Increase your confidence, influence, and impact (through a Professional Community)

Doing good service design is hard. You know what makes it easier? Having a supportive community of smart and generous professionals who are rooting for your success.

In this session, we’ll explore the power of professional communities, what makes them thrive, and help you decide if joining one is the right move for you.

Plus, we’ll share how to start and grow your own community based on the lessons we’ve learned from designing the community for in-house service professionals.

The Compass Mission

Greg Petroff, the SVP of Design at Compass & UXR, talks about the Compass mission and how User Research and Design play a crucial role in building a groundbreaking platform for real estate agents.

Systems Provocateur with Dr. Luke Roberts

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“Systems are very good at being resilient,” and “Systems are very good at dehumanizing,” are sentiments that anyone who has worked in organizational transformation or systems change can appreciate. Luke Roberts is the COO and co-founder of HighFive and a speaker at the upcoming Advancing Service Design Conference. As a self-proclaimed “systems provocateur,” Luke emphasizes the importance of understanding the underlying dynamics of any system, whether it’s in education, healthcare, or corporate environments. He and Lou discuss the intricacies of how systems operate and the challenges faced when attempting to provoke meaningful transformation, often drawing on relatable insights from Luke’s work within education systems.

One of the standout insights from the conversation is the vital role of time in enacting change. Luke argues that significant systems change requires a long-term commitment, with research indicating that anything less than three years typically fails to yield lasting results. This understanding is crucial, especially when organizations often seek quick wins that can lead to a cycle of temporary fixes without addressing deeper issues.

Ultimately, our discussion reveals that provoking change is not just about identifying problems or changing individuals; it’s about creating a collective vision and investing the time and energy required to realize it. As we navigate complex systems across various sectors, embracing the challenge of systems change can lead to meaningful and sustainable transformation.

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• The Nature of Systems Change: Understanding that systems are complex and often resistant to change, requiring a nuanced approach to provoke transformation.
• The Importance of Time: Recognizing that meaningful systems change typically takes at least three years, challenging the desire for quick wins and highlighting the need for long-term commitment.
• Energy Dynamics in Systems: Exploring how the flow of information and attention affects change efforts, and how misdirection can stall progress.
• Collaboration Across Stakeholders: The necessity of fostering collaboration among all participants—whether in education, healthcare, or corporate environments—to create a shared vision for change.
• Provocation as a Tool for Change: Learning how to challenge existing norms and behaviors within a system without blaming individuals, thereby encouraging open dialogue and reflection.
• Practical Examples and Insights: Gaining insights from real-world examples, such as the education system, to illustrate how systemic issues can perpetuate negative outcomes and the strategies needed to address them.

Quick Reference Guide:
0:14 – Meet Luke
2:40 – An example of change at a system level – bullying in schools
5:50 – Helpful frameworks – mapping and metaphors
9:06 – Why training individuals is not a long-term solution
14:00 – The window of change
18:13 – 5 reasons to use the Rosenverse
20:28 – Provoking systems
24:58 – Flow of energy
28:49 – Luke’s gift for listeners

Rock Climbing and Security UX with Heidi Trost

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Apple podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio

Just as a rock climber meticulously checks their gear and follows strict safety protocols to navigate treacherous heights, security UX professionals must also anticipate risks and design safeguards to ensure a smooth and safe journey for users in a digital landscape. In Lou’s interview with Heidi Trost, author of Human-Centered Security: How to Design Systems that are Both Safe and Usable, Heidi highlights the critical safety protocols climbers and belayers follow, which mirror the precautions needed in system design to mitigate human error and anxiety. This analogy sets the stage for a broader discussion on security user experience challenges.

Heidi stresses the necessity of cross-disciplinary collaboration, especially when dealing with sensitive data like personally identifiable information (PII) and electronic protected health information (EPHI). She points out how involving legal and security teams early can streamline projects and improve outcomes. Designers, as facilitators, must bridge the gap between complex security concepts and user comprehension. Heidi’s book helps them do this by using personas to understand how the dynamic between users, security UX, and threat actors shapes.

Lou and Heidi’s conversation explores the evolution of multi-factor authentication (MFA) and its unintended consequences. What started as a simple 6-digit code morphed into a troublesome fatigue for users. Heidi underscores the importance of iterative design to adapt to these evolving challenges, likening the chaos of security interactions to a relentless ping-pong match.

As they look ahead, Louis and Heidi discuss the rapid evolution of AI in security contexts, emphasizing the balance between technological advancement and user protection. With AI assistants poised to know more about individuals than ever, designers must remain vigilant to prevent potential misuse. Their conversation is an invitation for professionals to rethink how they approach security UX and design, encouraging a proactive stance in this ever-changing landscape.

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• The Importance of Safety Protocols: Just as climbers rely on safety checks, security UX requires robust protocols to protect users from potential threats.
• Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration: The value of involving legal, privacy, and security teams early in the design process to streamline project timelines and enhance security measures.
• User Dynamics: Insights into the complex relationships between users, security measures, and threat actors, and how these dynamics affect user trust and experience.
• Iterative Design in Security: The necessity of adapting security measures, such as multi-factor authentication, based on user feedback and evolving threats to avoid fatigue and exploitation.
• The security threats of AI: The challenges and considerations of integrating AI technologies in security systems, focusing on the need for vigilance to prevent misuse and ensure user protection.
• The Role of Designers as Facilitators: How designers can bridge the gap between complex security concepts and user comprehension, fostering better communication and understanding in security UX.

Quick Reference Guide:
0:25 – Meet Heidi and get a rock climbing primer
5:55 – Emerging protocols in the security space
8:20 – The designer’s role in security
10:13 – Other “roles” – the user, the security user experience, the threat actor
15:09 – Designers as translators, conversation facilitators, and advocates
17:22 – Rosenverse – why you need it
19:44 – Security UX vs other types of UX
22:38 – The threat actor
26:06 – Changes and threats with AI
31:59 – Heidi’s gift for listeners

Designing for Liberation, Rehearsing Freedom

Amahra Spence will speak on the themes of the conference, reflect back key insights that emerged over the course of the three days, and leave us with critical questions we can carry forward as a community, and individuals after the conference is over.

Solving Big Problems: Examining the Value of Creativity and Diversity with #EX19 Curator Dave Sifry

Dave Sifry is one of our curators for this year’s Enterprise Experience 2019 Conference – the 5th edition, which will be more focused on cross-functional collaboration. Dave brings a background in computer science, has launched and advised an impressive variety of startups, and now works in the Bay Area with a focus on organizational design.

After getting a computer at the age of 9, Dave realized he was hooked on programming, and the joy of figuring out problems to help create solutions for products and companies. After founding several companies and learning from both mistakes and failures, Dave shares the insights he gained from those experiences. From how creativity in an institution can create more innovation company-wide, to the importance of team diversity, Dave brings a wide range of perspectives to this year’s conference curation team.

Beyond Usability Testing: a Chat with Leah Buley

Usability testing helps you find bugs in your product. But it can’t tell you if customers love your product. In this episode, UX Team Of One author Leah Buley talks about the insights under your nose that you probably aren’t using. And offers a realistic approach to rapid research and product development.

Advocating for UX in the Enterprise: How GM’s User Experience Team Builds Buy-In Across Business Units for User-First Design

Most UX designers have experienced that finding strong insights to take to product teams is just the start of their job. From there, they must advocate for their research and build a business case for integrating their findings into products. Unfortunately, in some businesses, it’s difficult to be heard. 

At GM’s First Mile incubator, UX designer Jerra Murphy uses visual storytelling to help data scientists and business leaders synthesize her findings and understand the opportunities she’s uncovered for additional revenue through improved experience. By doing so, she helps align teams on the value of user experience, and ensure that her research is put into action in products. 

In this talk, Jerra will share her approach to advocating for UX research in the enterprise, and attendees will leave with new strategies for putting user experience in the front of mind for leaders.

Watch the session recording

Promise Theory with Jeff Sussna

Lou and Jeff Sussna, author of Designing Delivery: Rethinking IT in the Digital Service Economy, examine the relationships between Design and Operations, DevOps and DesignOps, and DevOps and Agile before wending their way to promise theory, which looks at the “promise” made between a product and its user. Color Lou convinced on the promise of product promises!

Designing for Diverse Users: Bria Alexander, DesignOps Summit Emcee

Lou and Bria Alexander, Brand Experience Program Manager at Adobe, range widely in a conversation on diversity, equity, and inclusion—and how they pertain to how a conference program might challenge your beliefs, the ways in which capitalism influences design, co-creation, and more.

Bria will be the emcee at our upcoming conference, the DesignOps Summit, October 21-23.