Lou Susi, MFA

Highlighting my newest article on Making Research outputs actionable. https://lnkd.in/eS48shQz #design #designthinking #designbuild #designstrategy #product #producctdesign #productmanagement #productstrategy #designprinciples #innovation #designers #digitaltransformation #ux #uxdesign #uiux #uidesign #designinnovation #application #software #softwaredesign #usability #userresearch #research #usercentereddesign #productleadership #uxwriting #designsystems #empathy #interfacedesign #usabilitytesting #userexperience #productdesign #accessibility #ui

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For an organization committed to the practice of user experience design, the Interaction Design Foundation doesn’t seem to value their own ideology. I’ve been a member for years and recently served as a local leader (of which I resigned a year ago and they have yet to remove me from the role). I’m finding their billing processes to be on the verge of questionable UX practices: ·     My membership increased 31% with no notification before billing. I was told that a single notification had been sent a year ago buried in an email with a subject line of “We have updated our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Pricing Structure.” Do they not realize that subject lines such as this are white noise in people’s inboxes and begs to be deleted without reading? ·     To prevent the upcoming charge, the user must contact the main office and have them remove the store payment details. There is no ability for the user to do this themselves. ·     There is also no option to opt out of recurring charges. This is akin the dark practice of subscription services that lure users with trial period in hopes the user will forget to cancel before the period expires.   ·     The user can cancel their membership. However, the user loses access to all materials, content, and account details even though the user has prepaid for the upcoming year. This entices the user to delay cancelling only to encounter the same pain points the following year. ·     User is sent an invoice AFTER the charge has been applied. No notification of upcoming billings. ·     When asked to refund the membership charge, the admin basically responded with “The reason we’re unable to offer a refund guarantee on the renewal of memberships is that we already have a money-back guarantee after sign-up . . . we’d have to charge higher prices if we offered unlimited refunds and that’s why we make our policies crystal-clear, doing everything in our power to ensure members understand our fair terms.” This statement basically has the overtone of: It’s not that our communication and user experience is insufficient, it’s the user’s fault. IDF needs to reassess their membership and billing practices if they want to maintain any integrity in the field. As a hiring manager, I do not look at organizational memberships as having any influence in hiring decisions.  My advice for those wanting to increase their knowledge and break into design, rather than pay a yearly $264 membership fee, there are many free resources, podcasts, and articles that will help you achieve the same results. Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

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Artificial Intelligence is about to make mincemeat of the current practice of Information Architecture and completely change how we look at technology. However, Information Architects and other UX disciplines remain essential in bringing balance to the Force. As Ombudsmen of Innovation, it is our job to reconcile the needs of humanity and the capabilities and costs of AI and help ensure AI is used to empower and elevate humanity, not to enslave it to its basest instincts. Fortunately, we can take inspiration by standing on the shoulders of giants: https://lnkd.in/gSpf7ebE #UXforAI #UX #Patents #AI

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T-shaped designers are design professionals with both the breadth and the depth of experience (represented by horizontal and vertical strokes of the letter “T”). The breadth of experience allows T-shaped designers to successfully collaborate with others while the depth of expertise to contribute to a particular project (UX Portfolio, Mark A. Degtyarev, 2024). Click the video below to watch a 3-minute microlearning experience about T-Shaped Learning Designers and how to become one. https://lnkd.in/g6ePrD5n

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Design in Complex Systems: Doing Community Engagement Right How often do you communicate your design research findings to the end users? I’ve heard many experienced researchers talk about the importance of circling back, especially in communities with a higher likelihood of respondent fatigue. This hadn’t quite hit home for me. One of my current tasks is understanding the social, psychological, and environmental influences of how health data is reported and used for decision-making. There are multiple systemic influences, one of the biggest being the health financing structure and its ripple effects on reporting. Finding ways to package and disseminate learnings from our immersive research and prototyping activities in a way that enables strategic design but also minimizes the natural concerns of the potential negative impact on funding, training, and recognition has been a constant question.   This week, I participated in an experience-sharing workshop. Hearing end users explicitly ask for more in-depth findings to help them improve their day-to-day data quality and use activities has been such a strong signal that circling back, no matter the complexities, is always an effort in the right direction.

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As a design leader, you work for your team—not the other way around. Learn how to keep your #UXteam happy, creative, and always on schedule. https://lnkd.in/eksZbUXM #DesignLeadership #TeamManagement #UXDesign #Productivity

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I’m noticing a peculiar design related anti-pattern of sorts in the post ZIRP economic environment. It’s where companies have the budget to staff design talent, albeit in lower numbers, but the development budget is so limited that teams are unable to implement the work designers produce. This is the third economic downturn I’ve experienced and we always get pendulum swings. In this one, there seems to be a bias toward austerity and implementing the least expensive solution.

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Design activities and methodologies provide a lot of value for business, however, sometimes they can be confusing for stakeholders to understand. It can be difficult for stakeholders to see value through the jargon and obscure processes designers often use. Take the Heuristic Evaluation for example. I don’t know about you but the language seems a bit dry and obscure to me. Basically this is an evaluation of a digital product or service conducted by a design expert using a set of best practices and rules as a guide. When done well, the designer will uncover issues with the product/service and provide recommendations for how to fix these issues resulting in improved user experiences. Ultimately the evaluation should create positive outcomes for the business, however, sometimes this is missed. The business goals need to be used to focus the evaluation during the planning stage. The resulting recommendations need to help the business achieve these goals. I’d love to help make design and the value it provides more approachable and understandable for our business and product partners. So with this in mind, I’ve written an article to deep dive into what a Heuristic Evaluation is, why it matters, how it creates valuable outcomes for business and how to implement the resulting recommendations. Please take a read and let me know what you think. If you want to unlock the value design can provide for your business drop us a line at Gather Agency. Let’s chat about design and how it can help. #UserResearch #HeuristicEvaluation #DesignStrategy #UXDesign

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Five brilliant articles for designers I found while doing research for my upcoming book: 1. Being right vs. being effective https://lnkd.in/e8tTj3Pf by Cate Huston 2. The three questions I ask every designer I interview https://lnkd.in/e7ndapwk by Michael McWatters 3. On Quality — A practical framework for evaluating design work https://lnkd.in/eu6ZBmBB by Darrin Henein 4. The Perfect Company — what to do when you feel not valued https://lnkd.in/emhucFhf by Cap Watkins 5. Bottom Line Up Front: write to make decisions faster https://lnkd.in/e5HUJ_ih by Matthew Ström-Awn

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Design metrics guide designers to tell better stories. Perhaps paradoxically, a data-informed process makes designers better storytellers. Engaging an audience, especially in business, takes years to master, as stakeholders can be critical. However, staying focused on the value created during the process keeps stakeholders engaged and more forgiving of presentation issues. While presentation is essential, it's the use of concrete measurements to explain decisions that genuinely builds trust and credibility. Why? Using metrics in design critiques builds trust by making the process transparent and relatable. It provides measurable impact, showing how good design influences actions and economic outcomes. Additionally, it forces simplicity and clarity, allowing designers to communicate effectively with short, impactful, easily understood sentences. Here’s the surprising part. Even poor results can help create a compelling story. Using metrics allows designers to find value even when making poor decisions. Benchmarking these decisions helps everyone learn from potential problems and guides designers to better solutions. Once designers see their role as guiding the team to better outcomes rather than creating perfect solutions, storytelling can help bring everyone along in the design process. Using data in continuous research and iterative design can be complex, but it boils down to two main points in a presentation: 1. Hunch: How will a design concept improve the user experience and business results? We call this a hunch. 2. Measurement: How does a concept perform compared to other iterations? We use UX metrics as leading indicators. ↓ In our design process, we use rapid iteration to capture UX metrics using Helio. Here’s an example: → Point 1: How will a design concept improve the user experience and business results? Redesigning a university’s degree page with a guide and better search functionality can enhance user experience and increase successful applications. This hunch sets a clear focus for the presentation on expected positive outcomes. → Point 2: How does a concept perform compared to other iterations? Multiple versions of the registration page are tested for user satisfaction and task completion rates. Using Helio for rapid testing helps identify the best design, adding credibility to the presentation by showcasing data-informed decisions and measurable improvements. Combining these points into a cohesive narrative helps our design team tell a compelling story. This builds confidence in the process and demonstrates the tangible benefits and data-informed decisions that lead to a better user experience.

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I ❤️ designing controlled experiments. But while the A/B tests are quietly running, I also ❤️ experimenting with electronic music (call them time-series experiments to be fair). Latest signal-noise exploration here: https://lnkd.in/geaPXtfu #elektron #melodic #electronicmusic #synths

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Design Thinking is not dead. About 15 years ago, "Design Thinking" was ascendant: books written on it; corporations establishing 'design thinking' practices; Tim Brown hanging out at Davos saying "everyone is a designer."* (*s for every item where I'll link to a resource in the first comment) But then, the backlash: "Design Thinking is Bullshit"*; design thinking practices evaporating seemingly as a corporate fad; design thinking reinforcing entrenched power dynamics;* UX/Design types believing that among the reasons they are being laid off is that people think anyone can be a designer. Personally, I find myself aligned with David E Elliott who commented "Design Thinking is a tool and like any tool it can used well or used poorly."* And, I think there's real value in non-designers adopting people-centered practices as they solve problems. What's spurring this line of thinking was my time at Re:Imagine Retail, an “immersive experience creation” event internal to Sam’s Club, where I gave a keynote address.* The proceedings took place at Clubhouse*, a new building designed from the ground up to enable innovation practices. To my surprise, the conceptual metaphor for the building was “design thinking,” featuring a series of rooms for each phase of the process—learn, imagine, build, test (the last being a 10,000 sq ft space that enables full-scale prototyping). And the event itself celebrated design thinking, bringing cross-functional groups together in a hackathon-like way to ideate new experiences. My hypothesis as to why Sam’s Club maintained a thriving design thinking practice where other attempts fizzled out, is because it’s a membership organization, seriously extolling the value of being ‘member-centered.’ That mission-driven focus provides fertile soil for human-centered practices to take root. IBM is another company where Design Thinking marches on*, I think because they exerted extreme effort to teach its practices throughout the org. I'd be curious to hear of other 'success stories' for Design Thinking.

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Figma’s ConFig ’24 released several new features that caused many to continue to sing their praises. However, there is a trend their business model that is problematic. New features are initially available to all in beta. Once the feature goes into production, there will be a charge to use the new feature. Figma seems to be building an a la cart feature menu creating a nickel and dime growth strategy. The problem is that Figma has already surpassed the exorbitant pricing of Adobe products. Has Figma considered the full spectrum of their user base? While some enterprises may be able to float that price tag (For managers, it still can be a hard sell for budget approval), small businesses and independent designers will find the cost to be challenging or prohibitive. While Figma may generate some initial profit, it may not work in the long-term once the romance is gone.

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The Institute of Design (ID) at Illinois Tech recently released “Taking Responsibility in the Age of AI: The 2024 Institute of Design Report.” This report was informed by interviews with 29 design leaders, who identified five key challenges that other design leaders need to address for the field to remain relevant and effective. But how does a disruptive technology affect design leadership - and the design capabilities that activate value? The program also hosted an online discussion facilitated by Mark Jones with senior design leaders Kevin Bethune, Founder & Chief Creative Officer of dreams • design + life, Katrina Alcorn of Accenture Song, and Robert Fabricant, Co-Founder and Partner of Dalberg Design. Come with me to a discussion about the recent Writers Guild of America strike attempts to move to design up the macroeconomic ladder, the "Figmaization" of design activities, and seven critical skills for emerging design leaders to prepare at the executive table and manage their design team capabilities that benefit from AI integrations. A conundrum of uncertainty : Designers taking responsibility in the age of AI https://lnkd.in/gciDJie2 Thank you, Matt Mayfield, Chris Bernard, and Natasha Kallish, for reviewing this article and your constructive comments. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Reading Time : 30 minutes Level of Difficulty: Moderate #designleadership, #iitdesign, #artiicialintelligence

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The DesignOps Assembly annual survey is here ✨ Each year DOA puts together THE benchmarking report for the DesignOps profession. The 2024 DesignOps Benchmarking Report survey is open and we need everyone in the DesignOps world (including designers who help out with DesignOps) to participate. You’ll help DesignOps, Design, Product, and Business leaders and teams better understand our work's landscape. You'll also help everyone in the design industry understand trends, changes, and the overall health of our industry (including salary info, team sizes, team impact, etc..) Please take 10 minutes to fill this out. If you have ever referenced prior reports you know how important it is. ➡️ https://tally.so/r/w8ek4P ⬅️ (Deadline for responses is July 31) Grégory ROY

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Still relying on accessibility overlays? You might want to reconsider! 🚨 Find out why legal cases show they're not enough and how human audits can save the day. 🌐 Read more in “The Truth About Accessibility Overlays” 🔗 https://drp.li/uYnax

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