Marty Cagan wrote one of his characteristically great posts in Product vs. IT Mindset. In one particularly harsh section he describes what happens when the people who make decisions about a product are far removed from those who make the product:

In IT mindset companies, accountability frankly is a farce. The people actually working on a project typically have no real say in what they are building, and sometimes even in how it’s built, and even when it’s due. In theory, the leadership team could try to hold the requesting stakeholders accountable for the results, but if they do they immediately hear complaints that they didn’t get what they actually wanted, and because of delays and costs, critical things had to get cut, and so it’s certainly not their fault. So management writes it off as yet another failed technology initiative. In contrast, in a product organization, we are measured by results.

I’ve always felt that this is the biggest challenge to companies as they grow. The further away those who make decisions are from those who build the product, the harder it is to remain customer-focused in the long term.

I try not to overwhelm you with posts about the product management book I wrote recently, but I do think this deserves a post. After a few hiccups, Making It Right is now available in paperback on Amazon, through CreateSpace Independent Publishing.

If you like papery things and margins, I’m sure you will like it.

Buy ‘Making It Right’ on Amazon.

Peter Morville’s Creating a Cultural Fit: Using ethnography with users and stakeholders is one of the most useful UX articles I’ve read in a while. He talks about the importance of understanding the cultures of both users and companies to create good products. He concludes:

In short, the right design is one that fits the company and its customers. A mismatch on either side results in fatal error. We must use ethnography with our users and stakeholders to search for a bi-cultural fit. This is tricky since culture is mostly invisible. That’s why we should start with a map.

This is a must-read.

Thank you to Mandrill for sponsoring Elezea this week! I’m a big MailChimp fan, and this is another great product of theirs.

Integrate, deliver, track, and analyze with email infrastructure from Mandrill.

Mandrill is a scalable, reliable, and secure email infrastructure service trusted by more than 300,000 customers. It’s easy to set up and integrate with existing apps. And it’s really fast, too. With servers all over the world, Mandrill can deliver your email in milliseconds. Detailed delivery reports, advanced analytics, and a friendly interface mean your entire team—from developers to marketers—can easily monitor and evaluate email performance.

Get started with Mandrill today.

Sponsored via Syndicate Ads

Sophie Shepherd introduces some new deliverables in Rethinking Our Prototypical Process, including this one:

HTML prototypes have the potential to confuse some clients. In addressing feedback, I’ve answered questions like: Are we tied to this layout? (No.) Is this real content? (Ideally.) Is this what our website will look like? (Probably not.) The content outline strips any potentially distracting elements from the prototype: no layout, no typography, no links, no things remotely resembling design. It’s just a list of the content that will be on each page in order of its importance.

This deliverable, which she calls a “Content outline” or “Page description diagram”, seems like it fits well with my idea of Content slice diagrams. It’s great to see these new useful deliverables emerging — a sensible retreat from the “get out of the deliverables business” march of the past few years.

Craig Mod discusses single-purpose products in his product design essay There is much to learn from the paper towel:

All of these single-purpose tools or philosophies strive towards the same goal: whittle away the cruft around an idea to reveal its most base components, and in doing so, strengthen what is left.

The single-purpose lecture attendee is, in theory, a better student. The single-purpose-sized paper towel makes us happier, is gentler on the earth. Individual tools in unix are more efficient and easier to debug because of their specificity. Facebook Messenger on its own is easier to use to communicate without the deluge of Facebook notifications flying in our faces. And so on and so forth.

I’ve started using Craig’s solution for single-purpose Twitter notifications and single-purpose Facebook messages and it works really well.

I really like Alex Maughan’s post In a word, Human. He discusses the dangerous gap between those who make software, and those who use it:

Successful user experiences happen when producer whims get sidelined, and primary focus is placed on that little bit of common sense shared by the majority of humans using your product or service. It’s when you empathetically put yourself in the most common psychological flow of a human using a piece of technology they know almost nothing about.

This is a topic I’m very passionate about, so I agree wholeheartedly with Alex.

Usually we use a bunch of different software for creating such things as websites, presentations, photo stories and online magazines. The truth is — it all can be done easier and with one tool.

Do design, forget about coding.

Readymag provides a simple online tool for designing and publishing all forms of content, helping to focus on the creative process, rather than interface complexity and code. Among the main Readymag’s features:

• Viewport: Easily create responsive layouts for mobile deviсes.
• 1500+ free web fonts: From Typekit, Webtype and Google Fonts.
• Password protection: Create private publications and share with specific audience.
• PDF-export: Save and view your work offline.
• Ready-to-use templates: Made by talented designers from around the world.
• Plus: Free hosting, custom domain and analytics.

Stay creative. Try Readymag now for free.

Sponsored via Syndicate Ads