The shift to remote and hybrid work is likely to be lasting or permanent for many organizations and has brought enormous amounts of anxiety about developing talent. This is largely because of the common misconception that formal and informal learning is best done when people are in the same room. Just because you did most of your learning in physical classrooms doesn’t mean that it was the only or best way to learn.

Virtual learning

Well-designed virtual learning has been shown to be as effective or better than in-person learning. This is because virtual learning can be scaled easily in ways that are accommodating and spaced to allow retaining information. One meta-analysis of 96 studies showed virtual learning to be 19% more impactful than in-person learning. In-person learning can often undermine the quality of learning because spending many hours back-to-back leaves little time to digest or practice what’s being taught.

Great learning is about great design

Multitasking and distraction can be tempting when alternative activities are available. Here are two ways to keep people focused: <ul><li>Make the content engaging. Engagement means making it clear how the knowledge is relevant to the learner, focusing on what's surprising, and confirming that the information is easy to understand.</li><li>Keep learners on their toes. Use unexpected polling, call on learners to contribute, keep it interactive and encourage learners to keep their cameras on.</li></ul>

Holding attention

The world of hybrid work brings new sources of exhaustion. People are more likely to book themselves in back-to-back meetings than ever before and rarely get up from their desks for hours at a time. Seeing themselves on camera in virtual meetings can heighten self-awareness and drain energy. Ways to mitigate this exhaustion:<ul><li>Give it a rest. Ensure people are getting five to 10-minute breaks every 30 - 60 minutes of learning.</li><li>Encourage replenishing breaks. Encourage activities that shift perspective.</li><li>Encourage learners to stop looking at themselves on learning platforms.</li></ul>

Managing energy

Breakout sessions are an important part of the learning experience where learners share insights and apply new knowledge together to solve problems. <ul><li>Be prescriptive. Tell your learners what they're supposed to say and do. Assign roles, provide clear instruction and create a shared set of expectations.</li><li>Keep it short. Give people examples of what to talk about so they find it easy and comfortable using the time.</li></ul>

Making the social elements comfortable

Many company leaders are anxious about developing talent in a hybrid work environment. But because virtual learning can be scaled relatively easily; delivered flexibly and in ways that accommodate other ongoing work; and spaced to allow opportunities for learning to be embedded into long-term memory, built upon, and practiced, well-designed virtual learning has been shown to be as effective as in-person learning — and often more so. There are, however, a few legitimate challenges with virtual and hybrid learning. Fortunately, each is a solvable problem when you’re armed with the strategies the authors present for keeping learners’ attention, managing their energy, and making the social aspects of virtual learning more comfortable (and less awkward).

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

Designing Learning Programs for a Hybrid Workplace

Productivity is not about doing more work. It is the ability to complete a set amount of work in less time. However, a non-stop stream of notifications during the workday can impact productivity. Research shows that it takes a person 23 minutes to regain their prior level of thought once they are distracted. Pivoting to a quick task such as answering a message often takes longer than the actual task.

Productivity should power the hybrid workplace

Productive employees can get work done with fewer resources in less time. Here's how you can build and maintain a productive business:<ul><li>At the leadership level, clarify goals and priorities for all employees. This ensures the right people are working on the right tasks at the right time, not wasting time on less important work.</li><li>In the product realm, companies must be biased toward action rather than perfection.</li><li>At the employee level,  people need to prioritize their work within different quadrants of an "urgent by important matrix."</li></ul>

Getting to "productive"

productivity

Productivity

problemsolving

Problem Solving

timemanagement

Time Management

Getting work done in a world of distraction

Being judgmental is a behaviour that we have all engaged in at some point or another. But there’s a difference between being judgmental and being opinionated, making observations, or being biased.Judgmental behaviour typically involves appraising something like a situation, person, or action with a critical attitude. A person often does this in a condemning and fault-finding way using their subjective (likely moralistic) point of view and set of values.

Being Judgemental

This can affect your work in a negative way, likely impacting team and interpersonal dynamics. For instance, you may find yourself frequently assigning values to your colleagues using words such as: better than, right, wrong, lazy, or unambitious. There are consequences to taking this hypercritical approach to others who don’t meet your standards.

The Effect Of Judging Everyone

Being judgmental often comes with giving your point of view supremacy over the values and views of others. The risk of being this narrow-minded could result in being less likely to see other colleagues’ perspectives as being relevant or important. Thinking that your way is the only way could also hinder your ability to gain potentially great insights or learnings from those operating outside your value system. Consequently, you may be impacting your own productivity, learning, and growth by not allowing yourself the exposure to a diversity of opinions, fresh ideas, and input from others.

The Problem Magnifies: The Risk Of Being Insular

Passing judgment often implies making a decision before considering all the facts. This may also impact your willingness to look at information objectively or make an attempt to comprehend the full picture.

Jumping To Conclusions

Judgmental people have a tendency to evaluate things as either right or wrong, black or white. This blanket assessment, aligned with the first two points, makes them paint things with one brush instead of appreciating that some things are multifaceted. <a href="https://www.pomona.edu/news/2016/10/12-%E2%80%98black-and-white%E2%80%99-thinking-changes-how-you-feel">Making conclusive judgments—</a>particularly about people, behaviours, or options without considering grey areas, may limit your perceptions and keep you from taking a win-win approach that has validity and value.

It's Not Just A Win Or Lose Situation

Judgmental people often make their colleagues feel shame and indignity about their choices, values, approaches to work or general behaviour. This may result in people not wanting to be around you or to build a relationship with you that fosters teamwork and workplace dynamics.

Avoiding Being Judgemental

If you find yourself classifying someone’s behaviour, actions, or values using hypercritical words like lazy, dishonest, or stupid, take a step back and ask yourself, “Is my perception of this situation based on a full view of the picture?” Or, “Am I imposing my own values here and what alternate explanation is there for this behaviour?”

Avoiding Loaded Words

Putting yourself in someone’s shoes is a great remedy for judgmental behaviour. It is quite common to feel a sense of superiority when looking from the outside: “If that was me, I would have made a better decision.” Or, “I would never have allowed this project to fall behind.” It may be that faced with the same circumstances, you would have done exactly what you are judging someone else for doing. If you put yourself in that person’s situation and experience what they experienced, you may reevaluate your approach.

Being Empathetic

If a person behaves in a manner that is questionable or that you disapprove of, the tendency is to think it relates to a <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/real-men-dont-write-blogs/201406/why-we-dont-give-each-other-break">personality flaw</a> rather than the situation. This so-called <a href="https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/glossary/fundamental-attribution-error">fundamental attribution error</a> is the propensity for people to overemphasize personal characteristics and ignore situational factors when they’re judging others’ behaviour.Before generalizing, take a minute to consider the situational factors that might have played a role.

The Person Is Different From The Action

Judgmental behaviour doesn’t only affect those who are judged. When you place supremacy on your value system, you can hinder your own progress and productivity.If you keep judging others with a critical attitude, expect the same to be done to you.

The Bottom Line

Do you use words like: better than, right, wrong, lazy, or unambitious to describe your coworkers or managers? If so, you may be hurting your career progress.


Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

philosophy

Philosophy

How to recognize you’re being a judgmental jerk (and what to do about it)

As businesses continue to grapple with the return to the office, companies that are allowing staff to choose their preferred long-term working models must decide how to handle pay for remote workers who have relocated away from offices.Businesses are currently split on whether to adjust workers’ salaries based on where they live.

Location-Based Pay

A school of thought says that pay shouldn’t be linked to location; rather, employees will receive the same wage regardless of their local cost of living, because their work can be done from anywhere, and cutting remote-worker pay could mean good staff leave.

The Problem With Location-Based Payment Approach

For some employees, choosing to remain fully remote is about feeling comfortable and productive in set-ups they’ve cultivated for two years. But for others, it’s a necessity – because they’ve moved too far away from the office to commute.  In many instances, remote workers have left major cities for regions with a lower cost of living, such as rural areas, where they’ve been able to afford a home that would have been previously out of reach. Returning to the office would ultimately mean choosing between where they want to live and where they want to work.

One Decision, Many Reasons

Location has always been factored into wages. Companies have the right to make a cost-of-living adjustment. It’s a practice that has been going on for decades and is a labour market issue: salaries today have a cost-of-living algorithm.That’s the case for companies of all types, even early stage, fully remote start-ups: it still makes business sense to consider the cost of living when calculating salary for new hires.

Why Location-Based Pay Can Work

If companies don’t reduce wages for employees in remote locations, then employees in the workplace are going to be upset. They’re going to pay higher rents, food and transport costs to live in Silicon Valley and come in for two or three days a week.If an employee thinks they can save a lot of time and money by working fully remote, without suffering a pay cut, that will be attractive to them.

The Comparison

The embrace of location-based pay by Big Tech and other companies shows that they’re prioritising hybrid working for their businesses – and that they’ll incentivise workers to spend time in the office.As the pandemic wanes, and companies look to bring workers back to the office on a hybrid basis, many will be wrangling with decisions like these. However, it’s unlikely that any plan will be fixed for good.

Embracing Hybrid

Companies are grappling over whether fully remote employees should be paid the same as in-office staff. What is the right way forward?

remotework

Remote Work

career

Career

humanresources

Human Resources

The tussle over location-based pay

Lean UX is a technique used when working on projects where the Agile development method is used. When development is rapid, there's not enough time to use traditional UX techniques. Fundamentally, all forms of UX aim to deliver a great user experience, but a Lean UX differs in the way you work on a project. It is less focused on deliverables and requires a greater level of collaboration within the team.

Lean UX

Lean UX isn't focused on detailed deliverables. Instead, it is focused on producing changes that improve the product in the present. In practice, you are replacing "requirements" with a "problem statement", leading to a set of assumptions that can result in a hypothesis. Assumptions are generated on a workshop basis. It is understood that assumptions may not be correct and can change as better understanding develops. The team will prioritise assumptions by the risk they represent—the more severe the consequence, the higher the priority.

The need for assumptions

The hypotheses created in Lean UX are designed to test our assumptions. A simple format to create your own hypotheses."We believe that [......] is essential for [.....]. This will achieve [....]. We will have demonstrated this when we can measure [.....]<ul><li>State the belief.</li><li>Why it is important to you.</li><li>Who it is important to.</li><li>What you expect to achieve.</li><li>What evidence you would need to collect to prove that your belief was correct.</li></ul>

Creating a hypothesis in Lean UX

The MVP is building the most basic version of the concept and testing it. The MVPs which show promise can be incorporated into further design and development rounds. This can maximise your resources as it allows for experimentation without "sacred cows."

The Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and Lean UX

User research and testing are based on the same principles as traditional UX. But the approach is often "quick and dirty" as the results need to be delivered before the next Agile Sprint. This means less focus on meticulously documented outputs and more focus on raw data. Responsibilities for research is also more widely spread across the team.

User research and testing

Collection of Top design frameworks adopted by world’s leading brands for product and user experience innovation

books

Books

communication

Communication

teamwork

Teamwork

business

Business

Design Frameworks

Lean UX is used with projects where the Agile development method is used. This article gives a brief overview of Lean UX and enables you to head in the right direction when implementing Lean UX.

Lean UX has the same goal in mind as other forms of UX, it’s just that the way you work on a project is slightly different. Let’s take a look at how it works.

product

Product & Design

A Simple Introduction to Lean UX

We can define simple - as something that is easily understood or done; presenting no difficulty. Simplicity is subjective, things that appear simple for one person will not be perceived identically by another. Generally, we form our personal opinion regarding any process being simple or complex, in three quick stages:<ul><li>How easy you understand what you need to do.</li><li>The time/effort needed to reach your final goal.</li><li>If it is enjoyable or not.</li></ul>

What is “simplicity”?

There is so much software that tries to do so much for so many audiences, everyone tries to be a Swiss Army Knife of the industry. If you want your product to be simple you need to define a core value and identify who is this product really for. Not every product should have Facebook built-in.

Build products with focused value

The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction. When in doubt, just remove. Secondary information, not frequently used controls, and distracting styles. It’s as easy as that. Once you start to apply this principle you will immediately see the results. But be careful of what you remove.

Remove everything unnecessary

The majority of products that we design daily are focused on a lot of data that the user needs to make sense of in order to efficiently carry on their daily task. When you know users interested in trends and changes, help them with visual representation rather than a bunch of numbers. You always can show additional information on demand. Try to extract the meaningful from the data you have and put it in front of the user.

Translate data into a meaningful format

Hick’s Law predicts that the time and the effort it takes to make a decision increases with the number of options. So if you want your user experience to feel simple you need to support quick decision-making as much as possible. Eliminate the need to choose when is not required, guide and handhold user.

Support quick decision making

Current psychological theory and research affirm the positive affective and motivational consequences of having a personal choice. These findings have led to the popular notion that the more choice, the better — that the human ability to manage, and the human desire for, a choice is unlimited. But in reality, research proves the opposite.

Too many choices will scare off customers

When choices cannot be avoided, try to limit them. Provide a recommendation yourself or share statistics of what is most preferred by other customers. Clearly communicate to the user what the key difference between proposed options. This approach is often used on pricing plans pages.

Provide recommendations where multiple choices are presented

When you understand the journey of your user to reach their goals, at every stage of that journey are things that are more relevant and will help you to progress to the final goal. Find those key areas and draw user attention to them.

Draw users attention to the right areas

How many times have you heard — “Users don’t read”. And it’s kind of true, we are really selective to what we actually remember or deep dive to. There are so many characteristics that can influence what type communicates: typeface & font, size, kerning, leading, capitalization, and color. Use that to communicate the hierarchy of content. With the right use of color and typography, you will be able to reflect product branding and make it instantly recognizable, much more attractive, and memorable.

Use color and typography to communicate a hierarchy of content

The organization of elements not only improves recognition but also makes it easier to remember. When operating any machine, it’s very important to remember the position and function of all controls.

Organizations help the system of many look fewer and more manageable.

Often an easy way to simplify a complex page is to start grouping components. At that point, users are dealing with few groups rather than with multitudes of unrelated components. Adding borders (creating common regions) around an element or group of elements is an easy way to create separation from surrounding elements. There are multiple principles of grouping in Gestalt psychology that help items feel related: Proximity, Similarity, Continuity, Closure, and Connectedness.

Group related content

Different kinds of forms are present almost in any product. Sometimes even after removing the unnecessary, those can get huge. Such forms can be very demotivation for the user to finish. So what we can do is break up that huge task into a series of smaller ones. All of a sudden everything seems much easier. Finishing a small subtask gives the user a portion of endorphins and satisfaction to carry on.When designing forms, use a one-column layout instead of multiple columns. A one-column layout is much easier to fill out.

Break up huge tasks in smaller steps, try a one-column layout

Uncertainty makes us anxious, it should be avoided as much as possible. That’s why at any time unless it’s obvious, the user should be able to see where he is currently in the process, where he coming from and what’s coming next. Keeping a summary of the previously provided information is also a good idea, it lowers loads on user memory and removes the need to go back to double-check previous steps.

Be transparent in communicating the process and system status

The human brain is bad at raw arithmetic involving numbers. Evolutionary pressures have favored brains optimized for object recognition compared to arithmetical operations. Try to leverage the system to do all calculations instead of the user.

Do the calculations for your user

Progressive disclosure is a design pattern used in UX design to make user interfaces easier for users to interpret. It involves sequencing information and actions across several screens so as not to overwhelm the user or hiding irrelevant information until it becomes relevant.Progressive disclosure follows the typical notion of moving from “abstract to specific,” including the sequencing of user behaviors or interactions.

Hide complexity with progressive disclosure

Users spend most of their time on other products. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know, and they come on with specific expectations of how your product should look and behave. This statement holds true for any digital or physical product from social networks to your fridge and reflects consumer mindset.

Rely on commonly accepted patterns and interactions

The primary goal of any design should be connecting users to the value product provides as soon as possible. So anything that stands between a user and him actually operating a system, is a barrier unless it serves a functional need. The first-time experience is very important for any process, we humans are very quick to form our opinion about the product and walk away immediately if we are not satisfied. Provide contextual help instead of an upfront overwhelming user with learning material, design for empty states

Design a streamlined first-time experience

Ergonomics is the process of designing or arranging workplaces, products, and systems so that they fit the people who operate them. Most people think it is something to do with seating or with the design of car controls and instruments — and it is… but it is so much more. Ergonomics applies to the design of anything that involves people, including digital products.

Keep in mind ergonomics and circumstances under which product will be used

Remove all unnecessary interactions, views, steps in every process. There is an optimal speed at which the user should operate the system, it is called a “state of the flow”. Don’t break that flow with popups. For all actions/values that can be changed later, support inline edit as much as possible. Autosuggest values when a great number of values is available.

Support inline edit and autosuggest values

Smart defaults are selections put in place that provide answers to questions for you. This supports users to complete forms faster. Defining relevant defaults, designers need to understand users and the context in which they will use a product. This is only possible with deep research and testing, to learn from their users and adjust defaults based on their users’ historical data and usage patterns.

Use Smart Defaults to Reduce Cognitive Load

Error messages bring a lot of stress and bring the users a feeling that they messed up or are not up to the task. Ensure automatic check for entered data and provide alerts or reminders for inappropriate data entries to reduce errors. Either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action.

Prevent errors

As a designer, your goals are to champion accessibility, make sure your product is accessible by a broader audience without exclusions. There are over 1 billion people worldwide who have a disability. Don’t use color as the only visual means of conveying information. Ensure sufficient contrast between text and its background, support keyboard navigation etc. Accessibility is not confined to a group of users with some different abilities, when you design for accessibility you improve the experience for everyone using the product.

Design for accessibility

Companies are in constant pursuit of building simple and usable products. More features, new technologies, and advanced capabilities but still in a lightweight and simple to use format. More often…

How to simplify your design

Most people have a love-hate relationship with the office. In a world where remote work has proven to be effective and is preferred by the majority of employees, the office is having an identity crisis. Work is no longer a place you go to every day.  As organisations look to rebuild office life, they have an opportunity to rethink the office and the nature of work itself.

The office identity crisis

Many companies have already made physical changes to the office space, such as spacing desks further apart or offering hot-desking. However, companies should also make organisational and philosophical changes to how they use office space. The purpose of the office must shift from individual work to group work. The office should not just be an in-person collaboration hub but connected to the outside world that can include fully remote workers. The key is to create an experience that is the same for those in the office as for those who aren't.

Set a new purpose for time spent in the office

Not everyone will be able to come in person for collaboration as employees may remain permanently remote-only. Yet, there are ways to make work-from-home team members feel like they're connected. Companies can equip conference rooms with advanced video conferencing systems, larger screens, better sound systems, improved lighting, etc. In addition, remote workers will need better desktop setups, such as top-quality webcams, microphones, speakers, lighting, and headphones.

Supply employees with tools, not toys

Collaboration tools may not fit everyone. Different employee "personas" may require various tools to work effectively.  Take the time to survey your employees to find out their personas and ask them what tools will be more suitable to do their work.

Survey your employees before making changes

. . . and why a one-size-fits-all approach will fail.


3 ways to design a more successful hybrid workplace

The term “hybrid work” has come to mean more flexibility around working both remotely and in the office. But perhaps we could be applying the same term to the speed of work as well. What if hybrid means:<ul><li>Some days you work quickly and sprint, and other days you take things slow and focus more on the process and deep work.</li><li>Some months you happen to be in a busy period and you orient your life towards working from sun up to sleep, and then other months when work abates through the normal course of business, you take extended time off.</li></ul>

The many meanings of hybrid

“Fast, always” is a recipe for burnout. If there’s one thing the pandemic revealed, it was our society’s “cult of busyness.” We were able to see just how much of our day was engineered to make ourselves feel busy, regardless of whether or not we were making tangible progress on any meaningful initiatives (interpersonally or professionally).In order for Work-Life 2.0 to take hold, new hybrid styles of work will need to be invented and engineered in order to accommodate for the great awakening that has occurred (and is still occurring) across every generation.

The recipe for burnout

The term “hybrid work” has come to mean more flexibility around working both remotely and in the office. But perhaps we could be applying the same term to the speed of work as well. 


Leaders are thinking about hybrid work in a one-dimensional way. This is a better approach

Gaining your first 1,000 followers on Instagram can sound like an immense hurdle when you only have 5, and 1 of them is your mom. There’s also the problem of not knowing where to begin. If you’re talented enough to go viral in one go, congrats, but this isn’t for you.&nbsp;

How to Get Your First 1,000 Followers on Instagram

1. For 3 or 4 days, search for content that looks similar to what you want to post and engage with it through likes and comments. Your are now teaching the Instagram algorithm so that your explorer page accurately depicts what you want to show/see.2. After a few days have passed, go to the explorer page and find someone who has similar content and a bigger following.3. Examine the quality of the posts. What are they doing differently?4. Find relevant Hashtags. Hunt and note down all hashtags of accounts similar to you.

Organic Growth: Step By Step

<ul><li>Use your newly found hashtags with care.</li><li>Find followers with a genuine interest in your content.</li><li>When you interact with posts, leave thoughtful comments.</li><li>Unfollow spam accounts and people that didn’t follow you back</li><li>Have meaningful conversations and learn something from the community you’re attempting to engage.</li></ul>

Get Instagram Followers: Endgame

Gaining your first 1,000 followers on Instagram can sound like an immense hurdle when you only have 5, and 1 of them is your mom. There’s also the problem of not knowing where to begin. If you’re…

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

Developers are often one of the last lines of defense against potentially dangerous and unethical practices. The more software continues to take over every aspect of our lives, the more important it will be for us to take a stand and ensure that our ethics are ever-present in our code.We’re approaching a time where software will drive the vehicle that transports your family to soccer practice. There are already AI programs that help doctors diagnose disease. It’s not hard to imagine them recommending prescription drugs soon, too.

Being asked to code something deceitful

If you write code for a living, there’s a chance that at some point in your career, someone will ask you to code something a little deceitful – if not outright unethical. I wrote my first line of…

Designing Learning Programs for a Hybrid Workplace

Getting work done in a world of distraction

How to recognize you’re being a judgmental jerk (and what to do about it)

The tussle over location-based pay

A Simple Introduction to Lean UX

Travis Sims