- we all have UX opinions!
- being internet travellers gives us all preferences and intuition
- but partnering with product boils down to (1) asking questions; (2) communicating options; (3) debating choices to a point; (4) ultimately deferring to their decisions (if technically doable)
- it means letting go of our preferred UX, but its very freeing to trade our freedom to make coding implementation decisions for their freedom to make UX decisions
- also makes it easy to end UX debates among the devs since there is a single decider (see os build decision framework)
- main thing to do is keep them in the loop whenever UX-impacting decisions are being considered
- offloads work onto them so we can focus on technical stuff
- if the UX judgment call proves to have been “wrong”, we’ll change it later; it’s okay; sometimes our coding implementation decisions later turn out to have been “wrong” too; no big deal; we iterate!
- basically, when working on something in partnership with product, treat them as the UX designer and respect their UX decision making responsibility unless they explicitly tell you — I want you to decide this
- communicating via screenshots and screencasts is WAY more effective and enjoyable than communicating via prose; if the question is a visual one, provide visuals
- often a good way to approach a UX questions is to take screenshots of all the options and present them as “pick your favorite” (assuming the variants don’t take too long to prototype locally)
- if the question is a larger one that will take a long time to prototype, you’ll need to start with a prose question, but try to keep it concise and clear
- basically — don’t be afraid to offer UX suggestions to product and always provide the time implications of each option (which will take more/less time to build and maintain), but do NOT pressure them one way or the other; let them drive the visuals; we are ultimately not hired to be UX designers; Recursion should REALLY hire at least one of those skilled folks; we are not impersonating them in the meantime; for now, product has that role; just focus on providing them with reasonable choices and then helpig them decide
- in the debate-decide-communicate-support framework, when it comes to UX, product is The Decider