萬字長文解析 | UX設計師要擁有的重要技能

在這篇文章中，我希望更全面地討論UX設計師需要擁有的重要技能，一起來看看~

Vital UX skills that few designers have, and how to develop them

只有少數UX設計師擁有的重要技能，我們應該如何學習它們

Recently, I have been asked over and over again by budding young designers which skills I look for in UX candidates but that I have a hard time finding when interviewing. This is an important topic. Our industry is living far below its potential in preparing young designers to become future leaders, and our educational system is doing an even poorer job preparing students to land their first job in an ever more competitive industry.

最近，我經常被年輕的設計師問到類似的問題：我在招募用戶體驗設計師時，看中哪些技能，并且這些技能是很多設計師都沒有的。這是一個重要的話題，設計行業在培養年輕設計師成為未來領袖方面做的還遠遠不夠，我們的教育系統在培養學生在競爭日益激烈的商業環境中找到第一份工作方面做得更差。

I have tried to answer the questions I receive on this topic in forums such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Slack in an actionable way. Yet, the way those platforms are structured have made it difficult to do this topic justice. It is my goal in this article, therefore, to address this vital topic more completely and provide actionable insights on the surprisingly-rare skills I have found to be vital over my 20 year career as both a hands-on designer and design leader.

我嘗試用一種可行的方式來回答我在諸如 LinkedIn、Facebook、和Slack 這些論壇上收到的關于這個話題的疑問。然而，這些平臺本身的情況使得很難公正地討論這個話題。

因此，在這篇文章中，我希望更全面地討論這個至關重要的話題，并提供一些可行的見解，這些見解是我在20年的設計師工作和設計領導生涯中發現的至關重要，并且很多人都欠缺的技能。

1. Creative Maturity

成熟的看待創造力

It always amazes me how many designers fall in love with their first idea. When I interview potential candidates for UX positions I run through a series of creative exercises & tests to evaluate the candidate’s ability to think outside the box. The vast majority of them either clam up and can’t complete the exercises or stop with their first (and usually most obvious) idea. I have found that this correlates to day to day design work as well. Many designers get so excited with their first idea that they fail to explore others. This causes a few problems:

我對有那么多設計師會愛上自己的第一個想法感到很驚訝。 當我面試用戶體驗設計師的時候，我會通過一系列創造性的問題和測試來評估候選人跳出思考局限性的能力。他們中絕大多數人要么沉默不語，沒能完成練習，要么停止在他們的第一個(通常是最明顯的)想法上。

我發現這也與日常的設計工作有關， 許多設計師對他們的第一個想法非常興奮，以至于他們沒有去探索其他方向。這導致了一些問題:

• Design critiques and feedback sessions with stakeholders turn into “yes or no” conversations instead of taking bits and pieces of various different ideas.
• 利益相關者的設計評論和反饋會議變成了“是或否”的交流，而不是各種各樣不同想法的匯聚。

• Products often fail to achieve their potential to improve customers’ lives.
• 產品往往沒能實現其改善客戶的生活的目的。

• Executive interference increases. Executives feel the need to step in and deliver solutions to be implemented when they are concerned about the quality of the product. This is their way of trying to ensure success (which of course usually has the opposite effect).
• 行政干預增加。 高管們認為，當他們關注產品質量時，有必要介入并實行解決方案。，這是他們試圖確保成功的方式（當然通常會產生相反的效果）。

• When executive interference increases, the creativity of the team actually decreases along with morale and pretty soon the entire design team is looking to jump ship.
• 當管理層的干預增加時，團隊的創造力實際上會隨著士氣一起下降，很快整個設計團隊就會跳槽。

THE SOLUTION

解決方法

There are two things designers and leaders can do to increase creativity and solve the problems listed above.

設計師和領導者可以做兩件事來增加創造力和解決上面列出的問題。

（1）Explore at least3 solutions to any problem.Creating a flow chart? Create 3 variations. WireFraming? 3 ideas. Context scenarios? 3 ideas. You get the point. What this does is forces you to open your mind and explore various possibilities. Early in my career I had a boss who would force me to create multiple variations and then completely delete those files and create 3 more. While this may be a bit excessive as an ongoing policy, he made his point. What I ended up with at the end was far better than the previous attempts.

針對任何問題的探索至少輸出3種解決方案；對流程圖和線框圖嘗試3種方案；對情境場景嘗試3個創新解決方式。

當你明白了這點時，它會迫使你敞開心扉，探索各種可能性。 在我職業生涯的早期，我的一個老板會強迫我嘗試多個變化，然后進行刪減，并留下最好的3個。雖然作為一個正在進行的項目，這可能有點過分，但他作出了他的指導。而我最終得到的結果比之前的嘗試要好得多。

（2）Fall in love with the problem, NOT any particular solution.Many designers get very attached to a particular design because they spend so much time with it. Involving everyone you can find in your process will help this (especially if you show everyone you get feedback from at least 3 ideas).

愛上問題，而不是任何固有的解決方案。許多設計師非常喜歡某個特定的設計，因為他們花了很多時間在上面。讓每個人都參與進來提供建議會有更多的幫助（特別是如果你向每個人都展示你從至少3個想法中得到的那些反饋后）。

（3）Present in-progress work.There is nothing that can stifle a designer’s effectiveness and creativity as quickly as working in isolation. Showing in-progress work helps you to think outside the box and constantly see things with different perspectives. Showing in-progress work also allows you to get feedback when it’s early enough to actually iterate and make changes. If the first time a product manager or developer sees your work is during sprint kickoff, you have failed — and likely so will your product. This is also absolutely true with customers.

目前正在進行的工作，沒有什么能像獨立工作那樣迅速扼殺設計師的效率和創造力。 展示正在進行的工作可以幫助你跳出固有的思維框架，不斷地從不同的角度看待事物。 展示正在進行的工作還可以讓您在足夠早的時間實際迭代和進行更改時獲得反饋。 如果產品經理或開發人員第一次看到你的作品是在 sprint 開始的時候，那么你已經失敗了，你的產品很可能也是如此。 對于顧客來說，這也是絕對正確的。

（4）Practice creativity in a context outside your day-to-day work.Creativity is like any other skill — it must be practiced and trained if it is to be developed to its potential. Some examples of creative exercises you can do to practice:

在日常工作之外的環境中練習創造力。創造力就像其他技能一樣，如果要發揮它的潛力，就必須進行實踐和訓練。

以下是一些你可以用來練習的創造性練習:

a.  Creative Pitch Exercise — create a deck of cards with 2 categories of pictures. One half should have famous brands everyone would know (Google, Apple, Uber, Facebook, etc) and the other half should have products that have nothing to do with the brands. Draw 1 card from each pile. Give yourself 1 minute to come up with a pitch and then 2 minutes to pitch to a teammate/manager why Google would make a hammer for example. This is best done as a team activity, but can also be practiced by yourself. (Credit goes to Stephen Gates for this fantastic idea).

a. 創造性的提案練習——制作一副有兩類圖片的卡片。一半應該擁有眾所周知的知名品牌（谷歌、蘋果、優步、 Facebook 等） ，另一半應該擁有與品牌無關的產品。 從每一堆抽一張牌。 比如：給自己1分鐘時間想出一個提案，然后2分鐘時間向隊友 / 經理思考提案；例如：谷歌制作一個錘子會是什么樣。這是最好的團隊活動，但也可以自己練習。 (這個奇妙的想法要歸功于斯蒂芬 · 蓋茨)。

b. Whiteboard Design Exercise — give the team a problem to solve together that has nothing to do with your business (you will need 30-60 minutes). Choose someone to facilitate the discussion. It’s also important to frame the goal as a problem to solve not a solution to be implemented. For example, do NOT assign the problem “redesign the toothbrush”, but instead: “improve the teeth cleaning experience”. It’s good to be vague so that the team together can set the parameters and specific Jobs To Be Done they want to tackle. As you do this more often and rotate facilitators you will get to know and learn from each other’s approaches to solving problems and develop facilitation skills among young designers. This can also be achieved with a wide variety of brainstorming exercises.

b.白板設計練習——給團隊一個需要共同解決的問題，這個問題與你的業務無關（你需要30-60分鐘）。 選擇一個人來促進討論。 同樣重要的是，將目標定義為一個問題，而不是一個要實現的解決方案。

例如：不要指定問題為“重新設計牙刷”，而是“提高牙齒清潔的體驗”。問題有些模糊是沒有問題的，這樣團隊可以一起設定參數和他們想要具體完成的工作。隨著你經常這樣做，并且輪換主持，你將了解和學習到彼此解決問題的方法，并在年輕設計師中培養主持技能，這也可以通過各種各樣的頭腦風暴練習來實現。

c. Experience great design together.I have also found it beneficial to take the time to seek & experience great design together. Whether this is searching the app store for an app and then evaluating it together, or going on field trips to experience creativity in industries completely different from your own (i.e. offset printing, tatooing, culinary arts, screen printing, interior design, etc). Then afterward have a quick discussion of what you learned and how those principles could apply to your work. If you don’t have a team of designers, this can also be done perfectly well with a cross-functional team or by yourself.

c.一起體驗偉大的設計。我也發現花時間一起尋找和體驗偉大的設計是有益的， 無論是在應用程序商店里搜索一個應用程序然后一起評估，還是在與你完全不同的行業（如：膠印、紋身、烹飪藝術、絲網印刷、室內設計等）進行實地考察，體驗創造力。

然后快速討論一下你學到了什么，以及這些原則如何應用到你的工作中。如果你沒有一個設計團隊，你也可以通過一個跨職能團隊或者自己來完成這個任務。

2. Knowledge of Business

商業知識

it never ceases to amaze me how many designers I interview who don’t understand business. It is ESSENTIAL for UXers to understand business to get their ideas out the door and evangelize UX best practices. If you don’t understand and speak business, your career will be hard.

我所采訪的許多設計師對商業一竅不通，他們總是讓我感到驚奇。對于UXers來說，理解商業是至關重要的，這樣才能把自己的想法傳播出去，也才能將用戶體驗的進行最好的落地。如果你不懂商業知識，你的職業生涯會走的比較艱難。

There are a couple aspects of this that are important. First off, you need to understand what the business is trying to accomplish so you can help.Understand what strategic initiatives the business is trying to accomplish, then show what user Jobs To Be Done or pain points can be solved to help those strategic initiatives.

這其中有幾個方面很重要。首先，你要了解企業想要達到的目標，這樣你才能提供幫助。理解企業想要完成的戰略計劃，然后向用戶展示需要完成的工作或者需要解決的問題，以幫助實現這些戰略計劃。

For example, if your company is looking to become more sticky in client organizations as a way to increase sales and improve retention, find and propose Jobs To Be Done that Marketing, Sales, or Operations employees at your clients have that currently aren’t being solved well. Use videos or audio clips from your research. Use quantitative data to reinforce the qualitative findings. If you have that understanding you are able to push back when someone assigns you a solution to implement and show them 4 other solutions that would solve the problem better.

例如：如果你的公司希望在客戶群體中變得更具粘性，以此來增加銷售額和提高客戶留存率，那么找出你客戶的營銷、銷售或運營人員們目前沒有解決好的工作。使用視頻或音頻輸出你研究的內容，用定量數據來鞏固定性研究的結果。

如果你理解了這些內容，那么當別人給你規定一個解決方案來實現的時候，你就有能力向他們展示其他4個可以更好地解決問題方案，你也就能做的更好了。

Stephen Gates uses the example all the time of a T-shirt. If an executive asks you to design a t-shirt, find out why. Is it for a conference? Is it for employees? Why did that solution come to their mind? Is there a better way to accomplish that same goal? If you understand the problem, you can become a partner with them to solve their problem.This only happens if you understand and can communicate in the language of business.

斯蒂芬 · 蓋茨一直用這個例子來說明 t 恤衫。如果一位高管讓你設計一件 t 恤，找出原因。是為了開會嗎？是給員工的嗎？為什么他們會想到這個解決方案？有沒有更好的方法來實現同樣的目標？

如果你理解了問題，你就可以用他們的合作伙伴的角度來解決問題。只有當你理解并能用商業語言交流時，才能獲得這種主導權。

If you understand business, and particularly your company’s business, your ability to get your innovative ideas out the door will be dramatically increased. Which means you will be able to better improve users’ lives. Sounds good, right?

如果你了解商業，特別是你公司的商業，你的創新能力將大大提高。這意味著你將能夠更好地改善用戶的生活，聽起來不錯吧。

Case in point：there was recently a shift in the organizational structure at my current company. That meant that the main Product leader who I had been working with and who understood UX very well had moved on and the new leader was less familiar with UX best practices. Because I had already taken the time to understand the strategic initiatives of the company, I was able to explain how delivering problems to solve instead of solutions to implement was so vital and ended up resulting in higher morale and a better product. I also was able to show how an Outcome-focused mentality actually helps us get to the desired results quicker than the output-driven mentality most companies have. As a result, the entire company is seriously considering moving to OKRs. Something that will help us deliver even better products for our customers in the future and will for sure result in a more fun, innovative culture.

一個恰當的例子是：最近我所在公司的組織結構管理部門發生了變化，這意味著與我一起工作并且非常了解用戶體驗的主要產品領導者要離開了，而新領導者對用戶體驗最佳實踐不太熟悉。

因為在之前我花了很多時間去了解公司的戰略計劃，這讓我能夠解釋為什么交付需要解決的問題而不是需要只考慮實施的解決方案是如此重要，這最終提高了士氣，也打造了更好的產品。

我還展示了為什么我們以結果為中心，會比大多數其他以產出為中心的公司更快地達到預期結果的原因。因此，整個公司都在認真考慮搬到 OKRs。有些東西將幫助我們在未來給客戶提供更好的產品，并肯定會孕育出一個更有趣的、創新的文化。

THE SOLUTION解決方案

Some advice to get started

對于開始的一些建議

Interview the CEO and other key leaders at your company. Ask them what the strategic initiatives of the company are. As them why they love their job. Ask them what keeps them up at night. Ask them what the greatest threat to the company’s success is.

采訪你公司的首席執行官和其他主要領導人，問問他們公司的戰略計劃是什么。比如：他們為什么熱愛自己的工作，問問他們是什么讓他們夜不能寐，了解阻礙公司成功的最大威脅是什么。

• Read business books
• 閱讀商業書籍

• Take a business class.
• 去學習一些商務課程。

• Ask to be involved in vision or strategy meetings as a fly on the wall.
• 要求作為旁聽者參與愿景或戰略討論會議。

• Prepare a presentation on a UX topic to an audience of business leaders. See how well it is received. Rinse, repeat.
• 為商業領袖的聽眾準備一個關于用戶體驗主題的演講。 看看它的接受程度如何。然后優化，再來一次。

• Start trying to “talk” like a business leader.
• 開始試著像一個商業領袖那樣”說話”。

• Try to quantify the user experience your users are having.
• 嘗試量化用戶的體驗。

The more you do it, the easier it will get. If this topic resonates with you and you want more details on how to get started, check out my article:Business for Designers: how to eliminate executive interference & get your innovative ideas out the door where I go over a couple case studies and dive into this topic in more detail.

你做的越多，事情就越容易。如果這個話題與你產生共鳴，你想知道更多關于如何開始的細節，請查看我的文章：設計師的商業: 《如何消除管理層的干擾，讓你的創新想法走出門外》，在那篇文章里面，我回顧了幾個案例研究，并深入探討這個話題的更多細節。

3. Facilitation Skills

促成技巧

Good designers can do stellar design work themselves. Excellent designers bring other people with them and facilitate great design among a group. Yet far too few designers (even a senior level) are skilled facilitators.

優秀的設計師可以自己完成一流的設計工作，非常棒的設計師帶著其他人一起成長，并促進一個群體做出偉大的設計。然而，很少有設計師(甚至是高級設計師)是熟練的促成者。

Facilitation is the art of helping to guide stakeholders and cross-functional team members through the design process. It is vital to be able to move fast and be most effective in your design work for everyone to have a shared-understanding of what it is that you’re building and why. You also will arrive at the “multiple idea exploration” requirement above much quicker. Diversity of not only culture but also functional background adds so much to the completeness and innovation of any design.

促成是一門藝術，它幫助你促成利益相關者和跨職能團隊成員更好的完成設計過程。在你的設計工作中，對于每個人來說，對于你正在構建的是什么，以及為什么要這樣做能保持一個共同的理解，這在設計過程中是非常重要的，你也會更快地達到“尋求更多想法探索”的要求。文化和職位背景的多樣性不僅增加了設計考慮維度的完整性，還能提供更多額創新性。

Facilitation doesn’t require a higher position or a condescending tone to be effective. Quite the opposite. The main key to being an effective facilitator is an overriding passion for bringing people with you in your design process. It’s basically user research for coworkers. In the same way you don’t want to “lead the witness” in a usability test or interview and want to explore ideas fully, when facilitating you want to set the stage and help guide the team through solving problems you have been assigned.

促成并不需要一個更高的頭銜或居高臨下的語調才能有效。恰恰相反，成為一個有效的促成者的關鍵是在你的設計過程中帶領人們的保持著超過一切的激情，這可以說是對同事做的用戶研究。同樣，在可用性測試或訪談中，你也不希望“引導被研究者”，也希望更充分的探索各種想法。同樣，在對項目進行排期時，你也希望通過解決了解到的核心問題來促進團隊走向正確的方向。

THE SOLUTION

解決方法

If you find yourself lacking in this area, just start by changing your mentality from doer to facilitator. Recognize that you aren’t responsible for every great idea. You are just responsible for the environment where great ideas can flourish. There is nothing that can prepare you for leadership opportunities in the future like facilitating.

如果你發現自己在這方面有所欠缺，那就從把你的心態從實操者轉變為服務者開始。認識到你不是每一個好想法的負責人， 你只是負責營造一個可以產生好想法的環境。如果你想為未來的領導機會做好準備，那沒有什么比促成好想法更合適的了。

Start small. Facilitate a brainstorming session with cross-functional participants. Use non-verbal decision making exercises like Affinity Mapping to normalize the loud and silent personality types. There are many ways to do it, just start. If you can get good at facilitation, though, you will be viewed as a strategic partner and influencer in your company and finding that dream UX job will get much easier.

從小事做起，促進與跨職能部門同事的頭腦風暴會議。使用像親和力地圖這樣的非口頭決策練習，來使愛發言和內向的人格類型都參與進來。有很多方法可以做到這一點，但一定要堅持落地。如果你擅長于推動，你將被視為公司的戰略合作伙伴和影響者，并且找到理想的用戶體驗工作會變得容易得多。

4. Ability to Balance Innovation with Practicality

平衡創新與實踐的能力

If there is any 1 thing that you can do today to start having better success in job searching, it is to realize — genuinely internalize — that UX in the real world is not the utopian dreamworld many designers live in where they have infinite time and resources to do research and build the ideal product that they reveal in some glorious marketing campaign that causes users to jump up and down with excitement because of how AMAZING you made their lives.

如果有任何一件事讓你在找工作方面取得更多成功的機會，那就是認識到真正的現實——現實世界中的用戶體驗并不是許多設計師所夢想的烏托邦式世界，在烏托邦世界中大家有無限的時間和資源來做研究和創造理想的產品，可以在一些輝煌的營銷活動中展示這些產品，并且這些活動會讓用戶興奮地跳上跳下，因為你讓他們的生活變得更加美好。

No company is perfect. No project has enough time. No user research initiative is going to feel like enough. No product you work on will ever have the ideal user experience. No product manager or developer will ever understand user experience fully…and that’s ok!

沒有一個公司是完美的，沒有一個項目有足夠的時間，沒有一個用戶研究計劃會讓你感覺足夠了。你從事的任何產品都不會有理想的用戶體驗。 沒有一個產品經理或者開發人員能夠完全理解用戶體驗的本質.. …但是這沒關系。

There is a healthy tension that exists between UX, PM, and Dev that helps us all get better products out the door. I can’t tell you how often when I was a young designer that I usability tested a design that I thought needed TONS more improvement, and every single user easily completed all the tasks we gave them. Even more, they had a great time doing it. At those times, I was forced to swallow my pride and realize the product was good enough. We had accomplished our goal. The sooner you realize that “sometimes the most perfect anything needs to be is…done” (Joe Natoli) the easier your life as a designer will be.

在用戶體驗、產品經理和開發人員之間存在著一種健康的緊張關系，這種緊張關系可以幫助我們獲得更好的產品。 我無法告訴你當我還是一個年輕的設計師的時候，有多少次我測試了一個我認為需要更多改進的設計，每個用戶都很容易地完成了我們交給他們的所有任務。

更重要的是，他們玩得很開心。在那些時候，我被迫放下自尊，意識到這個產品已經足夠好了，我們已經完成了我們的目標。你越早意識到”有時候最完美的事情需要被… 完成（喬 · 納托利） ，你作為一個設計師的生活就會越輕松。

Not every project is trying to win a spot on the Apple Keynote stage. Sometimes we do things because it’s a checkbox the business needs us to check before we can move on to something more innovative. That too is ok. Where I’ve found the problem to be is when everyone on the team/company is not on the same page when those situations arise.

并不是每個項目都在戰略地位上占有一席之地。有時我們做一些事情是因為商業上需要我們進行重復的功能組，然后我們才能轉向更具創新性的東西。這也是沒關系的， 我發現問題在于當這些情況出現時，團隊 / 公司中的每個人都是從獨立的角度來看問題的。

THE SOLUTION

解決方案

Something that has helped me is to clearly identify certain key characteristics of a project at the beginning and get everyone to sign off on them. (There’s that term “shared understanding” again). Some of those characteristics are:

幫助我在一開始就明晰項目的某些關鍵特征，并讓每個人都簽字同意這些特征是非常有用的。 (又是”共同的理解”這個詞)。

其中一些特點是：

• Vision statement.共同的愿景
• Priorities (where are we on the “check the checkbox” vs “pure innovation” continuum.優先級（我們在“復制”和“創新”上的偏向）
• Business objectives.業務目標
• User needs (Jobs To Be Done).用戶需求（待完成的工作）
• Constraints.約束條件
• Target users.目標用戶
• Success criteria.成功標準

If you get clear on all of those with the entire team, projects tend to go far smoother. Yet I seem to constantly meet designers who can’t seem to balance priorities on projects. Who can’t accept the fact that we can’t do onsite user research visits or usability testing on this project when there is a perfectly viable business reason. In their mind, the full X step process has to ALWAYS be followed.

如果你清楚整個團隊的這些內容，項目就會進行得更順利。 然而，我似乎經常遇到一些似乎無法平衡項目優先級的設計師。當有一個完全可行的商業理由時，誰都能接受這樣的事實：我們暫時沒有條件對用戶進行現場研究訪問，或者對這個項目進行可用性測試研究。但在一些設計的頭腦中，完整的步驟過程成了必須始終遵循原則，而不是靈活的運用。

To use a cooking metaphor, the best chefs aren’t those who can follow a recipe to a T every single time. The best practitioners are those who can cook up something amazing with the ingredients, goals, and constraints they are given time after time no matter what they are.

用一個烹飪的比喻來說，最好的廚師不是那些每次都能按照菜譜做到最標準的人。最好的實踐者是那些能夠用那些一次又一次被給予的原料、目標和約束而做出驚人的東西的人，不管他們是什么角色。

5. Empathy for Stakeholders

與利益相關者的同理心

Most UXers are passionate about developing empathy for users. Yet most complain about “politics”. Business and other stakeholders are our users too. Great designers view it as their job to understand what is important to their stakeholders and then help them achieve THEIR goals as well. At their base level, “politics” are nothing more than empathy. Yet precious few designers are good at them.

大多數Uxer都熱衷于培養對用戶的同理心，其實商業客戶和其他利益相關者也是我們的用戶，而多數設計卻抱怨對他們太“政治”。偉大的設計師認為他們的工作就是理解什么對他們的利益相關者是重要的，然后幫助他們實現他們的目標。在對他們了解的基礎上,”政治”只不過是同理心的一部分。 然而，很少有設計師擅長這些。

The first thing an excellent designer will do at a new job or on a new project is get to know the stakeholders and business leaders in the organization. Find allies. Understand constraints. Understand what each stakeholder is trying to accomplish.

一個優秀的設計師要做的第一件事就是，在一個新工作或者一個新項目中去了解利益相關者和商業領導者，尋找盟友、理解約束， 理解每個利益相關者試圖完成的目標。

Case in point. I once worked for a company where we were having major problems getting time and resources for any kind of user research. The PM wasn’t wanting to allow time in the sprint for it. Our client advisors (who controlled the relationship with customers) didn’t want to let us anywhere near their customers. It was a mess.

這里有一個很好的例子，我曾經在一家公司工作，我們為用戶研究爭取時間和資源時因為類型太多而遇到了很大的問題。產品經理不想在沖刺階段留出這些時間。我們的客戶顧問（他們控制著與客戶的關系）不想讓我們接近他們的客戶，那時真的是一團亂麻。

So I started having one on one conversations with some of them. I found out that many of them had bad experience with designers showing brand new designs and promising the new features by a specific date. This caused major problems for the Client Advisor team (understandably). Also, there were some major retention issues going on with some of the customers I wanted to speak with.

所以我開始和他們中的一些人進行一對一的交談，我發現他們中的很多人在設計師展示全新的設計，并承諾在一定時間內提供新功能的情況下都有過糟糕的經歷，這給客戶顧問團隊帶來了很大的問題（所以這是可以理解的）。此外，我想與之交談的一些客戶也存在一些重大的遺留問題。

I explained what we were trying to accomplish with the user research and how it could also help them solve some of their retention problems. I asked if they would be willing to help us plan and conduct the research so we could be sure to not say anything that would hurt the relationship.

我解釋了我們試圖通過用戶研究來完成的目標，以及它是如何幫助解決一些遺留問題的。我問他們是否愿意幫助我們計劃和進行這項研究，這樣就可以確保很多交流都不會傷害這段合作關系。

Not only did I get access to users, but I had an ally in helping to schedule more user research visits in the future and someone who knew these users well to help me plan what to learn and how to do it. As a completely unanticipated side bonus, pretty soon these same client advisors (and the sales people as well) were using the fact that we involved our customers in our design process as a mechanism/key differentiator in saving many customers and generating loyalty.

我不僅可以接觸到用戶，而且我還有一個盟友幫助我安排未來更多的用戶研究訪問，還有一個非常了解這些用戶的人幫助我計劃學習什么以及如何學習。作為一個出乎意料的獎勵，很快這些同類型的客戶顧問（以及銷售人員）就利用我們讓客戶參與到設計過程中這一方法，作為一種機制 / 關鍵的差異化因素，以挽救許多客戶并產生忠誠度。

None of that would have happened if I had not taken the time to get to know the stakeholders.如果我沒有花時間去了解利益相關者，這些都不會發生。

THE SOLUTION

解決方法

• Get to know your stakeholders. Interview them. Imagine they were target users of the next product you were designing.
• 了解你的利益相關者。去拜訪他們，假設他們是你正在設計的下一個產品的目標用戶。

• Propose an idea of how something in your background could help them in their job.
• 提出你想做任何事的原由，以及如何能夠幫助他們工作。

• The next time you’re frustrated with someone in your company, make an effort to see them as a person with needs/desires instead of an object preventing you from getting what you want.
• 下次你對公司里的某個人感到沮喪的時候，試著把他們看成是一個有需求 / 欲望的人，而不是一個阻止你得到你想要的東西的東西。

6. Curiosity and Drive to Constantly Learn

好奇心和不斷學習的動力

An insatiable curiosity and drive to always be learning and never be comfortable is the main secret of any success I might have had so far in my career. I’m mostly self taught and I’ve never worked for any world renowned companies, but I have an intense drive to learn and grow and progress. Two of the principles in my creative ethos that I emphasize constantly with my team are related: “yearn to learn” and “comfort is the enemy of greatness”.

永不滿足的好奇心和不斷學習的動力，永遠不要一直待在舒適區，這是我在職業生涯中取得成功的主要秘訣。我大部分時間是自學成才，雖然從未為任何世界知名的公司工作過，但我有強烈的學習、成長和進步的動力。在我的創造精神中，我一直強調與我的團隊的兩個原則是相關的：“向往學習”和“舒適是最大的敵人”。

I’ve discovered that having an “insatiable curiosity” is rarer than many people might think. To anyone who is struggling with Imposter Syndrome at the moment: your reading this article shows that you are already on the right track. Keep it up! Develop an “insatiable curiosity” and you will progress much faster than you thought possible.

我發現，擁有“永不滿足的好奇心”的人比想象的要少得多。對于那些正在假裝與懶惰做斗爭的人來說：你閱讀這篇文章表明你已經走上了正確的道路。 繼續努力！ 培養一種“永不滿足的好奇心”，你的進步會比你想象的要快得多。

Research how other people have handled things. Listen to podcasts on your way to work. Organize book clubs on your team or design community. Experiment with new methodologies. See what works and what doesn’t. Never be satisfied with the way you are working today.

研究其他人是如何處理事情的，在上班的路上聽聽播客，在你的團隊或設計社區組織讀書俱樂部。不斷的嘗試新的方法，看看什么是有用的、什么是沒用的。永遠不要滿足于你今天的工作方式。

I once had a boss who when I presented a design to him for feedback would always ask me: “is this the best you can do?”. At first it was off-putting, but soon I learned the wisdom in what he was teaching me. He wasn’t criticizing me, he was challenging me to reach a little deeper to see if I could do better. That boss changed my whole outlook as a designer.

我曾經有一個老板，當我向他展示一個設計方案時，他總是問我：“這是你能做到的最好的嗎？”。一開始我覺得很不舒服，但是很快我就從他教我的東西中學到了智慧。他不是在批評我，他是在挑戰我，讓我更深入一些，看看我是否能做得更好。 那個老板改變了我作為一個設計師的整個觀念。

If you ARE that passionate about learning, let it come through in your resume, portfolio, and interviews. Let it come through in hallway conversations. Let it come through on LinkedIn. If hiring managers can sense it, they often will take a chance on you if any doubts about your ability to do the job arise.

如果你對學習充滿熱情，那就讓它在你的簡歷、作品集和面試中體現出來，讓它通過剪短的交流也能傳達出來，讓它在 LinkedIn 上體現出來。 如果招聘經理能感覺到這一點，可能他們對你的工作能力會有些疑慮，但通常也會給你一個機會。

I know I would.

至少我會

THE SOLUTION解決方案

• Challenge yourself to learn a new software tool
• 挑戰自己，學習一個新的軟件工具

• Next time you need to brainstorm or conduct user research, use a method you’ve never used before.
• 下次需要進行頭腦風暴或進行用戶研究時，使用一種你從未用過的方法。

• Read UX books
• 閱讀 UX 書籍

• Listen to podcasts
• 聽播客

• Participate in meetups
• 參加聚會

7. Mature User ResearchSkills

成熟的用戶研究技巧

I am constantly amazed when interviewing Senior UX Designers at how few of them have more than elementary knowledge of and skills required in the area of User Research. They all have enough user research passion to fill every football stadium in America, but very few have experience with more than interviewing and usability testing, and even fewer can tell me what a usability test plan is or what it should contain.

在采訪高級用戶體驗設計師時，我經常驚訝于他們中很少有人在用戶研究領域擁有超過基本知識和技能的。他們對用戶研究熱情可以填滿美國的每一個足球場，但是很少有人的對可用性測試的經驗比面試更多，更少有人能告訴我什么是可用性測試計劃或者它應該包含什么。

In one sense, it is not their fault. Precious few schools actually teach user research. Even fewer teach more than a couple methods and typically it is only a single unit in an Interaction Design course.

從某種意義上說，這不是他們的錯，真正教授用戶研究的學校寥寥無幾。在交互設計課程中，教授多個方法的學生更少，而且通常只有一個單獨的章節。

There IS information out there, however, if you are willing to seek for it. How a designer can get to the 5–7 years professional experience and STILL not have more than basic experience in user research is sad to me. The good news for YOU though is that if you’re willing to seek and practice user research skills, it will DRASTICALLY set you apart from the pack.

然而，如果你愿意去尋找的話，外面還是有挺多信息可以學習的。一個5-7年的設計師能有很專業的經驗，但在用戶研究方面仍然沒有達到基本的水準，這讓我感到悲哀。不過對你來說，好消息是，如果你愿意尋求和實踐用戶研究技能，它將徹底使你脫穎而出。

There are two main types of user research: Generative and Evaluative. Generative research is all about discovery and ensuring we’re solving the right problem(both from a user and business perspective).Evaluative research is focused on validating if we’ve made progress towards the solution to the problem we agreed to solve.

用戶研究主要有兩種類型：生成型和評價型。

1. 生成型研究是關于發現和確保我們正在解決的問題是正確的問題（從用戶和商業的角度）。
2. 評價型研究的重點是驗證我們是否在解決我們都想解決的問題方面取得了進展。

Within each type of user research there are many different user research methods. If you can become familiar with and gain experience with the most used in each category, you will be in the top 5% of candidates for any UX job at virtually any company big or small. If you can get to the point where you understand when to use each one, that will put you even higher.

在每種類型的用戶研究中都有許多不同的用戶研究方法，如果你能熟悉并獲得每個類別中使用最多技巧的經驗，你將成為任何大公司或小公司中用戶體驗工作者前5% 的候選人。如果你能夠明白什么時候該使用哪個技巧，那么這會讓你的成績更高。

Here are some of the most common user research methods broken out by type.

下面是一些最常見的用戶研究方法，按類型分類。

（1）GENERATIVE

生成型調研

• Clickstream analysis
• Confidence level calculations
• Contextual inquiry
• Customer feedback
• Data mining/analysis
• Diary/camera studies
• Email surveys
• Ethnographic studies
• Focus groups
• Intercept studies
• Open card sorting
• Participatory design
• Stakeholder interviews
• True intent studies
• User interviews
• Visual analytics
• 置信度計算
• 關聯性調查
• 客戶反饋
• 數據挖掘 / 分析
• 日記 / 相機研究
• 電子郵件調查
• 人種學研究
• 焦點小組
• 截獲式研究
• 開放式卡片分類
• 參與式設計
• 利益相關者的訪談
• 真實意圖研究
• 用戶訪談
• 視覺分析

（2）EVALUATIVE

評價型調研

• 5-second tests
• A/B testing
• Closed card sorting
• Confidence level calculations
• Eye tracking studies
• Paper prototype tests
• Usability Benchmarking
• Usability testing (in lab)
• Usability testing (moderated remote)
• Usability testing (unmoderated remote)
• 5秒鐘的測試
• A / b 測試
• 封閉式卡片分類
• 置信度計算
• 眼球追蹤研究
• 紙張原型測試
• 可用性基準測試
• 可用性測試(實驗室)
• 可用性測試(主導型測試)
• 可用性測試(非主導型的遠程)

One other area within user research that I often find lacking in many interviewees is experience actually planning user research initiatives ahead of time. This has a few benefits:

我發現許多受訪者缺乏的另一個用戶研究領域是規劃用戶研究計劃的經驗，提前規劃有一些好處:

• It helps you clearly focus on the most important things you want to learn.
• 它可以幫助你專注于你想學習的最重要的事情。

• It improves the effectiveness and actionability of insights you gain
• 它提高了你獲得洞察力的有效性和可行性。

• It puts the investment required on the company’s part into clear terms a business leader can understand (which helps both get budget approval and with tracking ROI after research completion)
• 它將公司的投資轉化為商業領導人可以理解的清晰內容(這有助于獲得預算批準，并在研究完成后跟蹤 ROI)

• It allows all employees to be on the same page going in (which can drastically help with note taking and data aggregation afterwards)
• 它幫助所有員工都在同一個節奏上進行(這對隨后的筆記整理和數據聚合都有很大幫助)

THE SOLUTION

解決方案

If you’ve never set out to write a formal usability test plan before, it can seem daunting. It really is quite easy, though. You just have to think through what you want to accomplish, how you plan to accomplish it, and who will be a part of the research (pro tip: it is much easier and much more effective to take a cross-functional group). My process (D.E.C.I.S.I.O.N.) is outlined below。

如果你以前從未著手編寫過一份正式的可用性測試計劃，那么它可能會讓你望而卻步。不過，這真的很簡單。你只需要想清楚你想要完成什么，你計劃如何完成它，以及誰將成為這項研究的一部分（支持建議：組建一個跨職能團隊要容易得多，也會更有效一些。）

我的過程（D.E.C.I.S.I.O.N.）概述如下：

1. Decide on the main goal or objective of the research確定研究的主要目標或目的
2. Explore questions & assumptions (what is it you want to find out)探索問題和進行假設(你想找出什么)
3. Choose a method (see above)選擇一個方法(見上文)
4. Identify participants (employees and clients)確定參與者(員工和客戶)
5. Script or tasks設定腳本或任務
6. Identify schedule & budget (time, recruiting, & equipment)確定進度和預算(時間、招聘哪些人員和需要的設備)
7. Outline responsibilities概述責任
8. Nail the schedule down把時間表定下來

If you would like a little help, you can download this editable pdf of my research plan template. It is meant to be a 1-page overview of a research plan that can then be sent to internal stakeholders, finance (for budget approval), and anyone else who needs to get an idea what you’re doing and why.

如果你想要一些幫助，你可以下載我的研究計劃模板，這是個可直接填寫的 圖片。這將幫你做一個1頁的研究計劃概述，然后可以發送給內部利益相關者，財務（為了預算批準） ，以及任何其他人誰需要知道你在做什么和為什么這么做的原因。

Conclusion

總結

The UX industry is becoming ever more competitive, yet there are still far too few designers that have creative maturity, knowledge of business, facilitation skills, can balance innovation with practicality, have an insatiable curiosity and desire to learn, and have mature user research skills. Hiring managers are constantly on the lookout for these skills. If you can develop and demonstrate these skills on your resume, portfolio, and in interviews you will be much more likely to land the UX job you’ve always dreamed of.

用戶體驗行業正變得越來越有競爭力，然而仍然只有很少的設計師具有成熟創造性、商業知識、促進技能、能夠平衡創新和實用性的能力、無限的好奇心和學習的愿望，并有成熟的用戶研究技能。招聘經理一直在尋找擁有這些技能的人。如果你能在你的簡歷、作品集和面試中闡述和展示這些技能，你就更有可能得到夢寐以求的用戶體驗工作。

感謝閱讀。

 

作者：Jeremy BirdFollow

原文鏈接：https://uxdesign.cc/vital-ux-skills-that-few-designers-have-and-how-to-develop-them-b26fd067e1bd

譯者：湯圓，公眾號：包你嗨設計英語學習社區

本文由 @湯圓 授權發布于人人都是產品經理，未經作者許可，禁止轉載

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