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How do one propose to have UX practice at the workplace?
UX is not recognised as an essential in the development process of web and mobile in most companies in my country.
How do you approach your employer on the importance of having sketch, prototypes, an ? put aside my confidence issue, what can be done to convince your employer on its importance?
I think that depends on what current process you are following.But for starters you can do the following things
1.You can conduct survey with the end users of your web/mobile app list down all the problems. that they face while using your product.
2.Then separate the issues which you fill that are because of non-presence of UX.
3.Write how UX can solve those problems and enhance user's experience and will eventually lead to profitability to your business.
4.Make a solid presentation and documentation on with all this and other research
5.Give examples from around the world of the firms which are in similar business like you even better if your competitors , Show how they are using UX as there strength.
6.Make them understand that UX in todays world is a necessity and not a luxury.
I'm having a similar problem when working with traditional companies where they don't understand what UX is, and design to them is just about making things look good.
For them I'd start with a top down approach convincing the higher levels of the organisation 1st. Taking general examples things they use everyday and their ease of use because of good product design (using an i-phone vs a cheaper phone with bad usability, or driving x car vs driving a cheaper car of inferior quality) showing them how the little things make a big difference and vastly improve the quality of their product.
I would start by reading this book by Jessie James Garrett: http://www.jjg.net/elements/
It is regarded as the source of user experience practices based on when websites were booming and the updated version attempts to show you that the higher level abstract ideas still carry through to today. There are two starting points you can use to show the value of UX practices:
Starting point A
Business needs, user wants; Developers create value in a product, DevOps allow you to deliver that value to your users and customers and UX enables us to guide the development so that users can access that value. This is more of an abstract starting point but you need to take into account your business's view and essentially the bottom line. Does it make us more money? Does it help us make decisions faster? Being able to answer these questions with examples will help you on your quest.
Starting point B
Look at your organisation's current practices (for example I work using Agile) and see how you can fit it in to augment and provide value to the process. I won't lie and say it will be easy, but you will most likely have to present a use case and do some work in your personal time. Take an existing project in your organisation, preferably one you're currently working on, and use these techniques to sketch, prototype, research and back up the claim that "UX will help us" with hard facts and data.
As much as we can see and feel that it will bring value, you will need to convince your colleagues, senior team and director team if you truly believe that you can improve the current workflow.
Bottom line
These will help if your organisation is open to changes and suggestions. When push comes to shove though you may need to think about switching organisation if you want to use it a lot more in your day-to-day work. If the entire organisation doesn't envisage embracing UX principles, then what's the point?
Best of luck!
Sources: DevOps Engineer and MSc in HCI
