How Startups May Build Your UX CompetenciesHire or Just a Myth?

RAVEN CHAI Principal Consultant, UX Consulting

Startupz Job Fair Singapore 201314 November 2013

INTRODUCTION

@ravenchai 3

About Myself

• Engineer  »  Animator  »  Technologist  »  UX  Designer

• Founded  UX  Consulting  in  2008  in  Singapore

• Love  any  type  of  sports,  except  golf

• A  foodie  and  will  continue  to  be  one

• A  lifelong  Liverpool  FC  and  Roger  Federer  fan

User  Experience  Professional  Associa2on  -­‐  Asia  Region,  Leadership  Team

Founder  of  UXSG  Community

Administrate  grants  under  SPRING  Singapore

What I do for a living?

Public  Sector

Private  Sector

@ravenchai

@ravenchai

What I hope to achieve today?

• Share my observations on startups’ pain points

• Debunking UX Myths

• Hiring situation

• Building competencies

• Start a dialogue

@ravenchai

THESE ARE MY PERSONAL OPINIONS, EXPERIENCES

AND LEARNINGS ABOUT CULTURE CHANGE.

@ravenchai

I MIGHT BE WRONG.YOU MIGHT DISAGREE.

IT’S PERFECTLY OK!

@ravenchai

Lean  UX Metrics-­‐Driven  Design/Research

SHIPPING  IS  ONLY  THE  BEGINNING

The  Value  of  the  Minimum  Viable  ProductThe  bare  feature  set  needed  to  prove  out  a  hypothesis

Source:  Ar*cle  from  Jeff  Gothelf,  Mar  07,  2011:  Lean  UX:  Ge>ng  Out  Of  The  Deliverables  Business hHp://i-­‐cdn.apartmenHherapy.com/uimages/re-­‐nest/plane12609.jpg

MINI-EXERCISE

What are your pain points or needs with regard to design / UX / product?

MY OBSERVATIONS

@ravenchai

“Do you have any UX/UI designers to recommend at $100 per day?”

“Need someone to make my product’s UI pretty urgently”

“I need to improve the UX of my product badly, make the buttons more intuitively and appealing for end users?

These are the common questions I usually heard

I  think  this  idea  will  change  the  world,  super  excited  about  it!

Some dialogues I had with Startups

“Everyone  I  have  just  mentioned  a  while  ago.  Furthermore,  I  believe  people  from  here  +  there  will  Kind  it  attractive  too,  we  can  extend  the  modules  to  do  this  and  that  too”

“So,  who  are  your  intended  users  (or  customers)  for  the  app  you  are  designing  for?”

“Really?!?  Basically  you  don’t  even  know  what  speci9ic  problems  you  are  trying  to  solve”

“How  do  you  come  about  building  this  app  in  the  6irst  place?”

“I  6ind  it  frustrated  or  inef6icient  to  do  certain  things,  I  believe  I  can  solve  the  problem  better  through  my  idea.  I’m  the  best  user  after  all,  isn’t  it?”

“Great,  so  who  else  have  you  validated  your  ideas  with?”

“Myself,  ...  and  a  couple  of  my  friends,  they  said  the  idea  is  cool!”

“Err.....  you  mean  everyone  else  behaves  exactly  like  you???”

Why the UX of my app is not good?

“I  have  built  a  list  of  great  features  but  I  (or  my  investor)  feel  that  the  user  experience  is  not  good”

“In  what  way  you  6ind  the  user  experience  is  not  good?”

“The  UI  is  not  sleek  enough,  I  need  to  make  it  more  beautiful  and  attractive  -­‐  perhaps  by  adding  a  couple  of  nice  icons  here  and  there...”

“I  see,  your  de9inition  of  good  user  experience  =  better  user  interface,  no  wonder  the  user  experience  of  your  app  sucks...”

hHp://whitneyhess.com/blog/2012/08/25/if-­‐vcs-­‐understood-­‐ux/

Dear  VCs,  these  slides  are  specially  for  you  :)

hHp://whitneyhess.com/blog/2012/08/25/if-­‐vcs-­‐understood-­‐ux/

hHp://startupsthisishowdesignworks.com/

Companies like Apple are making design impossible for startups to ignore. Startups like Path, Airbnb, Square, and Massive Health have design at the core of their business, and they're doing phenomenal work.

But what is ‘design’ actually? Is it a logo? A Wordpress theme? An innovative UI?

hHp://startupsthisishowdesignworks.com/

Relationship - UX is not UI

UI

UX

hHp://www.kickerstudio.com/blog/2008/12/the-­‐disciplines-­‐of-­‐user-­‐experience/

UX

UI

how  people  feels  while  they  do  certain  things

what  people  use  to  interact  with  the  product

Emotional

Technical

HIRING SITUATION

Different roles of “designers”

MINI-RESEARCH

Let’s look at the kind of job openings out there?

Singapore Listing

Singapore Listing

Singapore Listing

Singapore Listing

Singapore Listing

Singapore Listing

Singapore Listing

Indonesia Listing

Hong Kong Listing

US Listing

US Listing

UK Listing

UK Listing

Australia Listing

Australia Listing

Google Job Opening

Google Job Opening

Silicon Valley Job Opening

Silicon Valley Job Opening

Silicon Valley Article

Danger sign: UX Team of One

Startups - you are looking for a UX rockstar that never exist

BUILDING UX COMPETENCIES

1 Hire  an  agency

2 Build  an  internal  team

3 Bring  in  a  “full-­‐time”  agency  team  for  X  no.  of  months

4 Ux  Team  as  the  “Internal  Agency”  (only  if  your  startup  has  grown  to  multiple  products)

Regional Conferences

UX  TaiwanUser  Friendly  China

UX  Hong  Kong UX  Malaysia

UX  Singapore

Local Community Platforms

Agile  Singapore

UXSG  Meetup

IxDA  Singapore  chapter

SLSC

Design  Singapore  Council

Recommended Books

Online UX Web Resources

Smashing  Magazine

UX  Booth

UIE  Blog

Johnny  Holland UX  Matters

Fast  Company

Government Grants

Innovation  Capability  Voucher  (ICV)

Design  for  Business  Innovation  Grant

Design  Engage  Programme

Let’s  Start  a  Dialogue

RAVEN CHAIEmail:  raven@uxconsulting.com.sg

Twitter:  @ravenchai

Publications  /  Featured  in:http://www.slideshare.net/uxconsultinghttp://www.uxconsulting.com.sg/articles