A foundational question in product design is what features to add to a new product.  The more features we add, the more complicated and expensive the product becomes. There is no uniform formula that will allow us to find the optimal number of features for our product. However, a three-step process can help.

Find the optimal number of features for your product

The core set of features is critical to your product launch. This is often the most challenging part of product design. <ul><li>Apply the Pareto principle: 80% of the value comes from 20% of features. Define the one job that will add the most value to your target audience.</li><li>Building minimum viable product (MVP): An MVP allows you to strip your product down to its core and will enable you to validate if your initial idea is good.</li><li>Beat the fear of getting on the market too early. You can give access to your MVP to a small group of users and track their performance.</li></ul>

Define the core set of features

The first product release allows you to learn how users react to the added features and understand what engages and drives them.<ul><li>Track features people use most often. Most users will use a particular set of features. Therefore, it's vital to improve the user experience of those features because they provide the most value.</li><li>Introduce a feedback mechanism in your product so that users can share what they think about your product.</li><li>Carefully analyse user feedback. Don't consider everything users say but learn if the feature is valuable for a large segment of users.</li></ul>

Learn how users interact with your product

Use small changes to adjust your product: It is faster and less expensive, and it is easier to track the effect of those changes. Key metrics to measure:<ul><li>Behavioural - how easy is your product to use?: Task Success, Task Time, Error rate.</li><li>Attitude - how do users feel about your product?: Net Promoter Score, System Usability Score.</li></ul>

 Introduce gradual, not radical, changes

“What features should we add to our new product?” is the foundational question in product design. The feature set is a result of marring user needs with business goals. At the same time, we all know…

product

Product & Design

A quick guide for defining optimal number of features for your product

Sometimes, getting your team out of quicksand will require you to be more directive than empowering. Don't worry: we can still approach this in a way that drives buy-in and helps your teammates feel heard, and know they have autonomy. Sometimes, being directive is the most empowering thing you can do.

Managing A Team In A Directive Way

A manager has to ensure that the team has a clear roadmap with well-defined projects and deadlines.To check this, managers can start by asking themselves: When you think about how you want to lead your team at this moment, what are you optimizing for?

Identify What You’re Optimizing For

Describe your role in outcomes, rather than describing how you will do your work.Example: Ensure the team has internalized the project's timeline<ul><li>Ensure each team member has a clearly defined individual role in this project.</li><li>Communicate to stakeholders when there are surprises and changes to the plan within 24 hours.</li><li>Make sure the team knows who to reach out to when they have questions about progress.</li></ul>

Identify the Who, What, When, and How

<ul><li>Avoid the word "accountable". Use longer descriptors to describe what you actually mean</li><li>What's going to happen, or be different, as a result of me doing this thing?</li></ul>Example: "I facilitate standups on Mondays and Wednesdays."

Communicate the Who, What, When, and How to Your Team

<ul><li>Describing your role in terms of outcomes will allow you to make informed "how" decisions that always tie back to the primary goal.</li><li>Identify your teammates' roles and responsibilities.</li><li>Block out time for this work.</li><li>Find one person who will be good at giving you gut-checks as you develop the plan.</li><li>Let them know when and how you'll be sharing a project plan with them.</li></ul>

Define the Who and What for Your Team

If you need to communicate to particular individuals first: Prioritize communicating with different folks based on how much their reaction or input will affect your future messagingIdentify what's changing about how the team is doing their work and what's staying the sameRespond to pushback: Stay in coaching mode, help this person feel heard, and be clear about what parts of the plan can be amended versus which parts are firm

Nailing Down the When and How

Before getting defensive, arguing, or shutting your teammate down, try spending five minutes using open coaching questions to understand where they are coming from:What feels most important to you about this?What is your gut telling you? What one thing do you wish you could change about this?

Ask Open Coaching Questions

<ul><li>As leaders, it's our responsibility to choose the approach in each new scenario that will work best for the work, the team, and the organization.</li><li>It's important for every leader to learn how to adopt a directive approach when it's the most effective option while maintaining the trust and buy-in of their team</li></ul>

Empowerment Vs Direction

Last newsletter, I answered a manager’s question about helping their team break the cycle of going in circles, while still being as empowering as possible.



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Career

teamwork

Teamwork

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

You can be directive without being a jerk

New apps often struggle to succeed because people fail to adopt them. That is why a basic UX plan is not enough. You also need a behavioral design to succeed. Behavioral designers combine design, technology, psychology and creative methods to find out how to get people to make a particular decision. UX behavioral design tries to understand what motivates users before developing an MVP or prototype.

Behavioral design

A user’s behavior = ability + motivation + trigger Behavioral design is a user-centered frame and tries to let the user's emotions and needs guide the development process while using triggers to get the user to take a specific action.

Behavioral design formula

There are two ways designers and developers can ensure that software is a joy to use. <ul><li>User interviews. While user interviews play an important role, we can't always accurately predict our behaviour: We don't act consciously when it comes to reflexive behaviors.</li><li>Behavioural design can gather insights into human behavior for all users. Developers can take advantage of behaviour patterns to create software experiences that drive increased usage.</li></ul>

Ensuring software use

Two key principles for UX development are:<ul><li>Make a process as easy and frictionless as possible.</li><li>Provide a cue to change a user's behavior, then guide them through the actions.</li></ul> Other main behavioral design principles:<ul><li>Social proof: Do you use a freelancer with 2 five-star reviews or one that has 55?</li><li>Satisficing: Users will look past perfection if they can have an easy and quick choice.</li><li>Ostrich effect: People who don't achieve their outcomes don't want to hear about it.</li><li>Safe searching: Most people want to click around before committing.</li></ul>

Behavioral design principles

By neglecting behavioral design, developers are working with one hand tied behind their back. The future of UX is behavioral design.

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Business

Behavioral Design is the Future of UX - Designli Blog

User research note taking is the process of recording information while conducting user research studies such as customer interviews, usability tests, stakeholder interviews, ethnographic studies, contextual inquiries, etc. 
It’s important to take notes during user research sessions because it allows you to keep track of what you learned from each session, and what you need to do next.

User Research Note Taking

Recording user research sessions is great! But it’s not easy to access information stored in recordings and transcriptions. A 15 minute long audio recording transcribes to ~2500 words, whereas, the key learnings from the same conversation can be summarised in a few sentences, and you don’t have to listen to several minutes of playback.Taking notes during the research sessions can help you keep track of what to ask next, which topics have been covered, which one’s to follow up on, as well as, gives you the ability to record non-verbal observations and add your reflections.

Notes Vs Voice Recordings

The hardest part about taking notes during research sessions is that it requires you to listen, make observations, and record information simultaneously. This takes significant cognitive effort, and practise — making easy to miss out on key points without adequate preparation.Familiarity with the research topic, and a structured framework to take notes can help reduce the cognitive effort. Familiarity with the topic means that information gathered “makes sense” more easily, and a structured framework gives you the ability to quickly record relevant information without getting overwhelmed.

How To Take Notes: Familiarise yourself with the research topic

Prepare a discussion guide. A discussion guide is a set of questions and topics that you would like to discuss with a participant during your research session. It typically consists of an introduction, warm-up questions, research questions and a debrief. You can use it a reference tool to help facilitate conversation. And by leaving blank spaces between between questions, you can take note of key points that that come up during the session more easily.

Prepare A Discussion Guide With Blank Spaces‍

AEIOU stands for Activities, Environments, Interactions, Objects, and Users.Activities includes actions with specific goals in mind, and the processes performed to achieve them.Environments details the context and characteristics of the space where activities are being observed.Interactions includes both interpersonal and person-artifact interactions.Objects catalogues the items within the environment and how they are used. Users includes the people within the environment that are being observed.

AEIOU Framework

POEMS stands for People, Objects, Environments, Messages, and Services.People — The demographics, roles, behavioral traits, and quantity of people in the environmentObjects — The items the people are interacting with, including furniture, devices, machines, appliances, tools, etc.Environments — Observations about the architecture, lighting, furniture, temperature, atmosphere, etc.Messages — The tone of the language or commonly used phrases in tag lines, social/professional interactions, and/or environmental messagesServices — All services, apps, tools, and frameworks used

POEMS Framework

In an ideal scenario, it’s best to have at least one person being assigned the role of a dedicated note-taker. This makes it easy for the note taker to focus on keeping a record of what’s being discussed, while freeing up the moderator to guide the conversation.

Practise Active Listening During the Research Session

In scenarios where you’re conducting the research session alone, you can try the following to make some extra time for note taking, without breaking the flow of the session:Rephrase what you hear from the participant — this shows them that you’re actively listening to the conversation, and acts as a prompt to elaborate their perspective.Get comfortable with long pauses — which may feel uncomfortable at first, but it allows the participant to gather their thoughts as wellAsk for an example — this can be really helpful because it gives you more time in the same context.

Taking Notes Along With Everything Else

Immediately after each session take 10 mins to review the discussion guide and add notes you may have missed out on during the session. Elaborate the points you’ve written down in a way that anyone who read your notes is able to understand what you learned from the session. And add quotes to keep verbatims separate from your observations or remarks about the session.
 Synthesise everyone’s observations in a shared document, format its content and disseminate the notes so everyone walks away with the same picture of what they learned.

Elaborate Your Notes Right After Each Research Session

The purpose of note-taking is to keep track of what you learn. That’s why it’s important to pay attention to how you store your notes after your research sessions. 
You can keep you user research notes organised by following a consistent naming convention, and folder structure to the data that you gather from each research session.

Be Intentional in How You Store Your Notes

To get the most value out of your research notes, you can consider adopting a dedicated solution for your user research that makes it easy to organise learnings in your notes, and share them with your team. By organising learnings from each session into buckets, you can start finding patterns in what’s common across your research sessions.

Keep Track of What You Learn From Your User Research

User research note taking is the process of recording information while conducting user research studies such as customer interviews, usability tests, stakeholder interviews, ethnographic studies…

A step-by-step guide to user research note taking

Most designers are familiar with Dieter Rams’ principle “Good design is as little design as possible.”
Quote “it’s plain and simple” is a common phrase, but what does that actually mean?
In fact, many designers strive to create things with a “simple” design or even ones that are seemingly “unadorned”. When designing a product, simple isn’t necessarily synonymous with plain, so what exactly is the difference between plain and simple?

Good design is simplicity

Plain has more connotations with negative feelings as it can sometimes indicate ‘boring’ while simple is positive as it is most often associated with minimalistic modern design.
Simple is about functionality and means that a product is easy to use, and sometimes “simple” can be much more engaging than you’d expect.
Good design is simple but not plain — strive for simple without settling for plain.

Plain and boring

A simple design takes away unnecessary functions, including text, CTA’s, images etc. The user should still achieve their goals but not be bombarded by visual and written content.The goal of design is to make it straightforward and engaging without making it dull.

Good design is simple, not plain.

Letting items breathe on a page is a must when designing minimalist designs. Apple is an excellent example of the quote “<a href="https://www.toptal.com/designers/ui/minimal-web-design">less is more</a>” and showcases that their design is the product itself, not the website. They have confidence in their product to let it speak for itself, a very successful strategy.

Less is more (especially with negative space)

Cognitive load is the amount of information our working memory can hold at any time. An overload of information can drive users away instead of drawing them in. Not everything has to be laid out on the landing page of a website; that is why menus exist. The information stays hidden unless and until the user chooses to interact with it.This way of progressively disclosing information to the user helps minimize the visual clutter and make the product simple to use.

 Putting information in layers

Choice can be overwhelming for everyone. As mentioned earlier, when speaking about cognitive load, the amount of information our working memory can hold is limited. <a href="https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/hick-s-law-making-the-choice-easier-for-users#:~:text=Hick%27s%20Law%20(or%20the%20Hick%2DHyman%20Law)%20states%20that,can%20be%20vital%20for%20safety.">Hicks Law</a> states that the more stimuli (or choices) users face, the longer it will take them to make a decision. Make it easier for your user and limit the choice.

Limiting the number of choices for the user

Illustrations and animations in empty areas can entirely enhance designs and make them much more enjoyable. We crave visuals, and hence animations are much more entertaining. These are great to make monotonous screens more interesting.<ul><li>Telling your user about notifications? Add a bell animation.</li><li>It’s a skill to tell your user information with a few words. So instead of writing paragraphs of text, include engaging visuals.</li></ul>

Being creative and adding life to the empty states

Using more than two typefaces can make design in-cohesive and messy. Instead, add different weights (light, regular, bold) and sizes of the same font to make it more attractive.Beyond that, play around with the layout, fill the negative space with text and images.Accent colours are always helpful to draw attention to certain areas, CTA’s or menu bars/functions.

Establishing visual hierarchy with typography and colour psychology

Using a lightly coloured background that complements your accent colours can make everything pop.Understanding colour theory has its benefits. For instance, instead of using white as a background, using a light tint of orange can make your other accents of orange pop.Using light tints of colours can create depth in your designs and as discussed earlier, layers are interesting to the eye.

Lightly coloured backgrounds can make everything pop

Most designers are familiar with Dieter Rams’ principle “Good design is as little design as possible.” In fact, many designers strive to create things with a “simple” design or even ones that are…

Plain vs simple in product design

The Double Diamond design model is a roadmap for the creative process. The British Design Council invented the model back in 2005. The Council wanted to learn more about how people process information to create solutions. Surprisingly, they found that all creative people go through the same steps in search of innovation.

The double diamond design model

<ul><li>Discovery: gathering data</li><li>Definition: filtering through data and sign-off</li><li>Development: start to design</li><li>Delivery: test and release</li></ul> These stages work as a map to organise thoughts and improve the creative process. However, the model isn't linear. Designers are encouraged to move back and forth between these stages to understand the problem and how they can solve it.

Four stages of the Double Diamond design model

The first stage is about identifying the problem, then considering if it is a real problem or an opportunity. Companies will lay down their problem, present a hypothesis, and define the way they can learn more. A study found that keeping employees' minds open to all possible solutions maximised creative problem-solving. However, all the digging will generate large amounts of information, making managing and organising this information crucial.

Discovery stage: gathering data

The definition stage is about filtering through all the information you got from the first stage, then identifying bottlenecks or resource waste, seeing hidden opportunities and creating a no-go list. The end of the definition stage consists of corporate sign-off, when management either scraps the project or approves it.

Definition stage: filtering through data and sign-off

This stage marks the start of the actual design process. The development stage involves putting the designers together with internal partners, such as engineers, developers or other departments. By doing this, you speed up problem-solving. The method aims to put the prototyping tool to good use and bring the solution to fruition. When different departments participate in the design process, there are less prototypes needed and less problems with the design.

Development stage: start to design

The last stage of this model includes the final testing of the product and official sign-off to production. The final test is the last look at the product to ensure it is without issues. It includes testing it against regulation and legal standards, damage testing or compatibility testing.When the product is launched, your work is not done yet. The product is out there, and you need to listen to users to ensure their opinions are reflected in subsequent versions.

Delivery stage: test and release

The double design model is a system that all designers use in their creative processes.

The Double Diamond model sets out the path for those who wish to solve a problem that demands creativity. So it's no surprise more and more UX designers are using it in this creative process!

Double Diamond Model: what is it?

Effective teamwork means, first of all, choosing the right people. How to hire only like-minded candidates? Teamwork & team-building skills will help you do that. That’s why they are almost the most important in business. Effective business is impossible without the right people.

Teamwork Skills

Make sure your remote team has all the technical capabilities to get the job done. If you suddenly have employees working from home, most likely they need to be provided with laptops, software products, mobile communications, and high-speed Internet. It is reasonable to assume that everyone should have all of this support anyway, and it is your responsibility as a manager to provide employees with all of this.

Provide your team with the necessary resources

Normally, you should communicate with your team on a regular basis. One of the hardest things to do when working remotely, especially when you’re not used to it, is the feeling of loneliness and isolation that can take hold of your mind. And this is greatly enhanced by the external need for isolation or voluntary self-isolation, etc.

Establish effective communication

Since you have the necessity to work in distributed teams virtually, it’s important to preserve warm relations with the team members more than ever.When and where possible, this communication should be one-to-one and in the format of a video to see people more often in real life. Phone calls, mail, and Slack work for the time being. The team should see their leader regularly, or hear at least, and the leader should see the team in turn.

Make human relations a priority

It rarely happens that neither of the communication ways is effective. There are some gaps in communication with distributed teammates, which affect the working process, create product delays, and result in project success, etc.If you can’t handle communication issues like that on your own, you are always welcome to consult the leaders or ask for advice from someone more successful, someone you know and may rely on. You don't necessarily have to pay big money for their help. Start small. Ask for friendly business help if you can.

Engage leaders in corporate communication

If you need a broader search – create recognition programs alongside engaging the communication leadership. To improve teamwork and communication is possible through how you arrange collaborations, workshops, and meetings or participate in network events wanted, etc.

Create collaboration recognition programs

Your job as a leader is to keep your team connected & agile. Communication tools are an easy way to get all employees involved and get them together in one space. Mail and chats work well over a short distance, but to maintain remote communication control in the long run, it is better to use Slack, Microsoft Teams, Asana, or any other project management solution. By the way, you may initially try some of the communication solutions available for free.

Take advantage of modern technology

Don’t let micromanagement happen to your team. Get rid of useless procedures. Don’t follow that cliché. Trust your professionals. It is impossible to control every aspect of the work of a remote team. Don’t try to do this with the team in the office, either. But it is especially meaningless when people work for you from different locations. Instead of measuring what they are doing or the number of hours worked, focus on the results, which is the way to judge the team’s work.

Focus on the result, not the process

You need to help your team understand who is responsible for what. Communicate realistic expectations of their work out of that. Well, expectation management also applies to you as a leader. Prepare yourself and your team to successfully tackle work tasks by clearly defining those tasks and the reasons for accomplishing them.  This approach helps the whole team understand how you will measure results.Clearly define the scope, deadlines, and final results for each task or project that your team is working on. Keep to a plan but don’t forget to vary & change.

Manage expectations

During the most turbulent times, even remote businesses may experience pitfalls. Of course, this is not a reason to stop working. But it is pretty reasonable to revise your approach to productivity regularly, improving teamwork.For many teams, traditional work hours and days are no longer valid. Instead, show more trust in your team and give them the flexibility and freedom to organize their workday to handle their workload and stay positive & productive.

Stay flexible

80 percent of a company’s culture is determined by its core leaders. This is surprisingly true since each of us at least once has thought of how dramatically the leadership model actually reflects what’s going on in the company. Teams tend to reflect everything – their personality, strengths, and weaknesses. Even during remote work, it all takes on. So when you start defining the culture, look at yourself first, at your team – second.

Create your company culture

Your good teamwork skills are out of the question. Also, master your ability to manage risks and all your resources, including human resources. Psychology will do, as well as budgeting skills or elementary financial knowledge. That’s also how to run a secure company and so many other aspects.

Tip: Mastering resource management

Pick the perfect tools for your business in your particular case, instead of chasing trends or overpaying for a hype solution, etc. Every employee from any digital career should feel comfortable in the work area you choose.

Tip: Choose ideal collaboration tools

There is no freedom and independent work without certain self-awareness. Cherish it within your team and grow that of your own to become an excellent example for other teammates.

Tip: Cherish self-awareness

Time management skills come in handy while working remotely or being self-employed. It’s your productivity key and a good reason for staying positive, healthy & wealthy.

Tip: Managing Time

It’s nice to keep track of your progress, measure, and report in order to improve the processes next time. Especially if you work with talents on outsourcing or design outstaffing.

Tip: Take record

In this article you can find: Why teamwork skills are important ⚡ Top of the teamwork skills ⚡ Workplace tips.

Top Smart Team Building Skills: How to Work Better & Earn More

When writing a cover letter it is important to understand the significance of it. One's cover letter should go beyond their work history and must include the things that cannot be found in a resume.It should include personal traits, work habits, inter and intrapersonal skills, achievements, and even one's enthusiasm for the job.Your cover letter is like a simple introduction of who you are and what makes you a strong candidate for the company.

Understand the point of a cover letter

Your cover letter must be addressed to the hiring manager, but you don't have to go on a wild goose chase to find their name in order to make your cover letter "more personalized". It's okay to use "Dear Hiring Manager" if their name is not easily available.

Addressing the cover letter

Your cover letter must be warm, conversational, and personalized, unless told otherwise. The cover letter doesn't need to have a creative opening line, in most cases it's better to be straightfoward.Moreover, your cover letter is your chance to provide context for things that might confuse the hiring manager but don't overdo the letter and aim to write about a page long. Most hiring managers do not have the time to read more than a page.Lastly, the content of your cover letter is all that matters. Before submitting it, make sure that it is well-written and have been proofread.

Talking in your cover letter

The Cut’s Ask a Boss columnist Alison Green has read thousands of cover letters. Here, she offers ten tips on how to write a cover letter that will get you an interview, and then get you a job.

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Personal Development

communication

Communication

How to Write a Cover Letter That Will Get You a Job

Mentorship is about having challenging conversations that help increase our self-awareness and helps us grow both personally and professionally.
To find a mentor, pick someone you admire that is within reach and consider their willingness to form a professional relationship with you. Having a mentor will strongly build a strong personal brand by displaying your competence, experience, and positive attitude.

The Mentor

Sponsors advocate on your behalf and sometimes present you with career advancement opportunities. It has been proven by numerous studies that "one cannot ascend in any organization without a sponsor."
To find a sponsor, you must showcase your unique skills, cultural knowledge, amongst other things that could make you someone worth advocating for. Sponsors are high in demand and are difficult to recruit so it's important to develop a standout reputation and have good connections.

The Sponsor

The partner doesn't necessarily mean your "work BFF", but rather someone who you trust, that has the drive to succeed, and is someone who is working towards the same outcome as you.
Having a mutually beneficial peer relationship is great because they are someone who complements your personality and work ethic, and they fill in the gaps of your working style. To find a partner, become an advocate for other people's work and reciprocate their enthusiasm.

The Partner

Competition can be healthy if it's focused on achieving results rather than battling for resources. When competitiveness is used correctly, it can serve as a motivation to hone and improve your skills and lead to improved performance.
The three vital character traits of competitive relationships are integrity, maturity, and abundance mentality. To find a rival, schedule a meeting and entice them to work with you, not against you, and have a vulnerable conversation as formidable peers.

The Competitor

Assuming the role of the teacher helps us gain greater clarity of a subject by breaking it down into simple steps. It also helps us hone vital soft skills that every leader should have: strong communication, creativity, and empathy.
Seek out opportunities internally or externally. By being a mentor, it will also give you more visibility and help build a good reputation.

The Mentee

5 Relationships You Need to Build a Successful Career

If you've moved from an individual role to a more team-centred position, working as part of a team may at first pose a challenge.
But, there are ways to overcome this problem and learn how to work together in a team.

Moving to a team-centered role

Consider why you prefer to get work done separately. Usual justifications could be:
<ul>
<li>"I'm confident that I can do the work better than others."</li>
<li>I'll end up picking up the slack and doing it all myself anyway."</li>
</ul>
Self-confidence and ambition, while good traits, shouldn't come at the expense of a team. A great team needs different characteristics, and it takes a talented leader to create such teams. Ultimately you should trust your colleagues, share responsibilities, and discover creative solutions together.

Hesitant about sharing responsibilites

Research shows that just feeling that you are part of a team makes complex tasks more enjoyable and promotes motivation. Working from home makes collaboration as a team even more critical.
Addressing issues you're passionate about with like-minded people are vital to job satisfaction. Taking advantage of the diversity of experiences and ideas in a team setting can lead to innovative ideas.

The benefits of a team environment

You may have difficulty adjusting if you're used to doing everything yourself, but the following can help.
<ul>
<li>Assess your strengths and weaknesses, and be receptive to learning and teaching. If you're an expert in an area, you can teach others. In areas you are weaker, you can learn from your coworkers.</li>
<li>Build trust with your colleagues by demonstrating your own vulnerability and openness.</li>
<li>Sharing the workload frees up your time and shows your staff that you have faith in their abilities.</li>
</ul>

Adjusting your work style and outlook

If you’ve always been more comfortable doing things yourself or being the sole decision-maker, working as part of a team may be challenging. Ask yourself these questions to figure out why.

A quick guide for defining optimal number of features for your product

You can be directive without being a jerk

Behavioral Design is the Future of UX - Designli Blog

A step-by-step guide to user research note taking

Plain vs simple in product design

Karter Y.