Tantek Çelik

More UX and Product leaders need to hear Diana DeMarco Brown (she/her)'s wisdom. Diana is a pioneer in the UX field who takes a thoughtful and nuanced approach to assessing the current state of the tech industry. In our recent conversation, Diana shared many insights, including: - How to evaluate a company's culture during the hiring process - Why private equity ownership can result in design divestment - How Product and UX leaders can effectively influence business decisions - Why we don't need to panic with the rise of AI, but we need to think critically and prioritize regulation during this early stage Link to our full conversation: https://lnkd.in/eemDimVb

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I'm thrilled to share that my latest product and design discovery article is live on Mind the Product! As a consultant, I've observed that the term 'Discovery' can have varying interpretations across different teams. It's not uncommon to encounter a team deeply immersed in a solution yet lacking a shared understanding of the customer opportunity they're addressing. At Lab Zero, we meet clients where they are and advocate for discovery while maintaining flexibility. We often employ lightweight methodologies to foster a shared understanding, even when work is already underway. Teresa Torres' book “Continuous Discovery Habits” is a guide to developing the mindset and practices that enable teams to discover and deliver value to their customers throughout the product development process. Her explanation of the 'Opportunity Solution Tree' helped me articulate a process for asking questions and bridging gaps when joining a new team. The first part of this two-part series looks at reversing the 'Opportunity Solution Tree' to establish a connection between the ongoing solution, customer opportunities, and business outcomes. The second part (coming soon!) will explore strategies for identifying gaps in your team's understanding of customer needs and the necessary measures to mitigate risks before launch. This series will help consultants, new team members, or a struggling team connect with that all-important why and launch valuable experiences for their customers and their orgs. Have you tried something like this with your team? Feedback is appreciated! If you haven't explored Mind The Product's extensive content library, I highly recommend it! In addition to articles about discovery and understanding customer needs, the community has shared insightful perspectives on product leadership, business, and teams. It's a great place to see perspectives on processes and theories informed by real-world use.  #ProductDiscovery #Design #Discovery #ContinuousDiscovery #Onboarding #Risk #CustomerOpportunity #Value #BusinessOutcomes

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In addition to my talk at Write the Docs, I created the sketchnotes, which are posted here: https://lnkd.in/g5Jmej-v

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Diversity in design isn't just a buzzword—it's a business imperative. 🌈 As a hiring manager, I've seen firsthand how diverse teams boost creativity, product quality, and profitability. I believe in building teams that reflect our users and bring fresh perspectives to every project. How do you ensure fairness during the hiring process when you have to look at portfolios? Here is my perspective on the challenges of inclusive hiring. #DiversityInDesign #InclusiveHiring #TeamBuilding

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10 basic lessons of a design system. Being someone who has worked within and created many design systems, brand guidelines, and UI libraries, I've encountered many bumps along the way. What would you add or remove from this list? #designsystem #UX #lessonslearned #basics https://lnkd.in/evFxwP79

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4 ways AI can help designers? • Generate ideas to inspire creativity • Create illustrations for personas and journey maps • Plan out workshop agendas • Create alt text and image captions for better accessibility It's all about the prompts and refining them to work best for your project!

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What Is Neurodesign? Designers can create more effective and engaging products by working synergistically with users’ brains. #UX #productDesign #Neurodesign https://buff.ly/3Wf9xXe

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"The strategic design gold rush is over." While this might sound like a scary sentiment at first, I'm choosing to see it as an opportunity for design leadership. It's a chance for reinvention of what role design led teams can play in corporate settings. Users are increasing their demand for simple and straightforward user experiences. Every company continues to need more user and customer advocacy and design leaders are perfectly positioned to be the fabric of that advocacy and stitch together the functions required to deliver it to market. Rather than being relegated to a subordinate capability in product-led companies, design leaders can now redefine their purpose, leveraging their skills in user empathy, strategic experiential planning and continue to tie together the often disparate agendas at play in organizations. #Design #Leadership #Reinvention #Innovation

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Wow - game UX is tough! Here are three UX lessons I learned from demoing my game, Evoplasm to strangers! Forgive my shameless clickbait title. https://lnkd.in/emE9vNqT

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I’m going through an iterative design process with a XFN team right now. We know we’re solving the right problem because we get repeadted validation that the value prop aligns to user needs, but the experience doesn’t provide that outcome in an easy/intuitive way. So we iterate and iterate some more, each time finding ways to better achieve the outcomes we’re targeting. This process is messy. You learn that your initial assumption were off so you lean on failure to improve incrementally. It means as a designer you need to be vulnerable…that it’s not about you providing all “the answers” to your team in a beautifully packaged deck/speck. You need to show what’s “behind the curtain” and bring them along during your process. Show your thinking and learn to interpret feedback. Approach everything as a hypothesis, remain curious, explore and share.

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What if… Every project started by asking: what about women? Design practitioners felt equipped to design with and for women We had the courage to imagine a future that centers women. A dear friend, colleague and one of the brightest minds I know Mansi Gupta has put in many years thinking about exactly these questions .. I'm so excited to see her work put in a framework that all of us can now use to become more gender intentional... check out - www.womencentricdesign.org to learn more #gender #genderindesign #genderinproduct

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In a world where technology continuously evolves, one constant remains: the importance of understanding and connecting with the people who use our products. At the heart of this connection lies empathy. Empathy-driven design goes beyond creating visually appealing interfaces; it delves into the realm of human emotions, behaviors, and experiences. Uncover the power of empathy in design and learn from how we at acoustic build products that truly matter to the people who use them. #uxd #usercentereddesign #marketing, #acoustic

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Poorly designed experiments are rampant in A/B testing and CRO. 😭 If you share one publicly, you might get thrown under the bus. 🚌 Though I can't stop public pile-ons, I can step-up to improve our collective experimentation efforts. To learn how to design GOOD EXPERIMENTS in a SAFE and FUN environment, sign up for my workshop at Experimentation Elite on June 11, 2024. I don't have a degree in math or statistics. But I have learned from some of the best such as Lukas Vermeer and Lucas Bernardi over the last 10+ years. They have been kind and patient with me. And I, in turn, promise to be kind and patient with you. Not only that—we can have fun, too! To explain brain-melting experimentation concepts I... ✏ Draw pictures, 🖼 Use memes, and 📖 Tell silly stories. Because there's SO MUCH JOY in experimentation as we discover new things together. If you join, here's what we'll cover: 👉 The difference between designing a test to learn vs. reducing risk 👉 How to structure your approach and write good hypotheses 👉 Terms like significance (α), power (β), p-values, and confidence intervals 👉 How to calculate sample size to get trustworthy results 👉 All kinds of stuff about sample ratio mismatches (SRMs) 👉 How to analyze your data and the caveats to consider 👉 The history about how all of this stuff to solidify your learning To sign up, go to Experimentation Elite's website and check out the workshops! And don't for get to sign up for Test & Learn Community (TLC)'s Mentorship Summit. TLC is a supportive, non-profit community led by the amazing Kelly Wortham. It's filled with positive vibes. 💕 Kelly's community is a great way to level-up your skills and learn from some of the best practitioners in the world. As a final thought, I'll leave you with my personal motto as a reminder to us all: BE KIND & MAKE THINGS BETTER. Have a great day! 🎉

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Wow, spot on… Also consider the complexity of a “design system factory” product intended to offer design system stability to the diverse clientele of a consultancy with vastly unique clients, all with critically important needs. I often describe(d) the design tokens and design system as the CENTER of the tech ecosystem, or at minimum on par with the most critical data APIs. Few were ready for what that would cost. Financially, technically and emotionally. #outofwork

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We're so excited to welcome over 10k attendees to Config next week! We know that people may or may not ignore pre event emails 😉 but you can't hide from me here. Here are all the absolutely must knows for Config next week if you're joining us in person! I'm about to use so many emojis (I think that's legally required on LinkedIn) so buckle up! ------- 📆 Do I have to build my agenda and grab spots at sessions ahead of time? Yes! We ask that you build your agenda before coming to Config. We'll be scanning badges at each session so if you haven't grabbed a spot ahead of time, you won't be able to go to that session. Build your agenda on the website. 🎟️ Can I cancel or transfer my ticket? You can cancel your ticket for a full refund up until June 25th at 6am PT. You are ✨not able to sell or transfer your ticket ✨ to another person. Please note that we require government issued IDs at check in. If the ID doesn't match the ticket name, you won't be able to enter. 🚪 How will I check in? Don't forget to bring a government issued ID! To check in and pick up your badge, you will need your ID and your unique Config QR code, which you can find in your ticket confirmation email. The name on your ID and the name on your Config ticket must match. Badge pick-up will begin on Tuesday, June 25th at Moscone South. Full hours below: Tuesday, June 25: 11:30AM-7:30PM PST Wednesday, June 26: 7AM-4:30PM PST Thursday, June 27: 7AM-4:30PM PST 💃🏻 What other Config events can I attend? Join us at Config Commons on Tuesday, June 25th to network, find your community, and play before Config officially kicks off on Wednesday. For more info and to check out more Config events, head to the "community events" footer on the website. 🌯 Is there food at Config? We'll be serving lunch on both days, as well as coffee and small snacks throughout the day. Please note we won't be serving breakfast. 🎧 Will there be language support? We are so excited to offer live translation support for our attendees in Korean, Japanese, French, German and Spanish. Please download the Interprefy app and bring your headphones for the best Interprefy experience. More questions answered at:

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Over the years I've tried many approaches to design critiques with the teams I've managed. Without fail these 4 simple principles impact the effectiveness of design critiques greater than anything else when established as ground rules. For presenters: ✦ Describe the problem you're solving ✦ State the target audience* ✦ Specify the feedback you're seeking All of the above can be done in less than a minute, either verbally or in written format. For participants: ✦ Ask questions before comments "I think you should go with blue instead of red" is less effective than first asking "Why did you choose red for this?" The additional context that comes from asking questions will lead to more effective feedback. Design critiques are the easiest and most important thing design teams can do to improve design quality. Alone they are not a silver bullet. But they are the foundation for all other improvements to design quality. If you're not holding regular design critiques (usually weekly), this is step 1 for improving design quality. If you're already holding regular design critiques but not doing the 4 principles above well, this is step 1 for improving your design critiques. Better critiques. Better quality. * "Everyone" is rarely acceptable as the target audience. Even if the feature being presented is intended for everyone, 99% of the time there's a specific segment or archetype you're aiming for. #design #critiques #quality

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Will AI Diminish Our Capacity for Critical Thinking? Google's new "AI Overview" feature, which compiles search results using AI, has been dishing out some inaccurate—and even dangerous—advice. For instance, suggesting mixing glue into cheese to prevent it from sliding off pizza, or using mustard gas to sanitize a washing machine! Extreme examples like these make people pause, but other incorrect results or AI hallucinations may not be given a second thought. In his book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, Nicholas Carr argues that the internet’s constant stream of information and demand for multitasking encourages a superficial approach to information processing, leading to scattered thinking and diminishing our capacity for deep thought and contemplation. Critical thinking involves intentionally evaluating information, ideas, or situations from different perspectives to understand and decide how to act on them. Design involves people—their inputs, opinions, and feedback—and critical thinking plays a crucial role in the entire design process. Designers are always asking questions, seeking evidence, and striving to understand deeply. Faced with a design opportunity or “problem,” they don’t dive into a solution without first understanding the real problem, which may lie layers below the surface. How can you think critically? - Apply designerly curiosity: Ask "why," "how," and "what if" questions to delve deeper into ideas, arguments, and situations. - Analyze information: Break it down into smaller parts, identify key points, evidence, and assumptions. Evaluate the credibility and reliability of sources. - Consider multiple perspectives: Train yourself to view issues from different viewpoints to gain a more comprehensive understanding, balance your view of a topic, and recognize potential biases. Developing critical thinking is an ongoing process that takes time and practice. Start by incorporating these techniques into your daily life. Gradually, you'll find yourself becoming more adept at analyzing information, making informed decisions, and engaging with complex ideas. Think Critically! Stay ahead by honing essential #designerly skills, behaviors, and habits: - Follow me here on LinkedIn for regular insights and tips on mastering these skills. - Subscribe to my #BeingDesignerly newsletter for exclusive content, practical advice, and early access to updates about my upcoming book on designerly skills. Elevate your design career and stay competitive. Don’t miss out—follow and subscribe today! Link in comments. #UX #Design #CriticalThinking

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Hey folks, connect with Josh to share your experience quantifying your #designsystems success.

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The 4 Stages of AI Image Generation: An Experience Map #GenAI #UX #productDesign https://buff.ly/3VKxjKs

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