InRhythm

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Sprint 2.0: 4 Day Design Sprints

It was a humbling experience to kick off the InRhythmU Speaker Series at InRhythm HQ. InRhythmU was created to foster a culture of continuous education through onsite events and comprehensive workshops for anyone who is looking to learn and grow in their field. As the Director of UX/UI Design at InRhythm, it seemed fitting to give a talk about Design Sprints and how it impacts the speed to market as well as the creativity a group can bring to a room when working together.

We started the session with a brief overview of where UX/UI sits in the cadence of a products journey, showing where intelligence (UX) meets creativity (UI). We discussed the difference between design thinking and design sprints and then the sprints themselves, which was started by a group from Google Ventures in 2016. The five day sprint is a team workshop for learning, iterating, creating and deploying. Sprint 2.0 is a four day sprint with even more collaboration and problem solving.

While we discussed the iteration process, we did a hands on task of Crazy 8s, where attendees were giving a module to design and had eight minutes to create eight drawings per minute. The attendees were a mix of designers, product owners, scrum masters, engineers and marketers, which is the perfect cross section for this exercise. While the start was slow, the group found their footing and cruised through drawings. Coming up with idea after idea in the 8 minutes allotted. The mix of job types showed how a group can have a similar idea for a singular task.

We concluded by discussing how this methodology not only builds experiences quickly and creates a strong team dynamic but gives us the option to test our ideas. Testing creates a level of flexibility that only breeds better experiences and if everyone brings this type of creativity, iteration along with strong dynamic back to their jobs and creates some next level experiences for us all.

You can watch the full session here. Apologies in advance for the sporadic use of profanity.

The InRhythm Product Design Community

When you come to work at InRhythm, you’re part of a larger community of people—committed to learning and growing—who are as passionate about what they love as you are. InRhythm’s product design community is growing rapidly, and we continue to bring in the most talented and creative individuals who love helping users and building cool stuff. As Director of Product Design, I’ve made it my mission to use my 20+ years of design experience to mentor new employees and chart the course for this division’s success. Over two decades of work, I haven’t had a single day where I hated the career path I’ve chosen, and I want to foster that same energy throughout InRhythm. We’re more than a consulting company that places you on a client site; we’re more than a 9-to-5 job. Learning and growth at InRhythm is a lifestyle.

Fueled for Success

Product designers at InRhythm are some of the most passionate, driven people. We do everything, including UX/UI, design, research copywriting, and even Agile scrums and product ownership. Loving what you do as a designer does more than chart a successful career—it also influences people around you, and we want that same high energy and excitement in our everyday work and the educational pursuits of our personal passions. Not everyone understands the best practices or user psychology central to our practice; this is where you come in as a thought leader. Be the expert onsite, and elevate the quality of work for your teams.

Why is all this important? There’s a lot to be said for knowing your client, understanding their brand, being empathetic to their pain point, and creating embedded experiences that build new opportunities. Some agencies and firms only care about the end experience instead of understanding the process or story of a company; being an advocate for the users and the company is what makes for a premier user experience.

A Community Like No Other

At InRhythm, we don’t just drop you off with a client and go silent for six months—we’re a growing community that stays connected, whether it’s through Slack channels, happy hours, book clubs, and Meetups. We’re all here for the same thing: to grow and learn. Everyone is at your disposal because the best growth happens with the support of your peers, so if you want to learn something new or fill gaps in your existing knowledge, just ask!

Another benefit of working with us is the comfort and freedom to talk about your work and passions. InRhythmers lead and attend “lunch and learn” sessions on client sites, panel discussions, and interactive workshops at InRhythm HQ. You’ll never be alone in your ventures, and our community is here for everything from preparation and coaching to supporting you at your event as enthusiastic audience members.

Work Smarter, not Harder

It’s no secret that Agile and Design Thinking are hot industry buzzwords in our industry. These methodologies are great tools for making work more fun and efficient while inspiring the group collaboration that is at the core of our learning and growth culture. We embody those collective ideals, and design thinking can shape our experiences throughout our lives. When you download a new app, get a new piece of hardware, or even see how text and images are presented in a television show, you’ll find yourself starting that Design Thinking process. How did this feature get included? Why did they do this? Is this design fully effective for their target demographic? Or even something as simple as, “damn, that looks cool!” We research, sketch, iterate, and build experiences ourselves that we know will impact the end user in ways that will make a huge difference without them even realizing what went into it.

When you’re at work representing InRhythm, you’ll always be presented with challenges. Whether it’s interpersonal differences, tight deadlines, or just broken processes, InRhythmers always stay positive, focus on the drive that brought us here, communicate openly, and elevate the game for the people we work with. Regardless of who signs the paychecks, we all have a common goal to build something amazing on our client sites. No company is perfect (if they were, we wouldn’t be there to change things!) but how you show up, identify opportunities for improvement, and forge a path forward is what matters, and what sets InRhythm apart.

Leadership Takes Ownership

In my work at InRhythm, I listen to our clients’ needs, assess what they’re looking for, and our best-in-class recruiting team finds the perfect match to become a new InRhythmer. We want to hear about your process, why you make decisions, and how you ultimately reached those decisions. Anyone can push pixels, but it takes a specific type of person to talk about their work at the level we expect. Whether you’re just starting out or have been designing since the 90s, the type of devotion to your career and the disciplines behind it is what makes or breaks our hiring decision. Our selective process ensures not only your growth as a professional and person but also makes sure our clients thrive through work with some of the most impressive talent. Along the way, I make it my mission to check in with you and make sure your client work is on track to keep you challenged and growing constantly.

We hold biweekly calls that give you the opportunity to chat about everything from client site problems to the latest from your fellow InRhythmers. No one has all the answers, but we can supply you with the tools and stories you need as a group with a common mission. My primary focus is around your learning and growth; when you leave InRhythm, you’ll be better than when you arrived. We shape consummate professionals, teammates, and leaders within our community, and our accountability on all sides is why we’re built to succeed.

This year we plan on adding more UX/UI designers, visual designers, prototypers, UX researchers, scrum masters, dog lovers, thought leaders, cosplayers, crazy people, and—most of all—people who want to stand in front of a room of people and say, “let me tell you why knowing about *your subject* is important!”

Is that you? We’re hiring. Looking forward to meeting you.

 

5 Best Practices for Building Better Forms

 

Various forms like sign-ups, logins or checkout pages are seen everywhere in application and websites, but what attracts a user to fill one out? What exactly makes one click the sign-up or call-to-action button on the page? Forms exist to be filled out, but there are a surprising number of forms which—through poor design, excessive fields, or other factors—push users to abandon them, unfilled. Make your forms simple and easy to navigate, and watch the data come flowing in. Here are a few best practices when putting together your own forms to keep engagement high:

Ask for less information (and have an easy login!)

If you have a page with a sign-up flow for a new mobile app, what do you want to know from your user? It depends on what the product is and why you need the information from them. As an example, a date or friend matching platform would want your age, gender, and zip code on one screen. The next page could be preferences about the person you are hoping to match with. All of this information is necessary for the app’s purpose, but connecting to Facebook or Google has also made it much easier to skip certain steps of this process, and less info needs to be filled out.

Graph explaining process of "Login with Facebook" functionSource: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/facebook-login/overview

The above image shows how easy it is for the user to access all of the fields needed—i.e. name, picture, friends—from the Facebook API instead of filling out the same information manually.

Single-column ease vs. multi-column stress

When you’re making a form, make sure it’s single-column instead of multi-column, since it’s easier for users to scan through and complete instead of trying to tab through different fields and potentially getting frustrated.

Form Flow Guide

As the image above illustrates, it’s easier for a user to scan through one column, answering questions in a linear format instead of doing a Z-pattern back and forth.

Automate, automate, automate

One of the best form practices for improving design is automation, since it makes it easier for the user to go through fields faster when what they type is automated, and without worrying about switching from lower and upper cases. The only fields that should not be capitalized are emails and passwords, since those cause delivery issues.

Progress tracker

A user who is filling out a form—unless it’s a simple sign-up—wants to know how long the process will take them, and maybe even if it should be filled out now or saved for later. For mobile and desktop alike, a progress tracker should be included, like the examples shown below.

Survey Progress Bar Example
Source: https://uxplanet.org/progress-trackers-in-ux-design-4319cef1c600

If the user is on a certain step it’s important to note that as well, all within an easily understood display of what they’ve already completed.

Testing (even when you don’t want to)

This is the step that many don’t even think of taking, since the design could be flawed and more time could be wasted in redesigning. The form you just created should be tested on a few different devices (at the very least on mobile and desktop) to see if it actually works and makes sense. What’s the point of developing a product that doesn’t work for the user?

There are many more best practices for forms, but these are a few of the essentials that should be included in yours to make progress as easy as possible. The ultimate goal is getting the user to click on the “continue” or “submit” buttons in the end. By following these best practices, you can remove common roadblocks in form submissions and make the experience better for your users. Subscribe to the InRhythm blog for more UX and UI blogs from the design team!

How to Onboard a UX Designer with a New Client Partner

I must profess that user-experience design or UX should no longer seem an alien concept to anyone who works in technology. Users participate in their own experience when browsing through the feeds in Facebook accounts, book an Uber, or swipe left/right on some popular app (you know that app… come on). These tools have become second nature or a habit during a commute or checking on friends’ activities. The reason is the user experience and ease of use it creates for us as a user.

When a client who never worked with a UX team member inquires, “I want a UX designer to add to my team,” certain questions arise:

  • What do you mean UX?
  • What problem are you trying to solve;
  • And finally, do you want this individual to do visual design, interaction design, information architecture or – the buzz word – “a hybrid” of all these functions?

The client invariably has a quizzical look denoting “what did I sign up for?” ‘Cause I know: they want a “unicorn” to do a bit of all but don’t know:

  • How to engage with them?
  • How to fit them into the scrum team?
  • Will they add value?

All of the aforementioned client problems could be resolved with a clear “client onboarding” process. Identifying and working with a UX Engagement Partner could be a solution that helps resolve this delicate but consistent hurdle new clients face.

What is a UX Engagement Partner?

Within the technology service industry it is imperative that a client who is newly engaging with a UX professional be given consulting or direction on roles a UX designer performs and how they can be fit to the client’s needs. The engagement partner builds a bridge to help the designer ease into their new role; and to help the client plan a roadmap for the team’s and the designer’s successful delivery of assets.

Working with a few clients over the past year, I created a playbook for this UX Engagement Partner and would like to share it:

I) Prior to candidate start:

  1. Meet with the manager with whom the UX candidate will work.
  2. Set up bi-weekly meetings with the hiring manager during the interview process. These meetings are crucial to obtaining feedback on the candidates or discussing operational topics regarding new hires (e.g. tools offered by the client and tools that need to be purchased or provided by the candidate).
  3. Develop an onboarding guide that walks the UX candidate through their initial and daily routine, hardware provisioning, and software setup needed for a smooth start. The client should review this to approve appropriate steps.

II) Post start:

  1. Be the client-partner. On day 1 when the UX designer starts working with their team, schedule a meeting with the entire scrum team (e.g. product owner, scrum master, engineers and QA). This is the time to introduce the candidate and ease the anxiety of all parties involved – or to pique their interest of how a UX Designer can support them. It’s also a good time to explain to the team’s members what responsibilities and types of deliverables belong to the UX designer.
  2. Work with product owners to set up cadence of the UX deliverables. This could involve scheduling meetings for –
    • UX backlog grooming
    • Usability testing: standard, rogue, and rapid labs
    • Design reviews with the team
    • Copy reviews if needed
    • Measuring readiness for backlog refinement for engineering team
    • UX retrospective

III) A month after:

  1. Schedule a retrospective with the hiring manager that involves the client-partnership participants. This retrospective is a learning opportunity for the hiring partners and the client. It allows the opportunity to measure success and where improvements are required.
  2. Scheduling a retrospective with the UX candidate is crucial. The designer is a team member whom you’ve trusted to go in the field and given all the ammunition to succeed design methodology and components for product design. This gives the candidate a platform to talk about things that went right and wrong for them.

As a Director of Product Design and an engagement partner, I have been following the above script for a year of role assignments. Most of the onboarding exercises have been a success. The retrospectives, I have noticed, usually become a catalyst to new work and relationships. The above approach can be used as a client experience testing tool. Their feedback helps to augment the approach. I am sharing my approach and findings with the hope that it helps other UX engagement partners succeed in onboarding a UX candidate to a team unfamiliar with User Experience Design.

InRhythm 2016 Year in Review

Happy New Year from InRhythm!

As we look to 2017, we would like to share InRhythm’s most memorable, interesting and fun facts from 2016. Wishing you success in the new year!

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