You’re asking valuable questions, @gultekin_irengun!
I believe the behaviour and attitudes around project work have a deep link with the resulting products.
And I don’t think we can get over a lack of value or support of human-centred methods on our own. We need to include our teams and stakeholders in discussions about establishing a more appropriate vision. Sometimes it’s unrealistic to expect sufficient change (and the organisation may ultimately fail as a result). But dictating a new process, or even assuming process is the magic bullet to start with, is highly problematic. Discussing and agreeing on principles is more likely to be helpful for the design work we’re doing in the short and medium term, and also helps grow longer term thinking.
A healthy, mature UX practice will extend and reveal the relevant values of the organisation it works within by bringing together the stories of stakeholders, customers, users. I wonder how it could possibly do this if those values don’t include the customers and users? And perhaps the project team too, for that matter. The infamous ‘sweet spot’ between business needs and user needs is impossible to grab hold of if either or both sets are missing.
If we’re to design something meaningful, purposeful and enabling for humans, we need space to fully practice the soft skills and human qualities that make these things possible; listening, probing, facilitating, connecting, critiquing, playing, etc.
There are many various and exciting ways of executing projects with these values, and (as with many such matters) the conversations are developing. Three good places to start are:
- Dan & Josephine’s Designing Projects for Success: A More Humane UX Practice.
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The transcript for our Ask The UXperts session last week with Dan includes a tonne more links and helpful discussion.
- The Make Meaningful Work web site itself.