Writing a summary post doesn’t seem to be a popular thing to do at the beginning of the year. After all, it is the time to make new plans and move forward. But I believe reflection is as important as outlook, especially when someone asked me what my biggest accomplishment of 2016 was lately, and my immediate reaction was drawing a blank.
“What is it?”
I worked so much last year, yet I find it hard to put my biggest accomplishment into one sentence. It’s because 2016 was not so straight-forward; it was about growth, discovery and patience.
Growth
At the beginning of 2016, I started a new job in a young UX team at a big organization. I was the second hire. It was refreshing to be working at a product company where my job revolves around one single product, day and night. Much like what a parent would to, I treat the product like my baby. I have great hopes and plans for it, and I see its potential of growing into something amazing. Luckily, I am not alone in fighting for these visions and goals. I have a great team of engineers, product managers, business stakeholders, marketers and QA testers. While working with this team, my responsibility grew from “following” to “leading”. I learned how to set up a project with the best support I can have, align the team to one single vision, ruthlessly cut down on features when it’s the right decision, and when needed, rise to defend my team and our decisions.
Growth came with joy as well as frustration. I remember when my first design sprint’s recommendations on streamlining the checkout experience got implemented successfully. It was an ecstatic moment for the entire team after months of development and QA. I also remember the disappointment when priorities changed and months of hard work had to be put on hold. It taught me a hard lesson on the importance of understanding organizational constraints and effective communication of “why we do what we do”.
Discovery
One of the best things about working as an in-house designer is that I get all kinds of data. It is something I only dreamed of when I was a consultant. Being new to the world of analytics, I am humbled by how much I don’t know. The team experimented with the “quick-test-and-quick-fail” methodology and I had my first taste of A/B testing. It also made me think deeply about the origination of innovation. Great creativity and breakthroughs don’t just come from changing the button colour from blue to red. A lift in the conversion rate surely indicates something being changed, but do we really understand the reason behind it? Could it be a premature testing that could potentially sacrifice other aspects of the experience? How do other activities (e.g. design sprints and usability testing) fit into the picture? Frankly, I don’t know. I’m still learning, and these are the questions I would like to answer in 2017.
Advertising is another subject I have been fascinated about in 2016. I was surprised by the similarities between good advertisements and good products. They both have a deep understanding of their customers and customers’ challenges, they speak the customers’ language, they are easy to understand and, when possible, they pleasantly surprise you. Their brands are engraved in their ads/products. Voluntarily or not, your brain picks up on the small hints and pass on the information to your decision making centre. David Ogilvy is truly the advertising man. His take on writing good ads made me realize that a product sometimes is as good as its copy writing / content. Good designs do not live without the right content.
Patience
Being patient is not easy. I constantly feel the urge to jump at the next big thing, the next challenge, the final solution... 2016 was the year where I learned to slow down and to hone my skills as a designer. All of the design sprints I led in 2016 lent a great opportunity for me to explore and experiment with a variety of tools / methods / processes. For instance, Senos’ take on wireframing is great for shortening brainstorming time and exhausting all possible options early on. Google’s sprint book highlights similar and effective methods in running workshops and approaching different design stages. In terms of project management, Project Canvas proved to be a handy and simple template to set up a project.
Patience also means it takes time to reflect and connect the dots. In 2016, I collectively spent months on talking to different segments of customers, visiting their homes and offices, analyzing the data and synthesizing insights. Not all of these lessons were directly applicable to my immediate projects. What I ended up with is a database with rich insights of customer behaviour, which I later turned to for various needs, may it be setting customer goals for a project, educating internal partners or simply drawing design inspirations. Sometimes, it just takes some time for connections to be made and trends to emerge.
2017 should be exciting. I, again, have great hopes for it. I would like to see myself be more inquisitive and optimistic. Maybe it still won’t be that straight-forward, but with all of the practice from last year, I think I can do a little better this time.
