How to Choose the Right Tools for Product Development Teams

Petra Kubalcikova at UXDX EMEA. Video: https://youtu.be/DAXAwVY9X94

Readable transcript: edited from the recording's captions for readability (fillers and false starts removed, punctuation and section headings added). Wording is the speaker's own. Timestamps are positions in the video. Names marked [?] could not be verified against the audio.

A clipboard, a phone and the rules of the forum

[00:00:07] Petra: Hi everybody, how are we? Good, that's great, a responsive audience, I love that. I'm going to start with a confession. When I started in research 20 years ago, there were two tools that I used in the beginning, and those were a clipboard and a phone. We're not even talking a mobile phone; it was a landline. Whilst they're pretty basic tools, they were really efficient for me, because I used them to test out the surveys I'd been taught to write. I would check if my surveys actually sounded human, if they were clear, if the flow worked well, by accosting people on the street, or calling them up during dinner time, "Hi, my name's Petra," and getting my surveys tested. Luckily, things have come a long way since then.

[00:00:58] This is a really rich topic space, and I have the joy of hosting this forum, which is an opportunity, as you just saw from Alex, to engage, to chat and to get involved. So I'm hoping I hear a lot from all of you. As a forum, it's going to be a little bit like a focus group. I'm going to think of this as the biggest focus group I've ever done, which means there are two rules. The first one is that I want to hear from as many people as possible. Whilst you're thinking, "Okay, I'm going to take my headset off and run away," I'm sure everyone has something valuable to add to this space and to contribute, so please don't be shy, raise your hand and get involved. The second part is that I am the timekeeper on this. I'm going to glance at my watch ever so slowly, because I'm standing between some of you and lunch, and I cannot stress that enough. I want to be on time, so if I glance down while you're saying something, please don't feel offended; it's not that what you're saying isn't interesting.

[00:02:00] The second part is that we're going to talk about tools. I don't know about you, but for me, in a dream world, I would have all the tools that I needed: ones that worked for my work style, best for my team, that would work within the organization cross-functionally, scale well, but also be, let's say, free, limitless and changeable whenever I wanted them to be. I don't know if anyone wants to raise their hand if that's their particular setup; it's definitely never been my experience. This area is fraught with making decisions and trade-offs and thinking about what is best for us. So that's what we're going to do together here, through some of the questions that I'm going to pose: think about the challenges, and work together to solve them and learn from each other. The beauty of this experience is that we have cross-functional expertise here, and in a focus group, that's what it's all about: learning about your thoughts, your feelings and especially your experiences. So I'm really looking forward to all of you sharing.

[00:03:01] How are we going to do this? It's going to be through a poll, as you just saw with Alex. I'm going to signpost you now on what my five questions are; there are only five, bear with me. Feel free to use the code that will pop up in a second, if I sort myself out. The five are just to get your brain juices going. I should never use the term brain juice, please don't repeat that. Number one, we're going to talk about how often you actually change your tools. Then we're going to talk about onboarding tools, and what your best practices are, or some of the worst practices you might have seen. Then I want hot tips from everybody. This for me is just a free resource to learn from you guys, so I want hot tips on what kind of free or cheap resources you're using, in any low-fi or hi-fi way, to be able to progress what you're doing. And then finally we've got two more: maximizing the tools that you've already got, because sometimes change is not possible, and how we stay on top of trends and the latest news that's going on.

How often teams change tools

[00:04:09] Okay, so let's get into it with our first poll. Context first, because I'm a researcher, hands up. We have the box going on, if everyone can scan the code. I think the code is the same for every session. And I know we've got people online as well; online people, feel free to throw me some great emojis so I don't feel so alone on the stage. All right, let's talk about how often we're actually changing our tools. Yes, love hearts, love it. Oh, okay. Right, maybe we can hear from a couple of people in the audience. I'd love to hear the context of what's driving these decisions around "rarely" and "constantly," which are quite diverse extremes, or our winner here, which is "when there's a pain point." Let me know: is it team size, industry, what else is happening that's making these changes for you? Who wants to be my first volunteer? Hands in the air.

[00:05:15] Yes, sir, you didn't leave me hanging, I love this. Right here, thank you so much.

[00:05:21] Audience: Here we go. Mine's easy. I actually have to do an annual review of how much we're using it and its cost-effectiveness, and if I want to change a tool, I have to do it at that point. I can't do it at any other point during the process.

[00:05:36] Petra: Okay. And again, this is sharing and caring for everybody: what are the principles that you're looking at when you're thinking about that tool? Cost-effectiveness?

[00:05:44] Audience: Yeah. Essentially, if the tool has credits with it, I need to make sure the credits are used up. If the credits aren't used, then they ask me, "Why didn't the team use up the credits?" It's as simple as that. If we're not using it, then we potentially lose the tool.

[00:06:05] Petra: Gotcha. Absolutely. So that annual review is driven by the organization-wide situation as well. Awesome. All right, who's got something else going on? I'd love to hear from this constantly changing group, because change is a constant but everybody hates it. Is it my eyes? I can't see. Alex was not wrong. No one's constantly changing, but it's 20% of people. Maybe they're all online.

[00:06:42] Alex: Maybe. I think also it's more about, if you're changing more often than others, is there anything that you find difficult because there's so much change?

[00:06:52] Petra: Well, maybe can I hear from people that said "when there's a specific pain point"? What kind of pain points have we encountered that made us switch tools? Can anyone share a pain point? It doesn't have to be tool-specific; we don't want to name and shame any particular tools. But what made you switch? Was it perhaps the scalability of the tool? Was it the efficacy of the tool?

[00:07:12] Natasha: Hi, my name is Natasha, I'm a UI/UX designer. For us it was a big step when the program was introduced where people can actually collaborate and work on one project together. That was the biggest pain we had: one person does the project and saves the file, and another person continues. So that was the main reason.

[00:07:34] Petra: Yeah. And how have you assessed the success of that swap? What are the dynamics that let you assess that the swap has worked well?

[00:07:42] Natasha: We've now worked in this product for more than three years, and we actually see progress, and we see how fast we are collaborating and improving our designs as well.

[00:07:55] Petra: Beautiful, awesome, thank you so much. And right behind you there.

[00:08:00] Christian: I think we had a big pain point: we had a boss who really liked a tool, and we don't really know why. His brother-in-law works there or something. It was absolutely rubbish, so the moment he left, we moved from it. It was a design tool; we moved over to Figma. The main reason as well is that we scale up and down a lot, and we bring in a lot of agencies or a lot of contractors, and they weren't familiar with the other design tool, so there was a big ramp-up for them to learn it. It was rubbish and so unintuitive. Now that we've got Figma, we bring someone in and they can start on day one.

[00:08:39] Petra: Beautiful, thank you for sharing that. I think we've all had pain points where the tools are rubbish. I'm giggling because I'm very aware of the concept. Anyone else want to share and level up on that? Again, no naming and shaming of tools. Yes, over here. Sorry, Alex.

[00:09:00] Audience: My name is T [?]. I think the main pain point is the learning curve. With the high trend of UX, it takes a lot of time to learn about it. Even though the main principle is basically the same, it takes time. The main pain point is the learning curve.

Onboarding tools and the learning curve

[00:09:29] Petra: Do you know, I'm so pleased that you said that, because that's the most beautiful segue into my second poll. I couldn't have planned it; I'll give you money later. So thank you. Let's talk about that learning curve, because when we onboard new tools we can have that hesitance. When we think about the learning curve, what's some best practice that you've experienced when you've been learning a tool, or that you've actually enabled for your teams and put into place, to make sure that people feel they can maximize the tool and get the most out of it? Answers coming in. Oh, okay: "very hands-on," I'm seeing in the group. While those are coming in, would anyone like to start sharing what they've experienced or what they do within their teams? Don't be shy. I don't bite. I won't make you sing; I'll just do that myself.

[00:10:24] Let's hear from someone who is hosting hands-on workshops and training. I would also like to know if you hold your workshops yourself, or do you have the vendor come in and hold the workshops for you? Anyone? No one? Thank you, there's a gentleman here in the front, please, Alex. I'm really comfortable with silence, guys, as a researcher, so I'll just wait until someone rescues me.

[00:10:51] Audience: I'm working as a business analyst in the product development team, and, well, not recently, but at some point we started to do designing as part of our job as well. The lady next to me is a direct colleague. We literally just went into Figma. I did some YouTube tutorials myself to get into the materials. We have a design system, so components could be reused fairly easily. And we just started doing some tutorials or webinars or hands-on trainings with other BAs who were interested in the matter. And then it's what you also said, Mara [?]: just getting on with it, hands on, and learn by doing.

[00:11:36] Petra: Learn by doing, beautiful, awesome. Has anyone learned by teaching? Have you had an opportunity to pass it on to someone else?

[00:11:44] Audience: Can you repeat the question?

[00:11:46] Petra: Learned by teaching: have you had an opportunity to pass on what you've learned in any kind of way?

[00:11:49] Audience: Well, the only way I do it is by hosting, or asking people, more of an open culture: if you're interested in getting into the matter, if you have questions for me, just come along and we'll book some time and get into your questions.

[00:12:08] Petra: Perfect. So more of a one-on-one style to enable others. That's awesome. Does anyone else want to build on that, something else that they're doing to be able to onboard tools and help with that learning curve that we talked about? How about someone who is assigning a tool champion within their organization? How do you decide who the tool champion is, and disseminate all the information so that they are clearly teaching it or training in the way that it needs to be? I'm going to move over this way and make these people feel slightly awkward and see if anyone wants to put their hand up. No? No one's assigning a champion? There, at the back, thank you.

Tool champions

[00:12:52] Audience: Thank you. How does this work? Oh, cool. We introduced a new tool quite recently, and I became a bit of a tool champion for it. I did a lot of the trainings and had a lot of the talks with the company. I started by demonstrating what the tool could do and what it could bring to the teams, and getting the interest from that, and then I became more of the spokesperson within the team, and still am. I think it helps a lot in adoption if you first show what it can do and what the benefits are, showcasing that to the team and the people in it. That way the adoption was also way easier for everybody. Then I recommended doing the trainings that I did, and it's become quite a commonly used tool now in the company. So from my experience, it's a very good way of introducing it.

[00:13:44] Petra: Awesome. And you were self-nominated, I'm hearing?

[00:13:46] Audience: It was like, I needed the tool, I was a big fan of it, and I just got deep into it because I could really use it in my work. Then I started introducing how other people could use it, showcasing a bit in their product what numbers they could generate, what insights they could get, and in that way bringing them in.

Hot tips for free and cheap tools

[00:14:05] Petra: Beautiful. And what I love that you said there is that you're evangelizing about the tool. Let's briefly evangelize. Thank you so much for sharing, because sharing is caring. What I'd like to do is see if anyone's got any hot tips. This is the only time we're probably going to talk tangibly about exact types of tools. I'd love to hear if anyone's got a hot tip for a tool that they use that is free, that is cheap, that they want to share with everybody. Or if you don't have a free or cheap tool, pop your hand up if you've got a tool that you use in your function and you'd love to see other teams using. For example, you're a researcher and you're thinking, "Why aren't the designers using this?" Or you're in dev and you're thinking, "Why isn't product using this?" Yes, Alex, straight in the air, love it.

[00:14:51] Alex: Maybe it's not a design tool...

[00:14:53] Petra: Can't hear you, I'm sorry. I have double microphones.

[00:14:55] Alex: Maybe it's not a design tool, but I think Canva is one of the best free tools out there, if you need to design, if you have a design palette that you want to use for, I don't know, creating decks or creating ads or creating visuals of whatever kind. That's a pretty cool tool, and I highly recommend it. Their free plan is actually really good.

[00:15:15] Petra: Awesome, thank you for sharing that. The lady had a contribution for the previous question, and I said, do you want to do it now?

[00:15:24] Audience: Yeah, sure. What I was going to mention for the previous question was one very simple yet effective thing that I did in my teams when I wanted to assign a tool champion, or an ambassador for something new: just understand the strengths of the people in my team. For example, I introduced a new BI data tool, and I knew there were people in my team who were very strong and good with data. So I bring them in, I hype them up about the tool, I say how good they are and that they're going to crush it, and then they get excited, and the whole ambassadorship thing becomes a little easier. It's very simple, but I think it worked.

[00:16:05] Petra: Beautiful, playing to their strengths. I love that.

[00:16:09] Audience: And above all the tools, I love Notion. That would be one for me. I use it for everything.

[00:16:15] Petra: That's a great tip, Notion, everyone note that down. These corny jokes will keep coming. Anyone else? Right in the front here, I'm coming.

[00:16:29] Audience: Thank you. All right, this is not necessarily a cheap or free tool, but using AI chatbots for insights. For example, we've been testing out a tool called Fluent, which is an AI data assistant that sits on top of your database, so you can ask it queries and it visualizes the results for you. It's fantastic if you are not proficient with SQL, or a data scientist or something like that; it can be used by anyone. Also, if you're using Microsoft Databricks, it also has a copilot, which is really great if you're not that tech-heavy; you can get really, really good insight into the data without having to use standard reports. It's been eye-opening for me as a not-that-technical person any longer. So if you have that in the organization, sit with the data team and ask for access to it, because these tools have become so great that you can have your own personal AI assistant without knowing much SQL.

[00:17:33] Petra: Awesome, thank you for sharing. And "sit with the data team" is another hot tip I heard in that mix as well. Anyone else want to share? I will share that, for example, my team is launching a mobile diary study next week, and we're using WhatsApp for Business, messaging all the respondents via WhatsApp to keep in touch with them while they're traveling and on the go. Pretty low-fi, pretty simple, and it works for the job that we're doing. Oh, someone found that very funny. Any other tools that someone wants to share? Nadine at the back, I'm coming.

[00:18:10] Nadine: Hello, my name is Nadine, I'm a researcher. I've used DALL-E, the ChatGPT visual creator version, both for the visuals that I have in my slides here for the talk, and also to generate visuals for user journeys, for example, to make the whole thing feel a little bit more real: give me a driver who is in the car, give me a driver who hands something out of the back of the car, give me a driver who talks to a passenger in the car. It's very easy, very fast, and it makes the whole result, or the journeys, easier to follow for designers, and more engaging.

Maximizing the tools you already have

[00:18:46] Petra: Beautiful. So bringing it more to life, more storytelling, love that. Okay, we are on the road home, you're close to food. All right, now five options for you. I want to think about maximizing the tools that we've got. It's great that there are new tools and it's great that we're changing, but that's not always possible for everybody. So I want to think about how we're maximizing the tools that we already use. Is there a habit that your team has built in order to get the most out of what you've got on the table? It may not be the best thing, but you're getting the most out of it. I am seeing, oh, there's tears, tears from somebody. "Constant communication loops and feedback." Can someone tell me what kind of style of communication you're using? What's the feedback? Is it quite impromptu, or are you doing this in a structured format?

[00:19:41] Alex: I can share a bit about how I do it with my team.

[00:19:44] Petra: Go for it, Alex.

[00:19:49] Alex: Generally, I as their leader will remind people periodically: "Hey, I've seen that we haven't really updated this in the past weeks, can you please make sure that it's up to date?" Or making sure they have a reminder in the calendar. It's literally like a free meeting that just says, "Hey, you need to go back and update this, or check on this, or refresh this," whatever. As well as getting reminders from some of the tools: some of the tools have automated workflows that say, "Hey, we haven't seen you in a while, come and do this thing that you've been doing but haven't finished." I think those have worked really well for us. I think training and upskilling is important, but each of us learns differently, so I wouldn't be scheduling time with all of them at the same time to do that.

[00:20:38] Petra: Makes sense. Does anyone want to add to that? Is anyone using training and upskilling, or scheduling time? Over here in the front row, thank you. Alex, to your left.

[00:20:48] Audience: Hello. In my company we have set up something called the Academy. I think twice a year we started with tips-and-tricks sessions for our users: very, very practical, straight to the point. They loved it, so we started expanding, and now we have a bit more structured sessions on how to really use the tool, but always super practical. I have to say we didn't expect to have that much adoption from users. They are waiting for those sessions, they want to know more, and it's great. So always find that tip which is fun and is going to make people want to know more.

[00:21:29] Petra: Beautiful. Let's go into the practicality: how long are these sessions, how much time are we committing, and how often?

[00:21:34] Audience: 20 or 30 minutes maximum.

[00:21:37] Petra: Beautiful. Weekly, monthly?

[00:21:39] Audience: Twice a year, because otherwise it's a lot for them.

[00:21:42] Petra: Beautiful. Great tip, really easy for anyone to take on board. That's awesome, thank you. Anyone else that has something in this space? I'm fascinated by something else, but any other hands in the air? Oh, there we go.

[00:21:55] Audience: Hello. For example, in my company, my manager schedules two hours per week that we can dedicate to improving our skills in the tools that we prefer.

[00:22:08] Petra: Beautiful. So it's set by the organization for you to be able to focus on the tools. And is there an end objective of these ten hours?

[00:22:16] Audience: Two hours. Normally, after three months, we show our manager what new skill we have, or something new that we have learned, because of course we need at least three months when you use just two hours per week. In this way we can track our improvement during the year.

[00:22:36] Petra: Beautiful. So it's self-reported improvement that you're tracking. Okay, wonderful, thank you so much. Anyone else want to share on this particular question, maximizing? We've got another one.

[00:22:53] Su: Hi, my name is Su and I'm a developer. What we have practiced is something called Renovate Bot. It's basically a pipeline that runs on a daily basis to keep track of all our packages, whether they're updated and so on. We also discuss the new things that come up, usually in our developer sessions, which happen twice a week. Basically every developer in the department just comes together and we share knowledge with each other. And we also have something called the innovation and planning sprint, where we experiment with new tools and see how it goes and whether it's really feasible for our project.

[00:23:35] Petra: Awesome. Can I ask how you developed those? How did you get the organization to buy in, so that you were able to do these types of things?

[00:23:43] Su: We follow the SAFe framework, and we have four sprints in one quarter, and usually the last sprint is always for innovation and planning, and it goes on for four weeks. We usually always have plans: okay, maybe we can change this. For example, in my team they recently shifted from Cypress to Playwright for E2E tests. So that's how it's done.

[00:24:11] Petra: Perfect, beautiful, thank you for sharing. Any last takers for this one before I take us home on the last question? Oh, over here, got a hand. Thank you, Alex.

[00:24:29] Audience: Thank you. We do a lot of TV-based design, so not many tools are made for us. We do a lot of experimentation, really pushing research tools with remote control usage and stuff. And across the teams it's a lot of just sharing: people share the prototypes they've done, the testing they've done, how they've been able to do a remote control in this test.

[00:24:53] Petra: And how are you doing that sharing? Is it quite impromptu, over lunch, or are you structuring it?

[00:25:01] Audience: It's all sorts. Mostly Slack: people just posting in Slack, saying, "I've encountered this," or "This is how I've done that." Or research talkbacks, where they tell you, "This is the research we've done, this is what we learned, this is how we did it."

[00:25:14] Petra: Beautiful, awesome, thank you so much. Oh, one more: someone has left a phone in the ladies' bathroom. If it is yours, please come and see Sheila. We're trying to figure out where you can go and pick it up from. So if someone here does not have their phone, please contact Sheila. Thank you, Sheila, my timekeeper. I couldn't make it up: an Australian with a Sheila.

Staying on top of trends

[00:25:36] Okay, last question: the latest trends. There's always stuff coming out, and you've got the guys at the back there. How are you keeping in touch with that? That's something I'm again trying to canvass and understand. Are you finding out at places like this, a conference? Are you actively looking for stuff, finding out from different resources? Let's try to understand how we can stay on top of what's out there, so that we don't feel like what we've got is perhaps a little outdated, or that we could be doing better. Okay, a lot of peer talking. I love that; that works well for whatever the networking session is next, which I'm sure everyone loves. Anyone want to give some feedback about this and tell me when these peer conversations are happening and how they're learning, whether they're going to meetups or in any other capacity? Again, the researcher is really comfortable with silence, guys. I'm going to leave you hanging until you come and rescue me. Thank you.

[00:26:43] Audience: I actually had a really good experience at this conference last year during the networking, so I'll plug it for you. I was encouraged to just join someone's table, so I did, and got chatting with some UX designers. I work on the product team. They were telling me about tools they found useful for different things, and challenges they had that I also had. I took a lot from that. That maybe 10 or 15 minutes was a very memorable takeaway from last time. So that's why I would say conferences and networking events can be very powerful.

[00:27:16] Petra: Beautiful. And that's a really good shout-out to everybody to let you know: yes, networking is awkward, we all feel it, walking up to a table of people. But just say, "Did you hear that woman say brain juice earlier?" and then that's your in. Did I see a hand at the back over there? I did, beautiful. Right at the back. Oh, Kevin. He was the host of the Discovery stage last year, if any of you were here last year.

[00:27:47] Kevin: Forget that, please. I was going to say that a lot of managers and directors like myself get bombarded with LinkedIn InMails. What I try to do is throw them to my team: "Hey, I've been bombarded by a salesperson at this new company for a new product. Do you want to go check it out and then do a lunch and learn in a week or two, if you find it super useful or better than the tools we already have today?"

[00:28:09] Petra: Beautiful, love that tip. Really, really great tip. Awesome. Anyone else want to build on that? One last one, here we go.

[00:28:20] Audience: On a new tool that is not the worst tool: I think it's the classic, start with the pain point. Whether you put that on LinkedIn, or, in Scotland we've got a big Facebook group of all the UX designers. Someone will say, "I'm having this issue," and then a lot of people will go on and say, "Well, this tool is good, this tool is good." I suppose you're not keeping updated as such, but you're finding out through real-life problems and how they're being solved in other places.

[00:28:48] Petra: Beautiful, I love that. So not jumping on the latest thing, but focusing on what the problem space is. Love it. Okay, I think that will do. I'll put you out of that agonizing awkwardness of silent time with no raised hands. I am finishing a tad early, so you get to go for lunch. Thank you so much for listening, and if you want to come and ask me any questions afterwards, I'll be the one in the bright blue jumper. Thank you.