Steven Proctor

I wrote a blog post about how the 7 dimensions of ABA can relate to the field of User Experience. https://lnkd.in/gjbAGy-Q) Check out the full article for examples of each. Here is an abbreviated version: Applied - ABA: Interventions target behavior that is socially significant to the client.  - UX: Research and design aim to make meaningful change for the user of a product. Behavioral  - ABA: Interventions target behavior that is objective and measurable.  - UX: Research measures various observable behaviors such as time on task, error rates, and conversion rates.  Analytic - ABA: Interventions must demonstrate that the behavior is influenced by the intervention itself.  - UX: Research can conduct A/B tests to see if a certain change in the design affects user behavior. Technological - ABA: Interventions are written in clear language so others can replicate them. - UX: Design systems provide clear guidelines on how designers should use components and visual styles in their products. Effective - ABA: Interventions must produce a big enough change to make a socially significant difference in the client’s life.   - UX: The changes designers make should produce results that help the users and company in a measurable way. Generality - ABA: Interventions should produce change that lasts across time and in multiple environments.  - UX: Responsive design addresses design across device sizes, benefiting users of all types. If any behavior analysts or UXers have thoughts, let me know!

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Fellow neurodivergent folks, what's your least favorite / biggest struggle in a relatively core part of your job? Mine, by far, is presentation. I stutter, I lose track of things (yay ADHD not responding to current meds!), and dive deep at the drop of a hat. My nerves take over when I know I'm being judged by the glossy surface layer and not the actual work, and I lose the confidence I would have if it was framed as more of a conversation about the work. Related, this tends to bite me during the job hunt. How can design hiring be equitable and just for this disability? I've worked on these skills so much over the last 20 years, and yet I can get passed over for someone NT with salesperson-like speaking skills who may be a mid designer? I wonder if I had stayed in engineering—which is historically far more accepting of neurospicy folks—if this would have ever been a consideration, or if it would just be swapping one impacted skill for another (like the need for rumination being squashed by infamous coding questions)?

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🔍 Question for UX Professionals 🔍 Many job descriptions in the UX and UX Research field now require front-end development skills. What do you think about this trend? Do you find it beneficial or distracting for UX roles? How have you navigated this requirement in your career? I'm eager to hear about your experiences and opinions on this topic 🙂. #UXDesign #UXResearch #FrontEndDevelopment #CareerGrowth #UserExperience

Just published this article. As designers, we can improve when it comes to handling web accessibility and see it as a journey rather than a pass or a fail. I notice that accessibility often is reduced to a checkbox list, but it shouldn't be that way. There are so many different factors that should be considered.

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Okay Utah UI, UX, Product, tech, whatever you want to call yourselves, designers. I've been chatting with Trent Mano about how to show off the incredible talent we have in the industry during tech week and we've come up with some fun solutions. They all surround this prompt "What does it mean to be a designer in tech?" and the first competition we're going to do is ask for your answers to this question. Here are the rules and details (and prize!) 👇👇👇 1. Answer the question "What does it mean to be a designer in tech?" with either a graphic, meme, or just a post on LinkedIn. Tag me and Utah Tech Week and use the color palette and their logo (provided in the comments on this post) if you so choose. Make sure to also use the hashtag #UtahTechWeekDesigners 2. Trent and I will pick whichever response resonates the most on January 27th (the first day of Utah Tech Week 🎉) and the winner will receive two months (six 30 minutes sessions) of one-on-one mentorship from yours truly. Drop the questions below. Happy designing! 🤘

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Added a new UI design to my portfolio! This is my first experience designing a restaurant mobile app and I would love to get some feedback on it! :) The Figma file is linked on my portfolio page. https://lnkd.in/dNFS3gu9 #UI #userinterface #feedbackrequested #productdesign #mobiledesign

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As a designer with over 20 years of experience, three resources have profoundly impacted my career: Dan Mall's talk "Should Designers?..," Josh Clark's article "Only One Deliverable Matters," and Joshua Seiden's book "Outcomes Over Output." For years, I took immense pride in the pixel-perfect design comps I meticulously crafted. But these resources challenged me to rethink what truly matters in our field. Dan Mall posed a critical question: "Should designers?" This simple yet powerful inquiry pushed me to consider when and where my skills are most valuable, ensuring that my contributions are always intentional and aligned with the bigger picture. Dan reminded me that while developers can create a website without a designer, a designer can’t create a website without a developer. This insight helped me refocus on what truly drives value in our work. In 2018, Joshua Clark taught me that it's not about the plethora of design deliverables we produce—it's about the single, most impactful thing: the working software. My CEO doesn’t care about the dozens of Figma frames and Miro boards I create; he cares about the business outcomes our team’s software delivers. Clark emphasizes that while we often focus on creating numerous artifacts like wireframes, prototypes, and design comps, these are merely means to an end. The ultimate goal is to create a functional, user-friendly product that delivers real value to users. This lesson was a turning point, prompting me to prioritize the end product over the process. In 2021, Josh Seiden’s book continued to shift my focus from the tangible outputs of my work to the outcomes they generate. It's not just about what we create; it's about the difference our work makes in the lives of users. Over time, I've come to realize that creating design comps is only a small part of our role. Understanding the problem, validating our designs to ensure they meet the proposed outcomes, and building relationships and trust with our stakeholders are just as important—if not more—than the comps themselves. These lessons have transformed the way I perceive my craft. I'm no longer just a designer creating beautiful interfaces; I'm a strategist focused on meaningful outcomes and collaboration. My skills include user research, workshop facilitation, prototyping, usability testing, and visual design—whatever it takes to make our product owner and tech team successful in delivering positive outcomes. The partnership with the product owner and developers fosters trust and collaboration, ultimately earning a valued position within the team—not by demanding it, but through consistent contributions. If you're a fellow designer, I encourage you to think beyond the pixels and dive deeper into the impact your work can have. #ProductDesign #UX #OutcomesOverOutput #Agile #Collaboration #CareerGrowth

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It’s not always easy to understand what #accessibility compliance means in a specific geography and/or sector, and how you ensure your company and products adhere to the relevant regulatory requirements. For companies that are offering software and services for governmental customers in the U.S., Section 508 compliance is critical. We wrote a guide to help you understand the details.

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Today's issue is dedicated to Amie. Check out the issue to see some cool interactions from Amie's desktop and mobile app. Comment what you liked the most! Take a look here: https://lnkd.in/gk49_3Nx

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I wish we could chat, John Cutler. Because there must be some fundamental difference in what you have witnessed and how I have worked on SaaS apps for 30 years. I have issues with the entire premise of Felix's and the team's way of working at the outset. I am assuming a long-running, Saas web app, with plenty of (boring) features across a rich problem domain (say insurance, manufacturing, banking). My approach is to do >> just enough design up front << with Felix to create a common UX pattern for the bulk of the app. I want the app to feel consistent when they are doing similar things (creating, editing, deleting, viewing lists of domain objects). Yes, some UIs need more deep UX research than others, but they are a minority in the apps I have worked to create. Then all of the developers follow along with this beautiful UX design and UI templates of sorts, making it super easy to make progress with more developers, by design -- not accident. I only need Felix when we hit new areas that need novel designs. Or if we discover some tweak is needed to the existing UI pattern. And that tweak is easily accomplished because we made it super easy to change via configuration, not hard coding. If I needed Felix on every run-of-the-mill feature, I would be doing it wrong. Call me old-fashioned, but that is how I have successfully built dozens of multi-tenant SaaS apps since the mid-90s (my most recent one has mostly 9 and 10 NPS scores).

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I've noticed a rather disconcerting trend in Product Designer applications that now list a degree in product design as a requirement. Do you know how few universities offer a product design major? The only one I know of in Utah is BYU, and they just launched the program THIS YEAR. Admittedly, some colleges have tried to incorporate more UX-focused options into web or graphic design majors, but they're still pretty far behind. And here's the best part about these applications I'm seeing: Many want 5+ years of design experience AND a degree in product design. These degrees didn’t exist 5 years ago, and they definitely didn’t exist 9 years ago when someone would have had to start the college program. The people hiring for these positions wouldn’t even meet their own application's requirements! I’m not generally a “degrees don’t matter, don’t go to school” kind of gal. I love education. I’ve taught college courses and want to do so again. I wish everyone could attend school throughout their lives, for free, to learn all they want to learn. But that’s not our reality. We need to be better as a society at accepting and recognizing alternate routes, and understanding that a person’s skill and potential depend on so much more than a mere degree. Degrees aren’t equal anyway, and students will always experience varying levels of success and retention from classes. Some of the best designers I’ve ever known were self-taught. The same goes for artists, software engineers, product managers, copywriters, and so many others. My degrees taught me a lot—how to think, how to write, how to solve problems, and so much more. And yes, I often get frustrated that my master’s degree is so frequently overlooked and undervalued. But I’ve also learned a ton since university, all on my own time, through practice and the tremendous amount of material available right here on the internet and in libraries. I’m no less an artist today because I learned art on my own. A person who is passionate about design and seeks opportunities to practice and DO design on their own time can learn, progress, and accomplish much more than they might in a bootcamp or classroom setting. We MUST be better at accounting for alternate paths when hiring and stop posting ridiculous requirements.

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Do you use the Pomodoro technique? What's your favorite Pomodoro app? Yesterday I wrote about body doubling and virtual co-working. I use Flown for this -- it's super helpful. I also love the Pomodoro technique, especially for tasks I'm having trouble starting. Which is a lot of them, because I have ADHD, and this is one of the biggest symptoms for me. I usually use Flown's built-in timer. I set it for 25 minutes, and push myself to focus on work. I also really like YouTube's live Pomodoro timer channels, though. They're a combination of music plus a timer. I'll put my favorite channel in the comments. The thing I like most about it is, it starts sessions on the hour and half-hour. It aligns Pomodoros with meetings. So I don't have to cut off a session to go to a meeting. What tools do you use for the Pomodoro technique? Let me know in the comments. #productivity #ADHD ---- I help SaaS companies stop turning away disabled customers by making their products accessible.

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I recently started watching Sarah Doody's videos, they’re a must-watch for anyone in the UX field. If you're in the UX field or looking to break into it, her insights on UX job search strategies and career strategy are invaluable. Check them out here: https://lnkd.in/guMken2X 💡 A huge thanks to Shanica Roy for the suggestion! #UX #UXjobsearch #strategy

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Is anyone else tired of random UX job titles...? UX Strategist sounds funny to me looking back on this, however, I still stand by what I said in 2019: "User-experience will move away from answering: Did the user follow the main path? to How did a user feel following this path?" While I don't think most companies are focusing on this and are still often using UX as an ill-defined umbrella term - I do believe the best products teams consider a person's feelings while they interact with their product. Read the whole article here: https://lnkd.in/eqGKA4ca

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Asking for advice, opinions, and thoughts! I'm in the very fortunate position that a company likes me enough to create a UX role for me (yay!) But...I'm not really sure how that role would look. I've told them how investing in UX can streamline their work flows and processes (but surely there's more I can say?), and creating a UX structure myself is stumping me a bit. Solo designers, this may be something you often face? Would love to hear from you and anyone else who has experienced this or has thoughts on the matter! tldr; I want to know a) how you would propose the need for UX to an industrial valve company and b) what that UX structure would look like in practice. Thank you so much in advance! Really looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts 🙂 #ux #uxd #userexperience

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Thanks Matej Latin, for this article. It's a valuable insight into today's highly competitive job market. You've done a great job summarizing common mistakes and issues to avoid and provided helpful tips for improving portfolios. #UXjobs, #portfolio #userexperience #jobhunt #portfoliomistakes #productdesign #uxdesign #presentation #interview #jobapplications

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What is the state of UX job market? Check out this report from Chris Abad where he dives deep into where designers are coming and going. I have to admit, the chart below took a moment for me to understand what is going on here. Data visualization can be tricky.... The article goes into depth of where designers are coming from and going to. Check out the link to the article in a comment.

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I noticed a gradual but definite shift to a can do mentality when notetaking and journaling became an everyday act. It improved my mental health and also how I approached work. This week on the Mindful Designer blog, I share 5 helpful tips for how anyone can benefit from notetaking to get better. #mindfulness #mindfuldesign #mindfulliving

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Pause, Clarify, and Strategize! In UX and project management, time pressure often dictates our pace, sometimes at the cost of deeper discovery. Yet, I’ve found that taking even a single extra day to review challenges with stakeholders can yield game-changing insights. This deliberate pause can illuminate nuances in stakeholder expectations and uncover potential roadblocks before they impact the project. While we’re often encouraged to ‘move fast and break things,’ I’ve seen how the mindful application of ‘pause, clarify, and strategize’ can create room for more effective, sustainable solutions. Taking this approach has led to a smoother process with fewer mid-project surprises and stronger buy-in from stakeholders, who appreciate the opportunity to voice their perspectives early.” #UXDesign #ProjectManagement

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