Meg Tucker

STOP SAYING UX IS DEAD 🗣️🗣️ This is a reactive rather than proactive stance on a deeper rooted issue within design. As design has transitioned throughout time, evolving the landscape of our responsibilities, titles, and ownership, the shift we’re experiencing now is no longer the transitionary state we’re accustomed to, but rather a transformative period. We have been propelled into a new era of design faster than ever before as a result of the current market and state of the world. UX is not dead, you’re just confused. Read more here ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/g7fh34qs

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Hey people, for real, it’s OK–and quite reasonable–to not want to be a designer. Our practice has some really jacked up work/life entanglement where our value as a human is directly tied to how last crit went. The practice has changed. The industry has really changed. It’s a different thing. There’s a good chance you didn’t sign off on these changes. It’s quite alright to nope out. Yes, I get many of us don’t have that option. I’m certainly not able to shift to the plumbing trade at my stage of career. But a lot of you younger folks–you can, and arguably should, take a really hard look at whether this is what you want. And not just the good stuff. The whole kit and caboodle. There’s a whole world out there. No one is going to keep track of how many “design points” we rack up in 10 years. 

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Companies are finally seeing the value of super-senior ICs! But career ladders and expectations for staff+ designers are often unclear, leaving lots of people who reach this level feeling unsupported. To help, I took my own 14+ years of experience as an individual contributor in high-impact roles at tech companies of varying sizes and made a highly interactive course. Join us starting Feb 3: https://lnkd.in/eqg4e2vx We’ll cover: 💡 Common expectations of the staff+ designer role 💡 Effective communication with senior leaders and executives 💡 How to set and uphold boundaries to focus on high-impact work 💡 Techniques to manage up and show impact Over the span of three weeks, you'll build a network of super-senior peers and acquire tactics from me: a designer who's been through these exact challenges. Grab your spot now! P.S. Thanks, Adekunle Oduye, for the kind words!

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DESIGNERS! First, I have a favor to ask of you, and in tandem with that, I want to share something personal/vulnerable with you all. 💖 For those interested in an action-based course that would take information from the playbook and put it into a presentable, FAAANG-approved format, if you don't mind filling out this lil survey to kick things off, that would be amazing. https://lnkd.in/gTay8Y-Y Second, I am deeply passionate about design. For those who don't know, I am self-taught. I come from a single-family household, and attending college wasn't an option for me when the time came. I wasn't sure I'd ever be successful in this world. I feel incredibly strongly about making design education and resources accessible to the community. 🌱 I wouldn't be where I am today if it weren't for the kind designers along the way who offered me advice and attention. I find boot camps to be predatory, and the amount of content online is nauseating when attempting to learn or receive an answer. How do we know what to trust today 🤔? More importantly, how do we implement action behind these articles and content? Some of us don't learn just by reading - we learn by doing. For me, I need to see things in action to understand the best way to approach or implement them. It's not because I'm not smart enough; it's because I've found this works for me and my neurodivergent brain. No matter how you learn or how much money you have, passion should be enough to get you where you want to be. I believe learning the things we're passionate about should be accessible. Producing the playbook is only the first step towards my goal of enabling designers everywhere to be the most successful and confident version of themselves.

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It’s easy to get caught up in functional ratios and its often a losing battle stuck in idealisms. With that said there’s a real business risk when design and supporting teams aren’t invested in. This video does a great job explaining how efficacy and efficiency across product and development teams drop when this happens.

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Designers, it's time to start valuing your time. More top companies have stopped giving take-home assignments to experienced designers, recognizing that whiteboard challenges are enough to assess their skills. While take-home assignments may still be appropriate for entry-level designers, it's important to remember that your time has value. In fact, offering payment for take-home assignments can help attract top talent. Many skilled designers skip candidacy simply because the take home assignment is not interesting to them. Let’s prioritise smart hiring processes that respect both the company’s and the candidate’s time. #design #designhiring #assignment #payment

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I don't often find examples of good UX design in the wild, but I stumbled on this one the other day while walking my dog in our neighborhood. For context, this is a roll-off dumpster with a port-a-potty attached to it. Having been a home remodelling contractor, I can attest to the fact that it's not uncommon that you will need a dumpster AND a port-a-potty on site for the duration of the project. This is a good example of looking at the entire customer experience beyond just the main task. Genius.

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🚫STOP ASKING DESIGNERS TO DO TAKE-HOME EXERCISES! PERIOD!🚫 Not sure why this is a "spicy" topic. If you require a take-home exercise, you don't know how to assess or hire design talent. Anyone asking designers to do this should be named and shamed. The only time I could *maybe* understand an exercise would be for a junior-level designer with no experience or professional work available. For designers with in-depth case studies, why do you include portfolio presentations as an interview step if you're going to give them a vague prompt to build polished screens around? IMO, this is free work. *Typically* designers have 5-7 methods to showcase that isn't homework: - Portfolios - Case study decks that dive deeper into work (utilized in the portfolio presentation stage) - Whiteboarding challenges that showcase problem-solving in real-time - Resumes that communicate impact and past work. - App critiques that help you understand how they approach IA, content hierarchy, areas of friction, UI considerations, and feature improvements. - Testimonials from colleagues they've worked with in the past. (Eng, product, stakeholders) - References who can speak directly to whatever it is you're seeking. If you combine all of those, what value does the take-home offer that the above didn't cover? People searching for jobs don't have time to do a 1-3 hour exercise for every company they talk with. Can you imagine? In today's job market? If someone is interviewing with five companies, that quickly becomes 15 hours of work. This does not include the notion that most designers don't spend the minimum recommended time and typically spend 4-8 hours rather than 1-3. **edited for the sake of positive conversation rather than ending negatively. There are designers who might not have the luxury of saying no, or worse, they don't know any better. We can't ignore the predatory nature of today's job market, which results from the disadvantages of candidates and the companies that take advantage of them. So, if you get a take-home assignment and don't have the luxury of withdrawing, message me. I'll happily schedule time with you to work through it together.

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Really annoyed at Figma's price gouging here. There is no reason other than greed: https://lnkd.in/gfdrEiWH Oh, and I emailed them about it and this line from their reply was particularly poignant: "Additionally the minimum for enterprise is a $5k invoice minimum. 6 enterprise seats or made up with other products." To put that in context... our monthly Adobe bill (for 8 CC, 7 PS, 6 Acrobat licenses) is ~NZ$2k... Amazing how quickly enshittification sets in... #Figma #Design #SoftwareLicensing

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After interviewing many designers on ADPList, I consistently offer the same advice: Simplify and reduce the amount of text and process sketches. Focus your case studies more on the finalized designs rather than the journey to get there. This might seem counterintuitive, but your portfolio serves as a validation of your high-quality visual and interaction design skills, as well as your product thinking. Showcase these qualities by emphasizing the designs themselves rather than the process behind them. Once you reach the 1:1 interview stage, you’ll have the opportunity to dive deeper into your process and explain how you achieved these designs. For now, let the designs speak for themselves. #designportfolio #designadvice #portfolioreviewtips

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We’re often taught a linear process when it comes to building software, right? Discovery → Define → Design → Release But what happens when you land a job right in the middle of that process? After countless decisions have been made? What do you do? --- I’ve seen so many new designers expect to start a job and hit the ground running. 🏇 They want to impress everyone. 🤿 They’ll jump straight into designs.  🏅 They’ll expect to contribute to meetings. 😖 Then they’re surprised when no one listens. --- Building great software is hard. We know that. Not only is the code complex. There may be tons of flows, features, screens, components, and copy to think about and keep track of. Then there are the hundreds of conversations, debates, arguments, and decisions that went into coming up with all the code, flows, features, screens, components, and copy. That’s all well and good when you were there from the beginning, but how often are we actually starting all of this from scratch? The chances are good when you land a job you’re replacing someone who recently left or you’re part of a growing team. Either way, a lot of these decisions have been made and you need to help execute. If you *really* want to help execute, you can’t start from the middle. You need to start from the start. ✅ Starting from the start is about understanding the context. ✅ It’s about breaking up bigger problems into more digestible chunks. ✅ It’s about looking back at everything you know you know. ✅ It’s about getting a better sense of what you don’t yet know. 🎯 Here are a few key takeaways: ▶️ You’re likely going to end up in the middle of a process: When you start a new job, you’re most likely going to end up on a team that has already started work. Spend the first month getting to know the people, the processes, and the overall context. ▶️ Don’t rush into it: You *could* skip the context and jump to one specific solution, but you may be totally wrong at best, or risk hurting your credibility with the team at worst. You won’t get fired for doing your due diligence. ▶️ It’s a marathon, not a sprint: You’ve often got time to take a step back and consider the larger problem. You may not have months or even weeks, but even if you’ve only got a few hours, do what you can to get the context before settling on a solution. ▶️ You won’t have all the answers: Unless you’re a software team of one, your team will have insights you aren’t aware of. They may have additional context and additional insights. Reach out to your team and see what they have to say. ▶️ Avoid confirmation bias: Chances are good you’ll have some ideas in your head. There’s nothing wrong with that. But be sure to avoid confirming your suspicions or validating your ideas simply because they’re your ideas. Be objective and open to anything. --- So the next time you’re faced with a big problem, take a step back and start from the start. #UXdesign #SoftSkills

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I’m hiring a Mid-level Product Designer! 🎉 Here are some of the details: 👇 💼 Company: nCino, Inc. 📍 Location: Lehi, Utah 🏢 Office requirement: Onsite, Monday – Thursday. 👥 Design Team: Nearly 30 designers, mostly in Utah 🤝 Product Team: The PM and tech lead for this role are on site in Lehi, UT, and several engineers are remote 🏭 Industry: Banking, Analytics, B2B, SaaS ⚒️ Tools: Figma, User Interviews, Dovetail, Slack, Jira, etc… 💬 Manager: You'll report to me ➡️ Start date: We’re ready to go when you are! Here's what we'll offer you: ✨ 100% paid premiums for medical, dental and vision, as well as disability insurance and life insurance. ✨ 39 paid days off each year (including volunteer days and holidays). ✨ Company-funded HSA account and 401K with employee match. ✨ Employee stock purchase plan with 15% discount and look back period. ✨ 4-12 weeks of childbirth parental leave. ✨ Career growth opportunities, frequent design team trainings, design critiques, collaboration sessions, team summits, etc... ✨ A manager and team who really care about you as a person. The product space and what you’ll do: 👉 nCino is broken into several business units, including the Portfolio Analytics business unit. The Portfolio Analytics product hasn’t had a dedicated designer before, so you will work with me to lead a transformation in this product space. 👉 This transformation will include auditing a product with a legacy interface, understanding who the users are, helping redefine the information architecture and product vision, and moving it towards our “One nCino” vision, design system, and UX team best practices. 👉 Since this is an analytics product, you’ll be designing several dashboards, charts, reports, tables, navigation menus, and dense data interfaces. Here is who is not a match: ❌ Lives outside the U.S. Unfortunately, this role is only setup to hire within the U.S at this time. ❌ Unable to live or relocate near one of our headquarters in Lehi, UT ❌ Unable to come onsite Monday – Thursday. This is our company’s most recent policy. ❌ Someone who passively waits to be told what to do or needs micromanaging. ❌ Agencies, freelancers, consultants, or recruiters. Now is not the time. ⚠️ Disclaimer: Because of the overwhelming response I typically get for our open roles, I won’t have the capacity to respond to every direct message. But if you apply, I will make sure our hiring team reviews every application! If this role sounds right for you or someone you know, then tag them below or apply! Application link is in the comments 👀 #ux #design #productdesign #userexperience #hiring

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Org design and how designers fit within cross functional teams has been at the top of my mind recently. Peter Merholz and John Cutler have an idea that in the future empowered design and engineering leads take on the majority of produce responsibilities. PMs focus on product strategy and in lieu of running daily rituals for 2 pizza sized squads. I’ve actually lived a version of this reality and can say it’s possible — with caveats. 1. The product-thinking mindset and skill set is needed for design and engineering leads. 2. A mature design practice with solid design ops is must. 3. Clear alignment and connection with business stakeholders. 4. An empowered insights practice based on UX research, driven by evidence, generates novel growth opportunities while enhancing current user journeys and experiences. 5. Great relationships across product, design, engineering, business. The truth is skill sets and preferences vary so widely that this model simply can’t work for every company or even every team. A full stack PM/UXDev sounds great on paper but rarely plays out well in reality. However, well supported leads could totally pull it off if well supported by practice area ops squads and empowered PMs.

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Don't know who needs to hear this.... but here is your friendly reminder from a design recruiter working with many designers who have LOST work during unforeseen layoffs... SAVE YOUR WORK, TODAY. RIGHT NOW >>> Set a reminder in your calendar for Friday Mornings, AND after completing any project, to save your work. Save Save Save. Do this weekly. At most bi-weekly. It will become a habit and you will thank yourself. Invest in a larger external drive. Do it. This week. (EDIT: People want me to remove this tip, but I’m not really sure how else people can really save their work without saving it to another place? Just because you have a larger drive doesn’t mean everything on it is work… Obviously, I don’t want anyone getting fired. But after a lot of debate and dialogue here, people are admitting that designers have been secretly saving work for decades -duh-… so yes, ask your manager first if it makes you feel better/safer. I think the main take away is that when you are negotiating a new offer you need to *think ahead* and create/negotiate some sort of stipulation in the offer letter/agreement/SOW that allows you to use some of the public facing work in your future portfolio collection. I have truly never worked with any company over the last 12 years who did not ask for some type of sample of past work). << hope this restores faith in some worried people. 🙂‍↔️ Also, write down in a journal all the projects you are working on, have worked on, will be working, want to work on, keep track of all the things. Did you put your reminder in your calendar yet? 📆

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Many designers still confuse a component library for a design system, but understanding the difference is critical for creating scalable, cohesive products. In this gabble of words I've explored how major companies like Airbnb and IBM do it right? 🧐 #UXDesign #DesignSystems #ComponentLibrary #ProductDesign #DesignVsDevelopment #Collaboration #Figma #DigitalProductDesign #TechDebate #DesignThinking https://lnkd.in/gGmxyKED

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My thoughts on what’s happening to the design industry as of lately: - Rise of product designer + product manager hybrids. - Rise of design engineers. Designers who know more front-end. - Return and prominence of Design Agencies. Or large corps hiring agencies to do work instead of full-timers. - Talented UX researchers with data skills. Words of advice: Time to upskill or seek roles with a design agency.

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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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Having some interesting, open conversations from Design Leaders right now who are getting burned out from trying to hire Designers right now. The demands from the business warrant the Design team growing, but the means to do so are lacking. - Over-worked and under-skilled Talent teams lacking the nuance to understand the design hire needed - Design Leader getting little to No results from internal talent team - Design Leaders attempting to use their networks and getting bombarded with inquiry, too over whelmed to look through, guilty for not responding to everyone - Company lacks infrastructure to properly handle the amount of inbound applicants; brand recognition takes a hit in the market - Design Leader still doesn't have the Design Support they need Bit of a vicious cycle. Good news though - there's solutions out there - been putting them action this year and seeing the results.

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