McKenna Rowe

The Jobs to Be Done framework is crucial for product designers, especially as the line between product managers and designers continues to blur. This article can revolutionize how we approach problem discovery and opportunity identification, offering deeper insights during the design phase. It's a must-read for anyone looking to elevate their design process and deliver exceptional results.

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Thoughtful breakdown review about eBay Playbook!

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There’s a subtle difference between “educating” stakeholders and making the impact of your work visible. One of these can help you win promotions, autonomy, and co-conspirators. The other can distract you from your craft at best… or devalue your work at worst. Thought-provoking article from Sara Wachter-Boettcher on how designers can reframe “advocating for design” in a way that avoids burnout and sidesteps the gaslighting.

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Has your Design System team gotten smaller? You're not alone. This week on The Question, I'm joined by co host Maya Hampton to talk about how to do more with less. It's easy and free to participate—all you have to do is answer The Question and register for the deep dive. >>> https://bit.ly/4e53mvo <<< See you on Thursday at Noon Eastern for Episode 33! #designsystems

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❓ I have a question for product designers ❓ How do you understand that you’ve reached a certain grade or level in your career, such as transitioning to a senior role? Do you rely solely on performance reviews, or are there other ways you evaluate your growth? And what if there’s no formal performance review process? I’m asking because I often get questions about assessing one’s grade or level. So, I’m curious — do you have a similar need or interest in this topic? Let me know your thoughts!

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January 12 is a date tied to innovation, thanks to events like Apple’s Macworld Expo. Iconic products like the iPod shuffle and iWork were unveiled, setting benchmarks for design and usability. Apple’s legacy of simplicity, minimalism, and user-centricity continues to shape today’s design trends. Let’s spill some digital tea on this topic. ☕🥧 1. Personalization is Key 🔑 Users demand interfaces tailored to their preferences. From dark modes to adaptive UX, personalization reigns supreme. Example: Widgets on iOS. Buzzwords: Adaptive design, user-first. 2. Minimalism Meets Depth 🎯 Simple doesn’t mean shallow. Interfaces today combine clean aesthetics with rich functionality. Example: macOS Ventura’s layered design. Buzzwords: Intuitive, layered UX. 3. Inclusivity Wins 🌍 Accessibility isn’t optional. Designers are embracing tools like voice commands and gesture-based controls to make products for everyone. Example: VoiceOver on iOS. Buzzwords: Inclusive design, accessibility. 4. The Skeuomorphism Comeback 🎨 Realistic textures and 3D effects are back, adding a tactile feel to digital designs. Example: Spatial interfaces in AR/VR. Buzzwords: Skeuomorphism, tactile UX. 5. Sustainability Matters 🌱 Designers are going green, focusing on energy efficiency and longevity. Example: Apple’s recycled materials. Buzzwords: Sustainable design, eco-friendly. 6. The AR/VR Revolution 🌌 Spatial interfaces are the future, blurring the line between digital and physical spaces. Example: Apple Vision Pro. Buzzwords: Immersive design, spatial UX. Conclusion The 2020s’ design trends—personalization, inclusivity, minimalism, and sustainability—are rooted in philosophies pioneered by innovators like Apple. With AR/VR on the rise, the future of design is bold, immersive, and exciting. Let’s create a better tomorrow—with a wink and a smile. 😉✨ #DesignTrends #UXUI #Sustainability #Innovation #ARVR

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Had to share this thoughtful article about the conflicting feelings we have as designers with new AI tools.... made me consider the threat of too much standardization over innovation, or letting your own creative instincts atrophy. Check it out and lmk your thoughts

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“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou This truth is especially powerful in product and UX/UI design. While creating a beautiful, user-friendly application might seem straightforward—I've had the privilege of doing it for nearly two decades—the real impact lies in the emotions we evoke. It’s those feelings that turn one-time users into loyal advocates. If you’re curious about how emotions shape user experiences or want to know more about neurodesign, check out this article and others written by @jashsak https://lnkd.in/gtj5JpD6

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Which font is best for reading online? What's your take? This is a controversial subject, any subject which involves multiple designers making a collective decision is. I've been through this debate more than a handful of times on redesign projects especially. The data is inconclusive and opposing studies exist. The answer is often "it depends", something you might often here from designers. Here's an interesting study, yet only 1 study, there have been many others. What is your take on this debate? https://lnkd.in/g7DPmd9V

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Is there a "right" way to Design your Design Org? When people, business goals, product road maps, timezones, tools, and budgets are your constraints, it can feel overwhelming – like there are endless ways to organize your team with a lot at stake. It requires a lot of planning, design thinking, and bravery. This is one of my favorite problems to tackle, and I'm so excited to talk with Superside about how to approach these problems as a leader. Come join the conversation tomorrow at 12pm ET ✨ https://lnkd.in/g2QXRee8

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Make it POP? At some point in their career, every designer has heard the request to make an element "pop more". The premise is simple: to draw attention to a particular element in a layout, make it stand out. However, in practice, the opposite effect often occurs. https://lnkd.in/gjvst-Td

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The Non-Designer's Design Toolkit 👨‍💻 (or “just my observations”) I'm sure many of you have faced (and continue to face) the challenge of differing 🤦‍♂️ design visions between marketers and designers. 🚨 Spoiler alert: this is perfectly normal and will likely never change entirely. As the digital space continues to evolve, the visual component becomes increasingly 🚀 essential, playing a significant role and growing impact on network users. This makes it crucial for marketers to possess some design sensibilities and vice versa for designers to understand marketing goals. After all, the key task for both, in the context of business objectives, is to achieve the desired outcome from potential users 😎. But what if you're a marketer without a dedicated designer on your team❓ By understanding the task at hand and your target audience and equipping yourself with the right tools, you can effectively solve this problem. ⬇ Here's my go-to toolbox as a marketer for creating impactful "non-designer designs": ❇ Creative Idea Don't underestimate the importance of a clear concept! Great design starts with a well-defined idea, like legendary songs written on budget guitars. ❇ Canva This user-friendly platform offers a wealth of templates and features for crafting banners, social media posts, presentations, and more – all in a snap. ❇ Behance Get inspired by browsing stunning design projects from top creators. ❇ Unsplash & Pexels High-quality stock photos and images at your fingertips, perfect for adding visual punch to your designs. ❇ Flaticon Your one-stop shop for discovering and customizing icons to elevate your visuals. ❇ Figma The industry standard for design, Figma offers powerful yet intuitive tools (though some design knowledge might be helpful here). ❇ Color Hunt Feeling color-challenged? Color Hunt provides beautiful color palettes and combinations to take the guesswork out of design. There you have it 🔥 With these tools and a little creativity, you can conquer the "non-designer design" world 🙃. So, what are your favorite tools for creating impactful visuals without design knowledge? Share them in the comments below (if u want 😈 ) #design #marketing #toolkit #tools

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So immensely proud of such an amazing group of people who've been working so hard on this big set of launches at Figma for #Config2024. ICYMI what we launched today, this blog post recap covers it well: https://lnkd.in/gX3KSWj3 I wanted to share a couple fun tweets from a few of the fantastic designers/leaders that worked on some of the things you may have seen in our keynote this morning. * This is not even close to an exhaustive list of those who worked on today's launches, but just a quick lil glimpse showcasing a few who happened to post about them today (also linkedin obscures the links for some reason, but they're all just fun behind the scenes tweets not shady sites I promise lol): Figma Slides - Keeyen Y.: https://lnkd.in/gmxBH3wq - Mihika Kapoor: https://lnkd.in/gr54Upnu - Natasha T. / Ryan Reid: https://lnkd.in/gd-v9gE3 Redesigned Figma (UI3) - Ryhan Hassan: https://lnkd.in/g868XAze (can't wait to watch the behind the scenes talk with him and Joel Miller and KC Oh as well as Wayne Sun's when they come online later) - Tim Van Damme: https://lnkd.in/gQyvqzYr - Nikolas Klein: https://lnkd.in/ge_kKyvD Figma AI - Jordan Singer: https://lnkd.in/gXmFeXTM - Oscar Dumlao: https://lnkd.in/gkACVY_c - Marco Cornacchia: https://lnkd.in/gMt3BvVY - Vincent van der Meulen: https://lnkd.in/gCrHvcVu - Jediah Katz: https://lnkd.in/gMxEu7i8 - Giorgio Caviglia: https://lnkd.in/gCNVQrKC And more: - Jenny Wen (pages design by rocky chen ✌️): https://lnkd.in/gd_6RHAv - Soundharya Muthukrishnan: https://lnkd.in/gsnibt-j - Daniel Destefanis: https://lnkd.in/gu6mYBe6 - Becca Ramos: https://lnkd.in/gqM7RGKQ We hope you enjoy these updates, and excited to meet more of the amazing community at Config for Day 2 tomorrow! I'm particularly excited for Marcin Wichary's talk tomorrow at 3:40 https://lnkd.in/gvJNNerg

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When doing user research - I love Airtable for organizing content. It allows you to do so across multiple dimensions and slice/dice your analysis how you want to. So you could in theory, mark each person/quote on a problem dimension, usability, existing tools, etc. and then see patterns and filter in lots of ways. So the organization (in whatever tool) largely comes down to what you are trying to uncover. I think unless you are doing a very coarse analysis, in airtable I would have each "row" be a response (or even a individual quote). Then there would be a column for the person, a column for the question (maybe a new columns as to what the question was trying to illicit - your intent), then successive columns for the multiple dimensions you would annotate on. This then becomes your master table. From there, you can slice and dice but you are always building on raw data that cuts nicely

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We're keenly aware that budgets aren't what they used to be and money isn't flowing' like it's 2012. I've seen a lot of companies, medium and large, pull back on experience strategy initiatives and hand it off to internal teams. Nothing wrong with that yet, they're struggling to make sense of how to approach the right problem, align changes with company directions, sift through user data, etc. When you aren't trained in a given profession, you're bound to stumble. So.... • What does an experience (ux) strategist DO!? • Do you need an experience (ux) strategist? Experience consultants ( 👉 me 👈 ) are an excellent way to "try before you buy". Be it to get things done at a reasonable cost or to test the UX waters. There's never a bad time to dip your toes into the waters and invest in the possibilities of experience design. Start out with a task then perhaps a small project. Then check to see if the needle is moving in the right direction. And what we do doesn't have to be for your users. It could be for your teams own sanity! "Hey team, can we dump this work on the ux strategist? We're swamped." UX is not just about creating design artifacts. Experience strategist's: • Analyze business opportunities • Dive deep into assessing problems • Build the approach to a solution • Align to business strategies • Validate audience needs • Establish success metrics • Create content structures • Build data migration plans • Compose micro-copy • Test and validate ideas & concepts • Interview teams, co-workers, executives ... and so much more. Human (and AI) behavior is constantly evolving. To stay on target with your businesses goals you must continually identify issues and explore opportunities. We're the persons in the watchtower, the sounding board looking out for you, the expert advisor to make sure you're on the right path. Leverage us. Leverage ux. Oh, ... and DM me if need UX strategy 😉 #uxLyfe

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#Config24. There's nothing quite like it when designers and makers gather to share, learn, and nerd out about our craft. Thank you Amperity for supporting our design team to take on this experience together at Figma's annual conference. There is so much to soak in, both from the presentations and chats across the community. Here are a few first takeaways: • Go faster with AI. From reducing tedium (auto-naming layers) to the emergent ability to turn flat UI into interactive prototypes with a click of a button. This philosophy is shaping the experience of designing in Figma. • There is a healthy and important debate in the design community about the implications of this AI-powered future. I love that it will lower the barrier for entry however agree with Jenny Arden: AI can get to good but as it can only remix what's been done before, it takes humans to get it to great. • Intentionality, creativity and craft matter even more. This theme came up throughout the two days. Tools should augment your process, not automate your favourite parts. • Shake the idea that difficult equals important. Simone Giertz overcame her performance anxiety by choosing enthusiasm as a driver for her work, resulting in a lot of fun and unexpected outcomes. • Aspire to be the team that sets the bar for quality. Peter Yang challenges PMs and people who care about product craft to choose quality and speed over scope. Cut features not quality corners to deliver beautiful products to customers, and quickly so you can learn. • How you structure your EPD teams will be reflected in your product. Resist symmetry. Nan Yu makes a great case for "heirloom tomato" teams that vary in size and shape in order to create an org chart you want to ship. • Figma redesign incoming. Figma's UI3 has been built on the core belief that way we design has evolved, requiring more immersion in the canvas. Minimizing UI aims to keep designers in flow, then make it easier to show and present work. On that... • Hello, Figma Slides. It just makes sense to show the work from the tool you built it in — and Slides (or Flides) will streamline this with speaker notes and quick layout features. • Does your design leave fingerprints? How might you weave traces of people, stories, acknowledge what you bring as a designer with a story of your own. Thank you Karla Mickens Cole and Nashilu Mouen from The Browser Company for this people-centered prompt.

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I really enjoyed this conversation with Alex Smith from Fuego UX on value of designers learning to code, team collaboration, culture, and thoughts for new designers entering the market in the age of AI. Plus, it's short and sweet - just under 12 mins! If anything peeks your interest that you'd like to hear more on, let me know as I may be able to go deeper in future talks or blog posts :)

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Trust me on this one. You’re just a few tweaks away from a portfolio that reflects your strategic insight. — Add context around business goals and how your designs supported them. — Include a “Thought Process” section to walk through critical decisions. — Highlight problem-solving examples that impacted outcomes. — Show before-and-after visuals to emphasize improvements. If you want more insights like this, you will like my weekly newsletter; subscribe here —> https://johnise.kit.com/ #uxdesign #uxportfolio #strategic #designthinking

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