work like part of your in-house team. We have tweaked our branding and built our new website to reflect the changes. Take a look and let me know what you think 👇 https://lnkd.in/eDcZYCeh

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Boosting subscriptions with Headway's intrinsic motivators and free trials 💡 UX Design Tip #04 🪄 Know your user's goals. It's your key to transforming users into paying customers. Identify their needs, provide the solution, and they'll stick around. Motivators 👉 buyers Headway emphasises 'finish more books', using its paywall to guide readers. Pro UX tip: offer a free trial, precise payment dates and handy notifications. Is this useful? Let me know in the comments below or save it for later 👇 #ux #uxdesign #psychology #product

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Looking back at my 2025 UX predictions piece - the section on the need for adaptability really captures a key challenge: that AI is redefining what it means to do our job. Listen to my thoughts here #UX https://lnkd.in/e2VdTGqW

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I think most of us have had the UX v Marketing experience of 'oh, you tested with 12 users, that's cute, come back to me once you've added a couple of zeroes' Do you find it as completely bonkers as I that researchers and entire product teams have little or no concept of validity? Side note: if you don't know why this is not a good challenge please say so in comments and I'll post separately on it. This is all stuff that I never thought I'd have to say, it was all common knowledge, but now The Great Milleni-Z Reset™ has caused profound professional amnesia, painful redundancies and optics driven top down madness So validity isn't even a secondary concern. It is unknown. A foreign concept You give a Product Manager a bunch of money and say go build stuff that makes us money That PM either does the research themselves (if at all) or That PM has a user/UX researcher on their team Young, cheap inexperienced UXR takes orders from PM Neither UXR nor PM are experienced in the ways of insight generation I say again, validity isn't even a secondary concern. This is all checkbox activity. No-one knows what good or bad looks like That big bunch of money given is then spent building something based directly on highly questionable insight raised by two inexperienced researchers who just accepted the research output without question When no money is made, when you don't know why things are all quiet or going wrong, this is why...but no-one will ever know that GIGO, that poor insight produces poor product I may have to re-write the book on doing discoveries just to piss off my trolls, but I've got bigger fish to fry atm VALIDITY: NOT JUST A GEEKY SOUNDING WORD THAT DOESN'T AFFECT YOU! It's the difference between real and fake, information and misinformation, fact and fairytale Doesn't that sound like a decent filter to have when building product that you'd like any ROI on??! Funnily enough, it has a direct bearing on how successful your product, and therefore you, are. Think about that for a second. Validity = personal success and easy, positive optics maintenance. Why wouldn't you want to be able to red flag bad stuff that gets in the way of that?? Checking validity means keeping it real. If you're not keeping it real, where the heck is your head and product at? It's okay to not know, to resample, to extend samples. It's okay to have low confidence. The real trick is the rapid pivoting and turnaround so that it doesn't affect the project/product pace. That's what you pay the money for in a true senior. Options. A lens for validity. Valid insight bloodhounds with well developed lie detection. Better to get there slightly slower but get to the right place, than going quickly and going nowhere or the wrong place. Validity is the difference. 'Validation' is a horribly abused term and is another casualty of amateur, DIY research. Do more than just talk. Actually validate, ideally with a true senior.

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I went to my first UX Architect team meeting at BBC UX&D for a few years last week and it inspired me to revisit some information architecture ideas... mainly the idea of 'concurrent information architecture'. I'm still not convinced it's a real thing... maybe it depends on where you draw the boundary of an architecture... but I do think considering the points of overlap, interaction and integration between systems, at the information architecture level, is one way to build better products and services. #informationarchitecture

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I miss the days of lo-fi mock-ups and paper prototypes. I see far too many designers jump straight into Figma and get obsessed with the details, rather than zooming out to look at the big picture. The first concept takes so much time to get right that there's a tendency to tell yourself that it's the right/best solution because it took so long to put together. Sunk cost fallacy. The great think about sketches and lo-fi prototypes (their main point if I'm honest) is the fact that they're disposable. Much easier to come up with half a dozen ideas and scrap them, then invest in the first idea you thought of and hope it's also the best.

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I've long been a fan of Google when it comes to their design of physical and digital product, but their implementation of Gemini / AI has taken their already household search status to a new level. I'm genuinely so stoked to see this feature roll out. They enhanced search by showing you a relevant excert from the top result but now this takes it a step further to collate results for me in a tangible way. 👏👏 #google #userexperience #AI #gemini #search

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Case study: Tryb 🚀 Tryb (a monetisation tool for creators) was in need of a bit of a facelift so we worked together to create a new brand palette, modernise their existing website and level up their ad content creation. When it came to the hero section of the homepage, I felt as though they could be making way more of an impact, so we ditched the pastels and gradients and introduced bolder colours, bigger headings and full, clear product images. What do you think? Check out the full site for yourself at www.tryb.cc to see more! #graphicdesign #rebrand #branding #designer #designing

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The integration of design and development is an exciting prospect. As Designers we're often caught up on the current tooling and ways to reduce the dreaded handoff or throwing something "over the wall" hoping that it doesn't get misinterpreted. This is rapidly changing thanks to the likes of Figma, Replit, Framer and others. The silos between our tools are continuing to blur more than ever. Many tools now allow you to deploy and publish functioning sites at the press of a button. Large Language Models are enabling designers to create more complex and mature designs higher in the fidelity pipeline at cheaper costs than before. This results in faster iterations, and more opportunities to get integrated feedback across look and feel, the role, and the technical feasibility of our work. #Design will have more and more influence in shaping production work as 2024-2025 unfolds.

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Last week I put out a call to arms around entry level roles in UCD/Service Design. Here’s a summary of what I think could help next year: 🧠 Sharing knowledge: People writing more about what their organisations are doing and sharing this so others can borrow their approach. Rachel Bucknall committed to doing this, it would also be great to hear from Simon M. re the apprenticeship at HMRC. 📧 Visibility of roles: Matt Jukes has committed to sharing more entry level roles in his jobs newsletter but we need to send them to him. Let’s not avalanche him so maybe if you see something on here tag Matt. I’ll be sending anything I see his way directly.  ✏️ Opportunities to get project experience: It sounds like Adam Haesler is running a great initiative in this space and I will be personally exploring how I can offer shadowing opportunities next year. I’d be keen to hear from any other freelancers who are up for doing this alongside me. I also think there is room here for the design agencies out there to be offering (paid) placements.  💬 Access to advice: I’ve been running free walk n talks for people looking to get into the industry for years now. It looks like other freelancers like Ella Botting are keen to replicate this model and I’d love others to borrow it too. 👨‍💻 Shifting procurement: This is a biggie but a key part of the puzzle that Martin Wright, David Robson and Ray Newman brought up. Building this in as a procurement criteria, changing the narrative between suppliers and clients and agencies taking the hit were all mentioned as solutions. Things are not going to change over night, I recognise this. However it’s heartening to see the conversation start to shift from problems to solutions. I do think this is a drop in the ocean however, and some key voices are missing. So, how do we continue to make progress in this space? Do I need to ‘run a thing’ next year?! #servicedesign #ucd #entrylevel

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I don’t care that much about portfolios 😱 There’s just so much noise around them A lot of it isn’t helpful and it’s stressful to sift through - what format you should use - how much or little should be in your case study - how you show process - etc etc 😴 Honestly it doesn’t really matter. It’s very rare for your portfolio to get you a job. The purpose of a folio is to pique the hiring manager’s interest enough to get an interview. I’m sorry but I will likely never sit and actually read that long case study you have I’m going to skim over it, look to see if you check the basic boxes I need for that role so I can get to the important part of actually having a conversation with you! Please don’t stress about your portfolio and don’t get bogged down in other people’s opinions. Make something you are proud of, that represents you as a designer, where you want to go AND importantly, you as a person. The right hiring manager / company will love it as much as you do 🚀 #Design #Hiring

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