[MUSIC] 0:00 My name is Heather O'Neill. 0:02 I'm here to talk to you guys today, to find out how useable you are. 0:03 My co-presenter here is gonna be a little bit silent but if I do have to 0:07 make a run for the bathroom halfway through, it's it's this person's fault. 0:11 >> [LAUGH] >> But otherwise let's get started. 0:16 So if you're here, you're probably in some forum. 0:18 UX field you know what UX is, it's probably your thing. 0:22 Anybody here feel like, they're not interested in UX, 0:26 they don't do that at all? 0:28 Cool. 0:30 So maybe you're a UX designer or strategist, or researcher or an analyst or 0:31 an architect or, you're some sort of UX person and as a UX person. 0:35 It's really your job, is to focus on, championing for the user. 0:42 Getting in the way of all the things that are gonna mess up 0:45 the experience in an application for your user. 0:49 Like marketing decisions, or 0:52 features already in development or, well, opinion wars and, I like blue better. 0:54 Well, what if I told you, that that's not your only job. 0:58 What if there is more to being a UX person, 1:04 to thinking about the user experience than just defending the user, 1:07 again all these bad things coming their way? 1:09 No, really, there is more for you guys to do than the user. 1:14 It's important to actually, take our own medicine and 1:17 think about ourselves as a product, as an application. 1:20 We have to remember, that, we have our own users, people who need to work with us. 1:26 So tell me if any of this sounds familiar. 1:30 This is Feather. 1:33 She's a user experience professional. 1:35 And she works at Initech. 1:37 And she hears things like this all the time. 1:41 Just use your design magic to make it good. 1:42 Has anybody heard that sort of thing before? 1:46 Yeah. Or 1:48 we sent it straight to development because we need to get it out the door quick. 1:49 So Feather never even saw it. 1:52 Or there's no time for all that, that research and 1:54 testing, we, we don't have time for that. 1:56 And can't you just tell us what the user wants? 1:58 Well, maybe, but it would really help if we could do that research, so 2:01 I could confirm I know what the user wants. 2:04 Or personas are great and all but 2:07 I actually just think it should be done this way. 2:08 Or this is a favorite of mine, I've heard this so many times. 2:12 Can you make it like Apple? 2:14 >> [LAUGH] >> Yeah, no problem. 2:17 We have baking software at Initech and I'm sure it can be just like Apple's iPhone or 2:19 the higher ups don't think that's important. 2:24 So we're not gonna have the budget for that. 2:26 That's a big one, and that's really tough, too. 2:28 So, at the end of all this, Feather, and probably you guys as well, 2:29 are going, well, how can I do my job, if I can't do anything? 2:33 You've basically relegated me to some sort of design magic, monkey of some sort. 2:38 And that's all it seems like you want me to do. 2:43 And, it's really tough because in theory, everyone wants a UX professional. 2:47 We are pretty the most popular profession right now 2:53 in technology aside from developers, but developers can get lumped into this too. 2:56 And, the reason is because CEOs and other high ups have realized that oh, yeah. 3:01 The experience of my application is important for, keeping customers and 3:07 that sort of thing, so they get in the board rooms and 3:10 they're like, you know, we really got to have a good experience. 3:14 Yeah, you know, I think there are people who do that, they're called like, 3:18 UX, or some, some letter, UI professional, something like that. 3:20 Yeah, let's get one of those. 3:26 And so in the next three to six months, they hire a UX professional, and 3:27 then they're all like, solved it. 3:31 Totally done, right? 3:34 We got that. 3:35 But as you guys know, and as the CEO doesn't know but 3:37 he needs to learn, it's not that simple just to solve it. 3:40 Okay, you're hired not what? 3:44 Well, all those things we ran into, just a moment ago tend to happen. 3:46 And, so, even though you know how to do your job, and 3:51 even though you can do all the things that they really want you to do, 3:53 you don't actually have the traction to do it. 3:56 And that's what I mean by, 3:58 there's more than the user, because there is more than the user. 3:59 You have your users, those CEOs, this marketing team, the developers. 4:03 Anyone you're working with internally or 4:08 as a client site, who needs to understand your process and what you do. 4:10 Who needs to be able to work with you and 4:14 who you want to say, not those things to anymore. 4:16 Those are your users. 4:19 You're the product and so today we're gonna look at, 4:20 how to make you guys more useable, because if you're hearing those things. 4:23 Maybe you need a usability overhaul. 4:25 And so we're gonna cover four basic topics today, 4:29 empathizing, speaking the language, being flexible, and surprising and delighting. 4:32 And if you're looking at this list and saying, 4:38 well gee that sounds like what I do for my users, good we're on the right track. 4:41 The first thing we're gonna do is empathize. 4:46 Now, every corporation, has their underpants. 4:48 Those are the underpinnings of a corporation. 4:52 I didn't come up with the underpants theory, that is from a talk by 4:54 Tamira [UNKNOWN], I highly recommend you go and find that talk and listen to it, 4:58 but the underpants, the politics of the company, the internal goals. 5:02 The overarching structure, anything that you don't want the users to see, 5:07 you don't want the public to know about. 5:12 That's your underpants. 5:14 Like, I don't want you guys to see my underpants right now. 5:15 >> [LAUGH]. 5:18 >> And so, often your job, is to make sure that these underpants, 5:18 don't end up in the application or the home page. 5:23 You don't want, people to know that, oh, 5:25 there's in-fighting, so we have to have three extra navigation links so 5:28 everybody feels like they get their face time on the home page. 5:31 No, you wanna prevent that. 5:34 But you also wanna take care of it. 5:35 And it works in reverse. 5:40 It's your job to make sure, that these underpants would sorry, you need to help 5:41 them sort out their underpants, and this is where the analogy starts to break down. 5:48 But, basically, you can become a champion of underpants. 5:52 And what that means, is really understanding the different underpants, 5:54 the different underpinnings of the different people in your company. 5:59 So, for example, you know, what do CEOs really care about? 6:03 What does Dev really care about? 6:09 What does marketing really care about, and why do they care about those things? 6:11 And this actually is something that I've learned, multiple times, 6:15 because I feel like you can never learn one thing just once, over the years. 6:18 One of the clients, that we'd worked with for a long time, recommended us to 6:22 another part of their very large company, to do some work with them. 6:26 And we were like yes, this is gonna be awesome. 6:29 We love recommendations. 6:32 So we went in, we set up some goals, we understood the project, or thought we did. 6:34 And, we got started. 6:38 And, about halfway through the project, tensions were really high, because 6:41 the people we were working with, unlike the previous team who had recommended us. 6:45 Did not understand what UX did. 6:49 And literally, they thought we were just gonna give them some designs. 6:51 And that they would have full control over exactly what the designs would be and 6:54 where they would go. 6:57 And, we kept pushing back and 6:59 saying, well no because you told us that your goal is this. 7:00 If your goal is this, that design won't work. 7:03 And it got to the point where, the main person in charge of the project, 7:06 who hadn't been involved in a lot of the conversations was extremely frustrated. 7:11 She was ready to fire us, she was not having it. 7:14 And I could argue all day long, about, yeah, I am totally right because you 7:18 said this in the beginning, but that would of lost me project. 7:22 It would have lost me any sort of good will with the team that I had already. 7:25 They wouldn't recommend me to anyone else. 7:29 Certainly these folks wouldn't recommend us. 7:31 That's a really bad place to be in. 7:33 So, after several conversations in which trying to be right didn't really work for 7:35 me, I took a step back and I started listening to what she was saying she 7:39 wanted, what she was saying she needed, and why she was saying those things. 7:43 And I started to, instead of push my agenda and 7:48 my opinions on her, I started to just repeat back what she was saying to me. 7:51 I hear you, I think you want me, us to do this, and 7:55 it sounds like we need to do that in order to help you do what you need to do. 7:58 And she started to feel a lot more comfortable with us. 8:01 And we were able to, not only do what she wanted, but 8:05 also give a little push back later on in the project. 8:08 So that we could kind of hybrid between, okay doing exactly what she wanted which 8:11 wouldn't really achieve the goals and kind of getting closer to those goals. 8:15 But if I had kept insisting, that I was right, the project would have ended. 8:19 And they actually recommended us, to another section of their company so, 8:23 it worked out really well in our favor to take the time. 8:27 And that's why it's really important to do that at every step of the way. 8:30 And it's also important to remember when you're working with people, 8:36 people don't like change. 8:39 Who remembers this Facebook profile? 8:40 Right? 8:42 So every time Facebook makes an update about 80% of the users on Facebook go 8:45 Don't, don't change it I like it the way it was. 8:48 And then we get used to it and we're okay with it. 8:50 And, it's really just, it's, it's really alarming, when a big change happens and 8:53 you're not expecting it. 8:58 And so when you come into a new company, the CEOs are all high fiving themselves, 8:59 yeah we got a U.S. professional. 9:03 They're not ready for, the change that you have to make at a really rap. 9:05 That will scare them if any of you were in Pablo [UNKNOWN] 's talk earlier, 9:11 he even said don't go in and say we need to change everything. 9:15 Take it one step at a time. 9:18 And one of the first steps is to remember that not 9:20 everybody sees everything the same way. 9:22 So, if you're planning out a project and you wanna build a tire swing, 9:24 you then have this many different opinions about what you're actually building. 9:27 And that can get really challenging because, if you don't realize that not 9:33 everybody's on the same page, you're gonna be in a lot of trouble over time. 9:37 And so it's your job as a UX professional to bridge all those gaps, 9:41 bring all those assumptions to the forefront, 9:46 to really understand where each different part of your team is coming from. 9:47 And that starts with empathy. 9:52 So, what things can you do to empathize? 9:54 Use your user reasearch toolkit. 9:57 So, things like empathy maps. 9:59 You would do customer interviews, to find out what users are like. 10:01 Do that with your stakeholders. 10:04 You can, even do some persona elements like, 10:06 knowing what the different people's goals are CEOs and higher ups. 10:08 They always have some goals, they don't always know exactly what they are, but 10:12 they have them. 10:15 A lot of it has to do with the bottom line. 10:16 Developers have goals, make this as easy for me to build as possible. 10:18 Marketing has their own set of goals. 10:22 Everybody's got something going on, and using your user research tool kit to 10:24 dig that out of them is gonna work really well. 10:29 You can also put yourself in their shoes. 10:32 Remember, that the people you work with are people. 10:34 Just like the users are people, 10:37 it's important to remember that, and your job, is to help everyone else on the team. 10:38 Remember that the users are people and not metrics or sign ups or whatever. 10:42 It's also important to remember, that marketing is full of people, 10:47 you can't just bash marketing all the time even though it can be kind of fun. 10:50 You know, we can't just tell developers oh, you're just a developer. 10:54 Because everybody's a person and so 10:59 it's important to do whenever possible put yourself in their shoes. 11:01 Say, if I was that person and I had to care about what they care about, 11:05 how would I feel about what I'm saying to me? 11:09 And that was a weird statement but hopefully you got what that meant. 11:12 And that's how you empathize. 11:15 So the next thing that we wanna do, is speak their language. 11:18 If you go to Starbuck's, you can't go in there and say I want a small coffee. 11:20 You have to say a tall coffee. 11:24 You can't go in there, I mean you can go in there, and 11:26 say that but they'll give you weird looks. 11:29 You can go in there and say, I want a grande half caff no fat. 11:31 Frappuccino with light ice and that might mean something to somebody at Starbucks. 11:35 Maybe it doesn't mean anything to you or 11:41 me, but they have a language that they speak there. 11:42 And, the same way your company, they have a language they speak. 11:45 Especially, if they're an older company or a bigger company. 11:48 There are things, that are already set in place, when you come in, 11:51 that you'll have to learn, you'll have to learn how to navigate that. 11:55 And, when I say speak the language, I don't just mean using the right words. 11:58 Even though, that is part of what I mean. 12:02 I mean, thinking about how they work as a team. 12:04 How they communicate with each other. 12:08 One example of this, is I have a co-worker on my team. 12:11 Who likes to use the word strawman, to define, power points that he's built. 12:16 And now, if you guys don't know, a strawman is an argument that you set up, 12:21 where you're trying to distract from someone's actual argument by 12:26 pretending it's this other argument, and then knocking that argument down. 12:29 So you haven't dealt with someone's real argument, you've set up a fake one and 12:32 then knocked it down. 12:35 What my coworker actually means is, I've created an outline, it's got some holes, 12:36 it's got some errors, can you give me some feedback? 12:41 But he calls it a strawman and he's done this about seven or eight times now. 12:43 And eventually, I will help him 12:51 understand what a strawman actually is, 12:52 >> [LAUGH] >> Because I think that's important, too. 12:53 But I'm not just gonna go in guns blazing and say, hey, it's not a straw man. 12:54 You shouldn't call it that, and just roll with it. 12:59 Because it's helpful for him to understand that, I already know what he means. 13:01 I don't need to correct him every single time. 13:04 Eventually yeah, probably. 13:08 Another thing at my organization is, they love PowerPoint. 13:09 Like it's death by PowerPoint there. 13:12 [LAUGH] This is how I feel about PowerPoint most of the time. 13:15 And it's not PowerPoint like I've got my PowerPoint slides here, sorry. 13:19 But they have a lot of pictures and not as much on the words. 13:23 [COUGH] These PowerPoints are intended to be reference materials, and 13:26 so, they were, like, chock full of words. 13:29 But that's really helpful for the way everybody knows how to communicate. 13:32 And so, while I'm figuring out ways to teach them better ways to communicate, 13:35 the things that we need to keep track of, I use PowerPoint, 13:40 because that helps them understand, what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. 13:43 I also have, another co-worker who,when we're doing design work, 13:48 he really likes to know that somebody's done this before. 13:54 That the pattern that we're introducing makes sense and 13:56 is viable, so, it's really important if I'm saying, okay, 13:58 we're gonna use an item finder like this on the sidebar. 14:01 Hey look, there's somebody who's done this before. 14:03 This colleague is in the U.K. so we use U.K. examples. 14:07 But that's really helpful, for 14:10 him because then he knows OK I can feel reassured about this. 14:12 This is a common pattern. 14:16 People will recognize us, it makes me feel better. 14:17 And now not every single pattern is gonna have an exact corollary but 14:20 it does help the conversation move forward. 14:24 And so when I'm saying speak the language it's all these types of 14:26 things that allow you to. 14:29 Communicate, with your peers in a better way and so 14:31 the things that you can do is get involved in the current processes of your team. 14:33 Everybody, who is already on your team, they have their own work to do and 14:40 they do it in a certain way, and the more that you can 14:44 understand how their doing their work, the better that you'll be able to communicate, 14:47 how your work relates to their work. 14:51 And the more that, they'll want you involved in their project. 14:53 Find out how they best communicate. 14:58 You know what? 14:59 Developers like to have large blocks of time to do work. 15:01 So, don't schedule a meeting for 11 AM, 15:04 because that's gonna ruin the whole morning for them. 15:05 Schedule it at 9 AM, schedule it at noon, schedule it on the edges of the day. 15:08 Find out what works for them. 15:12 Maybe they are a night person. 15:14 And they prefer to meet at seven, and you're okay with that too. 15:15 You know, maybe your CEO really likes to get text messages. 15:19 And so, if you just text him that thing you were thinking about, 15:22 you'll get the right answer really quickly, 15:26 rather than emailing, because the CEO gets 500 emails a day. 15:27 And doesn't read most of them. 15:31 So, finding out how each person communicates best is gonna help you to 15:33 communicate with them more. 15:36 And don't hesitate to actually write down words that you're hearing in meetings and 15:39 conversations, to use later, or to ask about later if you're not sure, 15:42 what they meant in the context in which they said it. 15:47 Excuse me. 15:50 So things like strawman. 15:52 You write that down, got to use strowman. 15:54 I’ve written down, got to make sure have real world examples when 15:56 showing design stuff to my colleague, that sort of thing. 15:59 It becomes really valuable, 16:03 is less you make an immediate connection without asking them to do a lot of change. 16:05 The next thing is to be flexible. 16:12 And this is really important, because there's this phrase that used to go 16:14 around in business all the time, the customer is always right. 16:18 Now, for a long time, 16:22 customers took advantage of that to be snots, which is kind of unfortunate. 16:23 And it's becoming more and more apparent that, the customer isn't always right. 16:28 However, I hear this a lot in the UX profession, 16:33 the UX professional is always right and I get it. 16:34 We have this thing where we're suppose to champion for our users 16:40 we have to be there we have to be solid about that and decisive and that's cool. 16:46 But we also have to remember that, there is a lot of flexibility in what we do and 16:51 we can do a little bit more compromising. 16:55 And sometimes, it's not because our intuition is bad or 16:59 because we didn't do our jobs well. 17:04 But, we get defensive about our users and 17:06 that turns people off to wanting to work with us. 17:08 They think we are hard to work with or were too heavy or 17:10 there's always a strama or something. 17:13 And we come across a little bit like my way or the highway, so hit the road. 17:15 And this actually happened with us. 17:18 We were, looking to hire someone who we decided to do a trial project together. 17:21 And, he had really great work, really solid UX designer. 17:27 We had been really encouraged through the entire interview process. 17:31 And we were working with a client and this was back in 2010, 17:34 so UX is far less ubiquitous than it is now. 17:37 We were working with a client, who really wasn't sure, about a lot of the UX things. 17:39 We had a small trial project going with this client, and 17:45 they just wanted to take it slow and feel comfortable. 17:48 And we hadn't communicated this to our designer, who we were trialing out. 17:50 Unfortunately, he didn't really get what we were going for. 17:55 So, he kept pushing, to try and do research right away. 17:59 He kept pushing, to make all these really big changes to the thing, 18:04 the application that we were working on right away. 18:07 He actually went, and we said, okay, here's. 18:10 You know, the scope of what we're gonna do for this project. 18:12 Because, we want to get them with us before we push to the next thing. 18:14 He actually went and did a bunch of totally different work. 18:18 And so we didn't even have anything we could show to the client, 18:20 that was what they were expecting. 18:23 And so, it became really frustrating to work with him, and 18:25 he didn't work out, we didn't hire him. 18:27 He's happily working somewhere else, 18:29 where, that process can be done in full all the time, which is good for him. 18:30 But, he wasn't able to be flexible in order to help us teach the client. 18:36 Because again, people don't like change, 18:41 you can't just hit them with it all at once. 18:42 And so because he wasn't flexible, it made our jobs really hard with that client. 18:45 And, you know, it's tough because people don't know what we do. 18:49 They don't really understand UX. 18:53 It's a buzzword, CEOs high five when they've hired UX professional. 18:54 And the reason is, you know, this happens a lot. 18:59 Oh, what you wanted to do, the details, is gold plated, 19:00 we can't even put it on the real list, but don't worry it still needs to be usable. 19:03 Because people don't make the connection between, 19:10 the things that you want to do and the fact that it needs to be useable. 19:13 They don't understand that, they're intricately tied together. 19:16 But, it's still important to be flexible about that, while you're teaching. 19:20 It's important to have good balance, too. 19:26 Because if you're too flexible, you can get steam rolled. 19:27 And then it's okay, this is the eighth project where you've told me we can't 19:30 do testing this time. 19:34 You're probably never gonna let me do testing unless I push back a little, and 19:36 it's finding that balance as well. 19:40 So, what can you do? 19:42 Plan in advance places where you know you can compromise. 19:44 When you're coming in, know that, all right, well. 19:48 We don't have to do testing this time, but we'll do it next time, 19:50 because of this thing that we can do or because of 19:53 this conference that's coming up that we really need to hit that deadline. 19:56 Or, okay we don't need to do all the research up front. 19:59 We can do some of it as we go, start with assumptions and 20:03 then validate them as the signs are being worked through. 20:05 You know, figure out those moments where you already know you can come. 20:08 Compromise. 20:11 Match your process to the desired outcomes. 20:13 As I mentioned earlier, everybody's got their own goals. 20:15 Especially, stake holders. 20:18 If you can tie back, what you're doing to, a specific goal. 20:20 So, say you need more sign ups. 20:24 If you can say, this research and 20:26 this testing, will help us figure out how to get more sign ups and 20:28 then you can put that into some tangible numbers if you even can. 20:31 That's gonna go a long way, 20:36 to getting your process more involved, in the overall process of the team. 20:37 Anything like that is gonna be really helpful and don't be afraid of data. 20:42 Don't be afraid of metric points. 20:46 Use persuasion to stand your ground. 20:49 It's really important sometimes to stand your ground. 20:51 But, your UX professionals, 20:53 your job is to figure out how to persuade users to do things. 20:56 Same thing for your team. 20:59 Persuade them to do things. 21:00 Figure out, what things you can share or how you can communicate. 21:01 In order to, get people to do that one thing that you know can't compromise on, 21:06 that's really important and crucial for the project. 21:11 Figure out how to make them understand, how important that actually is. 21:13 And be a little sneaky. 21:18 Don't be afraid you know? 21:20 Okay, we don't have the time to do testing? 21:21 Go do it on the side while Deb's working anyway. 21:22 Just to see what happens. 21:25 You know. 21:27 Okay, we don't have time to do that user research. 21:29 Well call up your mom and ask her some questions. 21:31 Maybe shes not the ideal user but maybe you'll get somewhere. 21:33 You know there's a lot of things that you can do. 21:36 Create quick personas for the project. 21:40 Just something to have on the side whether your allowed to or not. 21:42 Something that we started doing, 21:45 is baking into our design process of iterations of design, usability testing. 21:47 We had listed it as an ad, ad, separate line item previously. 21:53 We stopped doing that, and then people stopped objecting to it, 21:57 because it was just part of the design process. 22:00 Sorry, can't take it out. 22:02 And they didn't know, so they'd just say, okay. 22:03 So it's okay to be sneaky sometimes. 22:06 And the last thing I want to talk about is surprise and delight. 22:10 And if you went to Pamela's talk yesterday, 22:13 you know that she talked a lot about happy moments and not just about delight. 22:16 And I think the same thing goes through with anyone you work with. 22:22 The idea here is you're garnering their good will. 22:25 And part of that is also, being proactive about garnering their good wills. 22:27 So, surprise and delay. 22:31 And the same thing you wanna do for users, and this doesn't have to be big. 22:32 Somebody, at our office left the conference room open over the winter. 22:37 [LAUGH] So, we got some snow. 22:41 [LAUGH] Cuz, it was a snowy winter. 22:43 I'm from Boston. 22:46 I know it's not snowing in North Carolina. 22:49 This is pretty unfortunate, could've ruined our conference table. 22:52 One of the other employees found it and he said, you know what? 22:54 I'm gonna build a snowman. 22:59 >> [LAUGH] >> And so what could've been 23:00 a really annoying, aw, you left the window open and 23:01 there's snow everywhere and I had to clean it up. 23:02 Turned it into this really fun, cute thing. 23:08 I don't know what's going on with the nose there. 23:10 [LAUGH] But, but it was a nice surprise and delight. 23:13 It didn't cost anybody anything and it turned a bad situation into a good one. 23:15 Another example, this is a client of ours and his newborn son. 23:18 We found out he was having a baby and he's out in California. 23:22 So we found a bakery in California and 23:28 got them to make the baby's name in letters of, on cookies. 23:30 And they were so excited they tried to feed the baby cookies, but 23:34 they realized that he didn't have teeth, so it probably wasn't a good plan. 23:37 But they were really thrilled. 23:41 They were so thrilled they sent us this picture. 23:42 It was really great and we're happy to do it. 23:45 Another example is I had someone on my team who we hired as a project manager and 23:49 she had no UX experience. 23:53 She had worked at BU's IT department, but 23:55 she seemed to have really a lot of the skills I wanted. 23:59 And within the first year she went from. 24:02 Not really knowing anything, to being a super star. 24:06 Clients actually asked for her by name, when we started to do repeat projects. 24:09 Will, Megan be on that project? 24:12 Yes, Megan will be on that project. 24:14 Okay, good. 24:16 So, she was really rocking it. 24:17 She really expanding her breadth of knowledge. 24:19 She started public speaking within the first year. 24:22 She did, all these amazing things. 24:24 And we're a small company so you know we do the best we can with raises and 24:26 that sort of thing. 24:29 But I wanted to make sure she understood that we really knew all 24:31 the effort that she was putting in so we changed her job title to UX strategist. 24:34 Which goes a long way when you're applying for a jobs and that sort of thing because 24:38 you sound a lot cooler as a UX strategist than you do as a project manager. 24:42 Regardless if people don't know what that means that's cool too. 24:47 But that gives you a lot of license. 24:50 So no matter what you're doing there's always opportunities so 24:51 surprise and delight people even if it's just a card on someone's birthday. 24:54 And it doesn't have to be spend money and buy them a present sort of things. 24:58 It can just be anticipating their needs, the same way you would for 25:02 a user on an application. 25:05 Figuring out what they're gonna need in advance. 25:07 And so what you can do, keep your eye out for the little moments. 25:10 Birthdays, special occasions, you know, maybe just, 25:14 somebody just ran a marathon, and they're really excited about it. 25:17 Or maybe they're just getting back from a really long trip. 25:20 And you want to do something nice one time. 25:24 We, our CEO was in Japan for two months and 25:26 he came back and that day we had brownies delivered, one per hour for 25:29 like the whole day because he really likes Starbucks brownies. 25:32 And it was hilarious because he was like, the first one he was like oh cool, 25:36 a brownie but then they kept showing up and it was a really surprise. 25:40 And so there's always these opportunities to do silly little things like that. 25:42 To remember that you're all people and you're all in this together. 25:47 And the second thing is to find ways to make their jobs easier by and 25:51 which will by doing your job better. 25:55 So I used to work with someone who said my job is to make my boss look good. 25:58 And so he would go out of his way. 26:02 To do things with that in mind. 26:05 And so that's kind of the mentality you can take. 26:07 My job is to make everyone else look good and to feel good. 26:10 So, anticipating that developers will want to 26:12 see these greens before they're finally approved just so they know what's coming. 26:15 Or anticipating that the CEO is going to be really busy so 26:20 you want to minimize his. 26:23 Wasting his time. 26:25 And you can, you know, 26:26 send in the designs right when you have a minute at lunch together. 26:28 Something like that. 26:32 There's a lot of ways that you can think about and 26:33 anticipate what people are doing and then make their jobs easier. 26:36 So, just wrapping up. 26:42 Your success as a UX professional is in your hands, 26:44 much like this tiny chocolate penguin,. 26:47 [LAUGH] You know, 26:49 you guys already have the tools that you need to get your team on board with you, 26:50 and to stop hearing those things, and to start changing people's minds. 26:55 It's not as much about brute force as it is about persuasion. 26:59 And the results are really good when you do these sorts of things. 27:03 You get to do better work. 27:08 When you overcome the internal barriers that make it hard to work as 27:10 a team you get more done, you get better things done. 27:13 When you guys can all work together I mean I'm sure you guys know when you're on 27:17 that team. 27:20 You're like rocking it at a workshop or 27:20 something you're like yeah this is awesome. 27:22 And you have all these amazing things as an output. 27:23 Same goes at your regular job too. 27:27 You're gonna be personally satisfied with your contribution and 27:28 with the product as a whole. 27:32 You get to be more focused. 27:34 You don't have to spend all your time fighting with people about what you wanna 27:36 do versus what they want you to do. 27:40 You actually get to do the things that you wanna do because you've convinced everyone 27:42 that they're a good idea. 27:46 And you know that there's gonna be more opportunity to continue to move that 27:47 forward, because you've already got some wins under your belt. 27:50 You can be an agent of change. 27:54 So, like I said, change is hard. 27:56 Paul Balag said it earlier today. 27:59 It's important that we step up and start educating people on how to change. 28:01 And when you go in and you treat. 28:05 Your team, like people who are using you, the product, 28:08 you're able to help them figure out how to change, the same way you would for 28:11 a user, you don't want to introduce the feature and just blindside them. 28:15 So the same way, you don't want to just introduce this whole new process and 28:18 say, that's it, we've got to do it this way, but you can affect change over time. 28:22 And you guys know this because you do it with web applications. 28:27 And the world or at least your organization becomes a better place, 28:31 becomes a place you want to be. 28:35 You're happier about your job, 28:37 other people are gonna be happier about their job too. 28:39 It's gonna be a really good opportunity on all sides, 28:41 and then you can take this to other places as well so you don't have to stay there. 28:45 If you have affected change. 28:49 Or you could come do a talk at a conference like this, 28:50 telling about how you can do change and that sort of thing. 28:55 So that's what I have for you guys. 28:59 Do you guys have any questions? 29:01