With all those methods and measurements like A/B testing, eye tracking and so on you would believe you can engineer your way to a perfect UX but that isn’t what matters. The user and his experience matters in the end and this is delivered by the product which in turn reflects your mindset. Just like the Conway’s law which states that the architecture of your software reflects your architecture of your organization, the product’s design and user interface reflects your mindset.
But what mindset is this? Let’s take a look at my UX posts of the past.
For your last project ask yourself what did the stakeholders learn
There two lessons for UX in here: UX design is a collaborative effort and learning is really important.
How do I start a project
and
How I start a project – the next steps
UX is an iterative way to explore a problem space. It has a goal: meeting the users’ needs. And again: a collaborative one: we need a shared understanding between all the project’s participants.
Evaluating is key in UX, and for not overwhelming the effort to do so, we need to find quick and sometimes dirty solutions to test our hypotheses.
Meeting the spec isn’t a goal of UX, meeting the user’s needs and goals is.
Personas – the great misunderstanding
Tool is just a tool is just a tool. It can help to frame your thinking but it cannot replace your thinking.
Another tool which can help to connect the disconnected parts, the user stories or issues, to a whole. IN this way you see your software from the user’s perspective from his way through your interface.
What UX and sales have in common
The user is central and context is key.
Again: UX does not need fancy tools, the mindset is really important and you should use the tools you have: pen, paper and your brain.
From agile to UX – a change in perspective
Focus on the user and his tasks, try to formulate the requirements from the user’s perspective.
Requirements should not drive development
Jobs should. Jobs are tasks the users wants to do in a specific context. These define what the software should do when it is ready.
You start with a beginner’s mind, try not to assume anything.
Start with listening with an open mind and think.
Assumptions how to find, track and eliminate them
Beware of your bias.
Transparent software: making complexity understandable
Complexity isn’t your enemy. Find the essential complexity that you need to reach your user’s goals.
What developers can learn from designers
Slow down, do not rush towards your goal. Software is intent. Build to learn. Focus on the whole more than the parts. Have and provide alternatives.
Schneide Blog 
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