Slides Marc Wendell recently used in his discussion w/ mentees of The Product Mentor. The Product Mentor is a program designed to pair Product Mentors and Mentees from around the World, across all industries, from start-up to enterprise, guided by the fundamental goals…Better Decisions. Better Products. Better Product People. Throughout the program, each mentor leads a conversation in an area of their expertise that is live streamed and available to both mentee and the broader product community. http://TheProductMentor.com

1. USER EXPERIENCE
DESIGN TACTICS FOR
PRODUCT MANAGERS
MARC WENDELL
DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT, WORLDNOW

2. WHAT IS USER
EXPERIENCE DESIGN?
1. For our purposes: the process of enhancing user
satisfaction by improving the usability, accessibility,
and effectiveness provided by a product.

3. THE BOTTOM LINE
“Most business models have focused on self interest instead
of user experience.” – Tim Cook, CEO, Apple
“Does it better” will always beat “did it first.” – Aaron Levie,
CEO, Box
“One reason product management is such an appealing
career is you get to sit at the intersection of technology,
business, and design.”
― Gayle Laakmann McDowell, Cracking the PM Interview:
How to Land a Product Manager Job in Technology

4. WHY UX FOR PRODUCT
MANAGERS?
Business
Analyst
UX
Designer
Product
Manager
Director of
Product
My Journey

5. SETTING THE STAGE
1. User Experience concepts: general
paradigms utilized by the UX design
discipline to frame problems.
2. Tools: tactics utilized by the UX design
discipline to solve concrete problems.
Note: this is not the time nor place for
theology!

6. UX TACTICS FOR
YOUR PM TOOLKIT
Concepts:
1. Context: understanding the novel setting in
which the problem you are solving persists
2. Simplicity: less is more, but practicing this
principle is where the works comes in
3. Empathy: solving a problem for a specific
user is the essence of product management
success

7. CONTEXT
1.Contextual inquiry:
1.What user?
2.What market?
3.What buyer?
4.What constraints?
2.Avoid confirmation bias and other pitfalls
XContext
Y

8. SIMPLICITY
'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read.
-Mark Twain
1. Simplicity: one of the most tired concepts in
business/tech/design chatter today
2. Thoughts on simplicity for the PM:
1. Complexity always costs more
2. Complexity is harder to iterate on
3. Rational simplicity is always a design
differentiator
3. Applications:
1. Putting the “M” in MVP
2. Stop when you can’t simplify the problem or
solution further

9. EMPATHY
1.Empathy: a general appreciation for the journey
your user is taking when using your product.
2. Can be overlooked as a “soft” skill
3. Acknowledge the emotional activity that
goes into user interaction

10. TOOLS
1. Workflow analysis: understanding the journey/steps/path your
users take to accomplish a task. Visually represent your input
from contextual inquiry.
2. User Research: validate your assumptions/ideas directly with
your target users.
3. Concepting: visualize your concepts/ideas/iterations using
basic wireframing techniques.
Tell a Story!

11. WORKFLOW
1. Workflow analysis:
1. What steps does your user take to complete X task?
2. How long do these steps take to complete?
3. What are the dependencies to this process?
4. How can the process be simplified?
5. How do you quantify the value of simplification?
Remember the infamous: “But this is how we’ve always done
it!”

12. USER RESEARCH
“Small software companies fail because they develop the
products they want to work on and use…and this is also how
the big ones succeed.”
-Unattributed
User Research:
1. Surveys
2. Site interviews
3. Usertesting.com
4. UsabilityTools
Does NOT have to be a cumbersome or prolonged process

13. CONCEPTING
Concepting:
1. Wireframes, sketches, white-boarding
2. Low fidelity is your friend
3. Aim to put essential brackets around your concepts
4. Use these tactics to accelerate your timelines
5. The quality of your concepts will have as much if not
more impact as the their contents,

14. BASIC CONCEPTING
AND WIREFRAMING

15. COLLABORATION & TRUST
1. Build trust and avoid ownership conflict
2. Build trust by appreciating the expertise design brings to
the product and the process
1. The user is everyone's responsibility

16. RESOURCES
Formal training:
1. General Assembly: https://generalassemb.ly/education/user-
experience-design
2. Human Factors International:
http://www.humanfactors.com/training
General:
1. UX Booth: www.uxbooth.com
2. UXdesign.cc: uxdesign.cc
3. UX Apprentice: www.uxapprentice.com/

17. TAKE AWAYS
1. A few basic UX design skills will serve as a competitive
differentiator in your career as a product manager
2. Every successful product involves a problem being solved
for a specific user
3. What problem are we solving?
Machines work better when ever gear spins freely!