Darren Simons

Having some interesting, open conversations from Design Leaders right now who are getting burned out from trying to hire Designers right now. The demands from the business warrant the Design team growing, but the means to do so are lacking. - Over-worked and under-skilled Talent teams lacking the nuance to understand the design hire needed - Design Leader getting little to No results from internal talent team - Design Leaders attempting to use their networks and getting bombarded with inquiry, too over whelmed to look through, guilty for not responding to everyone - Company lacks infrastructure to properly handle the amount of inbound applicants; brand recognition takes a hit in the market - Design Leader still doesn't have the Design Support they need Bit of a vicious cycle. Good news though - there's solutions out there - been putting them action this year and seeing the results.

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Design operations (aka DesignOps) is the engine that keeps the design process humming along so that designers can focus on what they do best (you know, designing). 👩‍💻 It ensures your team’s sanity, allowing them to focus on the work itself rather than reinventing the wheel or “how” to get the work done every time. This stuff is especially crucial as your design firepower grows—whether with new designers, devs, or product peeps. Wondering how to get started? Our blog post on Standardizing design through DesignOps has you covered: https://lnkd.in/gfwR2u-6 #DesignOps #UXdesign #designprocess

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Great advice. Remove all friction when sending your portfolio. Keep it simple and remove all restrictions.

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Most designers are trained to present work to our peers, but as your career matures, your audience expands to include many other departments who don’t speak “design”. This article resonated with me and offers some sage advice about the use of storytelling and a “business lens” to craft more compelling presentations. #ProductDesign #Storytelling #UserResearch #BusinessObjectives

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📚 Every designer should read this book. "Articulating Design Decisions" by Tom Greever is a must-read for anyone navigating the challenge of communicating their designs effectively to non-designers. 🌐✨ This guide equips you with the skills to articulate your design decisions in alignment with both business goals and user needs. 🚀 This book is a part of our UI Design Suggested Reading list. 📖✨ Before our Bootcamp kicks off, delve into this insightful read along with other recommended books. Ready to explore more about our UI Design Bootcamp? 👉 https://lnkd.in/drrmiQar

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One of the biggest hurdles with design, development, and the rest of business is language. "Attracting more eyes" for business leaders might translate to "understanding user needs" for developers. This doesn't mean either side is wrong, it simply means there's a language barrier. Leaders on both sides should have a better understanding of how to speak the other's language. That way they can "reduce friction" and "increase ROI". #roi #software #leadership https://lnkd.in/g-dzrGPR

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Ressource Medium: "The Nuances of Enterprise UX Design An 11-part series exploring the various aspects and intricacies of UX design for enterprise software." #ux #uxdesign

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There is a difference between being PEDANTIC and being DETAIL-ORIENTED. One can easily look like the other, but the truth is that one is self-serving and annoying, while the other facilitates excellence. Know the difference. Addendum: Definitions 1) An insulting word for someone who is annoying by correcting small errors or showing off their expertise. 2) Giving too much attention to formal rules or small details, or caring too much about unimportant rules or details and not enough about understanding or appreciating a subject. Also known as "anal-retentive" (i.e., overly obsessive concerning small details). #ux #realuxtalk Darren Hood, MSUXD

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Hey Designers, Just a quick reminder: your NDA isn’t just a piece of paper—it’s a legal obligation. Sharing password-protected portfolios without permission isn’t just risky, it’s illegal. Here's a hypothetical but all-too-real scenario: what if your competitor needed some insights? They reached out to designers at rival companies under the guise of potential job opportunities. As UX designers, we work on ideas and projects that may not be implemented today but in years to come. Imagine your company’s long-term strategies being exposed, some user research data shared, and performance and accessibility KPIs revealed. Sketchy, right? For Recruiters: If a candidate says their portfolio is under NDA, respect that. It shows they value confidentiality and will protect your info too. If they’re willing to break an NDA for you, what’s stopping them from doing the same to you down the line? Remember, many designers work on projects that are never meant to be displayed publicly. Let’s keep things above board and respect each other’s legal boundaries. Remember the Golden Rule: treat others as you would want to be treated. Thanks for understanding!

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Today might just be the day to brush up on some of your visual design skills. Check out these mini-guides for UX designers - available today in a bundle of all 4 mini-guides. https://lnkd.in/gG9K64nz #visualDesign #UXdesign

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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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I post a lot about deceptive design patterns, along with several of my fellow “thought helpers.” I’m posting today because I want my fellow thought helpers to also consider a different angle. While it remains important to discuss and define deceptive design patterns, I’ve started thinking more about how to help designers have productive conversations with their product partners, considering the era we’re in where corporations are driving growth, engagement, and revenue like never before. (There are lots of conversations to have over the principles at play here; that’s not what this post is about 😎 ) Designers who want to design responsibly need help navigating these conversations. We can’t just say “Don’t do manipulative design; if they make you do it, just quit,” because unfortunately, those who quit could very likely have substantial difficulty landing somewhere else in this climate. Plus, it’s just important to be able to think strategically about the building of a culture of trust-driven design. The thinking will involve nuance, storytelling, and (ideally) coming to a solution both designer and product partner are aligned on. In that spirit, here’s a starter list of ways to become a constructive trust advocate, and to be able to smartly navigate those conversations: 📐 Explore the idea of a “trusted by design” framework: a set of guardrails and attributes that your product design and development teams can use as a kind of moral compass. I wrote about the one we use at LinkedIn; link is in a comment below. The strongest approach is to start with your founders’ mission statement (which is likely to be predicated on trust somehow) and tie the idea of ethics and trust to it – then build the framework as a structure to apply in design reviews. 🌟 When you're debating whether to use a coercive design pattern to encourage adoption, remember: VALUE is your best friend. How can you best help the user buy in of her own free will, instead of tricks? Show the value. 🏛 Get up-to-speed on consumer data privacy regulations. A good first step is to follow the IAPP - International Association of Privacy Professionals here. Knowing that there are real, actionable laws around deceptive patterns (you’ll see the term “dark patterns” used most commonly, unfortunately) and “roach motel” patterns can help you make your case. Speaking of privacy laws… ⚖ This is a great segue to my next tip: make friends with your legal team and privacy team! Have a virtual coffee and tell them you’re a designer who cares about trust-driven design. In this era, your legal team is very likely on your side, and can give you talking points. It's not enough that we educate designers and product managers about deceptive patterns; we need to equip designers to have these conversations and think strategically about them.

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I get asked pretty often what resources are out there that help people break into the UX field. Ryan's great and could offer some really good well informed insights. if you're curious about some interview prep, give this a look

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Great post, Liam! Your points about what truly matters in UX are spot on. Stakeholder buy-in, solid user research, and an iterative design process are key to creating exceptional user experiences—also, your mention of extensive QA testing to catch bugs before shipping is crucial.

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Like sellouts, many unemployable UX "thought leaders" prioritize telling businesses what they want to hear over what is best for the business, the product/service or customers. There's a significant shift away from focusing on quality in design and user experience, favoring quick production and fake testing instead. I argue that prioritizing profit over ethical considerations has led to serious societal harms, like; Boeing, Teflon scandal, Tesla and OxyContin. Individuals who challenge harmful business practices risk being marginalized or labeled as troublemakers, especially during periods of corporate restructuring or in a downturn. "If you stand in the gap between a business doing harm to the customer, you're going to be labeled as someone who's a problem and you're going to be on your way out. Especially when there's multiple rounds of layoffs. They identify the potential whistleblowers and they're like, okay, we got a boy scout over here on team X. We need to get rid of this guy. He's talking about people's feelings and, doing right by them 'n stuff. I don't know what all this empathy shit is, but we need to get rid of it post-haste because THAT doesn't sound like profit." —Me With Jennifer Blatz. #UXLeaders #Ethics #UserExperience #CX https://lnkd.in/gMFJxnaK

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⏱ “Just in time accessibility docs” I think I’ve been doing it all wrong. As we build out our design system, we’ve been continuing to add lengthy accessibility documentation to each of our components, check. But is it actually helpful? → W3C Guidelines are verbose and many of the guidelines become redundant once the component has been built. → Text based documentation can be hard to visualize without examples or access to assistive technology. → While components may test accessible in isolation, new issues come up when components are used in context. 👏 Some folks who are doing it right that we're trying to learn from at Exygy → Carbon design system from IBM provides context specific tips for both designers and developers. The guidelines they provide act as quick implementation checklists. https://lnkd.in/gbmeJe5F → GOLD Design System by Design System AU is really unique in the way that it provides accessibility previews of components. I really dig how they simulate keyboard navigation and color blindness! https://lnkd.in/gDBgUiyN → USWDS from GSA goes above and beyond any system that I have seen by providing accessibility testing documentation that can be used when doing QA of components in the wild. ...whoa https://lnkd.in/gYP2ptrR 💎 A couple of things our team has taken away from these amazing resources that might be helpful to others: → Focus component documentation on the most "actionable" implementation details for both designers and engineers. → Reserve verbose technical setup requirements for the initial component acceptance criteria. → Experiment with ways to easily preview accessibility options and outputs. → If possible, document how someone could test issues that could come up during ongoing product feature development and QA. 🧙‍♂️ This post was in part inspired by a talk from Dan Mall at the last Figma Config when he referenced "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" to describe the "notes in the margins that help Harry improve his potion skills" as a way to describe better "just in time" design system documentation. If you do actually need the verbose stuff for component acceptance criteria you can always get it here: → W3C Authoring practices guide https://lnkd.in/g_MUENbn #accessibility #designsystems #documentation #ui #uidesign

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The problem with many UX bootcamps / courses is that they make design careers look easy. Like it is simply a series of steps that you go through as part of a process. Like there is just going to be a job waiting for you at the end The truth is that it is hard to break into and good design is is a bit like an iceberg. What you see is the end result. But getting that RIGHT end result often requires a lot of experience. The work you don’t see under the surface is: - Navigating political battles - Overcoming internal roadblocks - Encouraging collaboration - Telling the right story when presenting - (and lots more) As far as I am aware, these aren’t the things that Youtube videos and bootcamps are teaching or preparing their students for. Don’t get me wrong. I love that they are helping to spread awareness about design but now I wonder if they are causing more harm by setting false expectations and churning unprepared juniors out into an industry that is not in a position to accommodate them (for the most part). Thoughts? ↓ #Design

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