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jamipeets@gmail.com

When Company Culture Doesn’t Align With Product Ethos

By | Behavior, Design | No Comments

Today I got coffee with a fellow user researcher and had an interesting conversation about how company cultures can clash with the ethos of the products they’re selling.

For example, a company that sells a platform to improve communication within organizations should mirror the very thing it purports to sell: good internal communication. They need to not only talk the talk, but walk the walk.

What happens when companies don’t practice what they preach?

One thing that happens is the morale of employees starts to diminish. The values they hope to imbue in the product become aspirational and distant from their own lived reality. This paradox creates tension for employees and can prevent innovation from truly thriving.

Let me paint the opposite picture. If your office is actively focused on finding ways to communicate better, that effort will start to spill into the product. Because relationship dynamics between co-workers can get complex and fluctuate, there will be many stories and experience to draw from. Leveraging this collective growth will fuel and funnel into a product that truly resonates with users.

Products are outgrowths of our mindsets and values.

When we create a product, it is an extension of ourselves that we’re sharing with the world. People will form a relationship with your product, and non-directly, to you and your values.

I remember doing my taxes in 2011 and being surprised at how easy it was. I had approached filing my taxes with so much intimidation and loathing. The experience I had with Intuit’s TurboTax turned out to be delightful and empowering to me. This experience was the complete opposite of what I expected.

To carry the ethos of “let’s make filing taxes easy for ANYONE,” I’d imagine Intuit had to first dive head first into its opposite: complexity. Product designers have to face complexity, deconstruct it, then make order out of chaos for its users.

I would also like to hope that Intuit’s company culture embodies the elements of the mantra of “simplicity.” For example, considering questions like, “how can we make new employee onboarding simple and enjoyable?” “How can we make it easy to understand our internal tools and processes?” “How can we make it simple for our vendors to work with our us?” Companies who live their value propositions are incredibly powerful.

In order to fully understand the values we do want to put out into the world, we need to fully experience the opposite as well. It’s considering the negative space. As much as opposition is crucial in increasing our understanding, staying in that space too long isn’t very productive.

The more we embrace, practice, and live specific values within our corporate culture, the more they will naturally flow into our work, yielding quality product experiences that deeply meet user needs.

I thought I’d try 1 improv class…and here I am 48 classes 8 months later

By | Self-Actualization | No Comments

There I was, singing the first line of a song I made up on-the-spot– only to be overcome with panic, as no words came.  Everyone in the room had their eyes on me.  Mid-line, I bolted out the door and away from the improv audition a friend randomly coaxed me into coming.  Because of that experience, I’ve always enjoyed improv from a distance.  That was way back in my undergraduate years.

Now, I am a changed woman.

I had a realization one day in my second year of grad school that my creativity was blocked for some reason.  I started thinking about ways I could exercise my creativity and that awareness kept me open to new experiences.  I needed to find ways to start letting go.  Fast forward two years and I find out one of my meetups is doing Improv for Designers.

I ended up going and had a BLAST.  We started with really simple games that allowed us to let go, have fun, and be introspective.  It wasn’t scary like that trial-by-fire singing drill at that audition years ago in that college classroom.

Shortly after, I signed up for Level 1 Improv at the Hideout Theater.  What I thought was only going to six weeks turned into eight whole months!  I continued taking classes and am up to Level 5.  I got so into it, that I started spending about 6-9 hours at the theater each week.  There was my Monday and Saturday class (3 hours a piece), random workshops throughout the week, and I watched improv shows with my new friends on the weekend.

I had no idea how life changing this would be!  I had no idea that I would find myself on a stage performing in bright lights.  I had no idea how therapeutic improv would be (laughter is healing).  I had no idea how it would teach me mindfulness, listening, team-building, and creativity.  I found a space to express myself creatively and the improv community in Austin is incredibly welcoming and kind.  What a great eight months!

Design for Action Conference

By | Design | No Comments

I am recently on a behavioral economics kick.   Having just read Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, I knew I had to attend the Design for Action Conference.  My work sent me to attend the workshop and conference held in Chicago and here are some takeaways.

1. In any type of behavior change, we all go through ups and downs — as designers, we need to find ways to encourage excellence, but also offer support for when people fall.
2. There are critical moments in each person’s journey that need to be supported– whether that be a nudge to push a little harder after a successful attempt, or empathy after a failed attempt.
3. Having a deep understanding of critical moments and the behaviors that surround them can inform how to provide support through encouragement or discipline.

Here is a working model I’ve developed representing how design might support someone through a behavioral change: