Business: Culture Change

My mum decided that we had to fill out our family’s income-tax returns online, on the Tax Agency’s Web site, and from that moment on, my dad had to confront the daunting practicalities of obtaining his own digital identity. This entailed his making a Web call to a service provider to get his identity verified by a human agent. Seeing my dad struggling with this unknown medium, engaging in a type of interaction that felt completely cringey to him, was touching and somehow a bit funny, too. It struck me that he just couldn’t make himself look at the person on the screen. Instead, he invariably turned around to look at me, where I was standing silent and out of view—given the legal requirements of the online verification—but ready to provide assistance during the procedure.

To be fair, my eighty-year-old dad is quite comfortable tinkering with his smartphone and proficient in carrying out the tasks that matter to him—for example, texting his loved ones, looking up information online, or perusing a Web shop. However, other tasks that are novel for him often come with unexpected hurdles and the risk of failure. A case in point: his identity verification failed. Read More

We just presented at CanUX 2017, in Ottawa, Canada. Like all good conferences, Can UX created a place for community, conversations, learning, and connecting with local and global practitioners. The conference provided reminders of why we do what we do and opportunities to look at practice patterns that may connect to the practices we use in our own project work. This experience definitely prompted some reflections on our intention to make meaningful work. When asking how we can make meaningful work, we should consider the following core elements:

• character—We must be aware of the dimensions of individuals and teams that contribute to identity, values, beliefs, intention, and impact.
• perspectives—Our character forms our essential perspectives.
• barriers—It is important to recognize the barriers that get in the way of our seeing all the dots we must connect.
• intersections—These are the connections between the dots—whether those dots are people, disciplines, roles, or the conditions that are necessary to promote and harness meaningful conversations.
• impacts—The impacts of our work include those on ourselves, our teams, our communities, and the entire planet. Read More

In Part 1 of this two-part series, I shared my own experiences with managing remote UX professionals and teams, covering the following approaches to fostering positive environments for remote work:

• offering flexibility in camera readiness
• creating safe spaces for employees to vent and connect
• demonstrating trust

Now, in Part 2, I’ll share some additional approaches, as follows:

• implementing the right tools and processes
• prioritizing the digital space
• modeling the work environment you want to create
• providing mental and emotional support  Read More