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20 Must-Read Books for Product Designers at Any Stage

Creative Market

With a name like Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior , you know this resource will have some deep insights for UX experts. You can learn the psychology behind what users like and improve your design strategies. Christopher Alexander was an architect and a design theorist. Mental Models.

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The many deaths of UX design

UX Collective

In Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior , Indi Yong writes, “Building products based on preference research is like building a kitchen from a stack of magazine clippings”. Unicorns are almost extinct, design systems are taking over, and the job is getting harder. The not so phantom menace.

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Why I decided to become an individual contributor after 4 years of people management

UX Collective

Closing thoughts I’ve now successfully made the transition to a Staff Product Designer role. It’s definitely been the right decision for what I needed right now in my career and for my mental health. It felt like I had been carrying around a great weight on my shoulders that’s just disappeared. If something feels off, it probably is.

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Good UX is not enough without a proper communication plan

UX Collective

Not everything needs a communication plan; part of creating a design strategy is to think about how and when to communicate things to make them relevant to users. So, one of the most critical skills for designers is communicating design intent; as Kazden Cattapan recalls in the article, “Design communication is a critical skill.”

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Stress-free OKR creation: how to connect strategic drivers with objectives

UX Collective

Definitely not. When we run into this situation it is because we are filling the gap created by lack of a previous alignment of strategy and opportunities. This is a signal in companies that don’t have a strategy or fail to connect it to OKRs and team execution. This article was originally published in Mind The Product’s blog.

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Inputs/Outputs: design planning in high uncertainty projects

UX Collective

A clear symptom of this issue is evident when no one in the room can state a solid release definition; then, once the product is live, it wouldn’t fulfill either business or user needs, and that’s a potential money loss and waste of time. Design status? How to mitigate this? What to say anyways? As a leader, not panicking is key!

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Understanding privacy-enhancing design

UX Collective

If users are committing errors, it is the responsibility of organizations to detect and correct the design practice that is fostering these errors. Design Accountability. Organizations should be held accountable for their design practices. It should be possible to legally question an organization on its UX design practices.