#Button2020 takeaways: Part 2

Nuggets of wisdom I took away from the talks — not comprehensive summaries

4 min readOct 25, 2020

When seeking feedback, don’t ask stakeholders, “What do you think?” Ask yes/no questions to protect against stakeholders’ bias and get the most productive, focused, useful feedback.
When writing for a multilingual interface, Google translate your copy into another language to check length, and then translate it BACK to the original language for insight into alternatives that may work better, even in the original language. In other words, take an English string, translate to German, then take the German and translate it BACK into English, and that final output may include material improvements over what you had written originally.
Apply your UI style guide to internal communications.
Everyone writes but not everyone is a writer, which can lead to a lack of respect for our expertise. Empathy is key. Understand where feedback is coming from, look for the value it offers, even when it’s not coming from writers or if you don’t agree with all of it.
Survey results: Average ratio of UX writer to designer 1:25. Insane!

Conventions are contextual. It’s important for smooth UX to lean into conventions, but I never thought much about how there is no single set of conventions. Depends on the digital (and non digital) world your users live in. What are THEY used to?
“Context” is the elephant in the room — so obvious, it’s overlooked. Don’t overlook context because it can be the difference between what you mean to say and what your readers hear.
Good design serves a purpose. Simple. But “what purpose?” is more complex. Is the purpose to communicate an affordance or a message? Or something else? There’s no right answer as to what the purpose should be, the question is whether that purpose is achieved. As users, we know whether the purpose has been achieved without articulating the purpose in the first place — when it’s been achieved, we consider it “good design” and when it hasn’t, “bad design”. We, users, reach that conclusion without needing to articulate the purpose, but as a designer, you do have to articulate it if you want to be able to achieve it.

When you need to give uncomfortable pushback, to a superior for example, try posing it as a question. Not, “I don’t think we should do that because it will decrease our ability to hit our goal,” but rather, “Will doing that decrease our ability to hit our goal?” (Be genuinely interested in the collaboration and you won’t come off as passive-aggressive.)
Trust is core to successful collaboration and trust is built through vulnerability. Don’t let ego get in the way of sharing a part of yourself that can get you there. The thing you’re hiding that ends up getting awkward, may be the very thing to share because it’s what makes you unique and uniquely good at your job and will win you the trust of your collaborators.
When you catch yourself overthinking, stop and think about others. Get out of your head and get perspective, especially in times of stress.
Focus on what you CAN control.

When you feel you belong, you bring your whole self to work.
Diversity is not a problem, it’s an opportunity. Heterogeneous groups fill knowledge gaps and bring perspectives that allow them to build products that are attractive to wider audience. Diversity is a competitive advantage.
1% increase in diversity = 3% increase in revenue. WHAT?? (Perfect for my ROI talks :)
Define talent according to skills — going to an Ivy League school is an achievement, not a skill, and by including factors like that when defining who your company is looking to hire, you narrow your net and miss a ton of potential hires who are enormously talented.)
“Diversity” just means having the people there; “inclusion” is giving them a voice. “Diversity” is being at the table; “inclusion” is being in the conversation. “Balance” is when those voices count.

Reframe your giant tangly problem as a question. Not, “Systems aren’t talking to each other and the should”, rather, “How can we get systems to talk to each other?” Questions are less overwhelming to answer than problems.
Get collaborators together as people first. Use introvert- and extrovert-friendly ways to get to know each other and build trust, for more productive, efficient work solving the actual problem you’ve come together to address.

“Digital divide” is about access; “digital literacy” is about ability.
Because of their limitations, users with low digital literacy are particularly vulnerable to scams and misinformation.
The disparity between the people making the product and the people using the product makes me think back to John Paz’s talk and how diversity hires fill important knowledge gaps.
The more things are moving online, the more low digital literacy people are falling behind.
One of the concrete things we can do as designers is make sure not to hide important actions behind hidden gestures. Affordance should be clear to everyone, at least for essential functions.