Techniques and strategies to maximize your impact when you are the sole UX professional on your project or in your organization
What can you do to be successful whenyou are the entire user experience teamon a project or in an entire organization? This course will help you overcome these unique challenges:
- Limited time
- Few, if any, resources
- Tiny budget
- Creative isolation
- Immature UX at the organizational level
As a one-person UX team you must cover your everyday work while also dedicating time to outreach and education of your colleagues, as well as advocating for your users’s needs. We’ve compiled techniques used by successful one-person UX teams. Many of these techniques are not commonly known because the people using them seldom publish their secrets.
As the only person responsible for a big, multi-disciplinary field, you risk becoming the "jack of all trades but master of none" and being spread so thin that you have no deep impact and don't get any management recognition because you only generate superficial design improvements. This course shows how to avoid these pitfalls so that you (a) gain more job satisfaction and (b) produce more value for your employer and (c) grow your team, both in the short term and the long term.
"A very practical course on how to do the UX all by yourself. This gave me a lot of confidence."
Werner Curunda
Pixels in Stereo
Topics Covered
Topics Covered
- Communication, outreach, and evangelism
- Explaining the value of UX work
- Educating colleagues on UX process and user pain points
- UX evangelism for both leadership and grassroots approaches
- Identifying allies
- Communicating ideas clearly to non-UX colleagues
- Speaking in a way that others will understand and respond positively to
- Techniques for managing stakeholder feedback
- Advocating to stakeholders for projects that will positively impact users
- Communication styles and tactics based on your audience roles, responsibilities and power levels
- Making a budgetary case for UX research
- Managing time
- Handling too many requests for your time
- Identifying your UX allies and creating internal advocates
- Short and long-term strategies for growing your group
- Demonstrating your ROI
- Advocating for more headcount and growing the team
- Delegating small projects to non-UX team members
- Capturing and tracking user insights
- Creating a flexible UX process
- A full-fledged, flexible UX process that encompasses all aspects of the UX cycle regardless of the level of support, time, and help you have available
- Both MVP (minimum-viable process) versions of a UX process for when you have no support or time and must do everything on your own, and more involved variants as your levels of support grow
- Understanding business needs
- Identifying user goals
- Assessing existing UX both with user research and other evaluation techniques
- Prioritizing, tracking, and negotiating for the most user-impactful projects
- Ideating and designing by yourself
- Testing designs quickly and cheaply
- Methodologies and research techniques you need to use
- User testing, field studies, interviews, surveys and other proven methods as a one-person team
- Taking advantage of automated testing tools
- Analyzing and choosing the best research and/or design method for your project
Format
Format
The course is mainly in lecture format with a few discussions and group exercises to reinforce the learned principles and guidelines.
UX Certification Credit
UX Certification Credit
Attending this course and passing the exam earns 1 UX Certification credit, which also counts towards the optional UX Research Specialty.
Learn more about NN/g's UX Certification Program.
Participant Comments
Participant Comments
"Great, reaffirming to hear from and learn with people in the same boat as me — practical help to give structure to my role, how to prove its effectiveness and how I can be more effective myself. Plenty of new ammo to use every day."
Susan Ferguson, Woolley Pall Gyro
"Loved the course and instructor, excellent — I felt quite nervous about attending (as I'm a lone worker!) but felt at ease as soon as Garrett started talking — and I've learned so much, thank you!"
Sian Fording, Academy Wales
"The course was valuable — it covered a lot of ideas and techniques to evangelize UX and grow head count. It gave me some ideas on aligned vision, optimizing kick off meetings and growing UX presence that I believe will make a big impact in our organization."
Cristine Cravens, Hobsons
More Participant Comments
"Outstanding breath of fresh air and hope. UX for reality!"
"I really appreciated being given a list of tools and even a website with templates that I can use later. I checked them out briefly (I was learning) and could already see things I can use."
Daphne Adebayo, Career Builder
"I believe this is the most helpful NN course I have taken to date. I am not a one man team, but this course gave tons of advice and tricks for evangelizing UX in our organization as well as some cool new tricks for speeding things up for our team. Thank you!"
Paige Brannon
"Garrett is a good presenter who is full of energy and personable. I gained a lot of tips/tricks to use in my projects as the sole UX designer. I particularly liked Garrett's real world case studies."
Nikki Kerber, Booz Allen Hamilton
"Highly recommend for those who are just starting out the UX practice in the organization. The course gives a clear direction and practical tools to grow UX in the organization."
Natalia Tsymbalenko, Eastbanc Technologies
"Full of great information and examples that were directly relatable to my work!"
Judy Bayne, Autodesk
"This is a very insightful course, packed with vital information that can be put to good use immediately. Garrett is a great presenter who interacted with the class. This is a valuable course."
Amrita Bharij, London, UK
"This course was amazing and gave tangible advice I can implement immediately into my workflow. Thank you!"
Sara Bafundo, TPN, Chicago
"I'm not alone! I have been struggling in my organization and I feel a weight off my shoulders knowing others are having the same issues. This course helped focus me to work on the things I need to do to help my organization understand the value of UX."
Courtney Wagner, SaskPower
"Great for people just starting out in UX or that are the only person doing UX in their team. You will learn about a variety of tools you can use for every budget and tips on how to use these tools, a lot of practical adivce you will be able to use right away."
Sandra Robotos, Toronto
"Energetic and knowledgable speaker. Just enough detail. Great atmosphere for collaboration + discussion."
Lloyd Carr, OneviewHealthcare
"Attending this course helped me understand how to prioritize UX activities when resources are limited."
Eugen Potlog, Conversion Marketing SRL
"Very potential advice. Great overview of all the tools available to UX designer. And the best is probably all the tips on how to communicate strategically about your work to promote it and make the company UX maturity grow."
Maxime Delavergue, Cisco, Paris
"Garrett conducted the full-day session with great energy all the way through. He was very generous with knowledge, sharing and resources, and was not once shy on answering guestions. Good stuff!"
Jade Tan, Vend
"The course was amazing. I was able to reinforce my skills and to discover new ones."
Laura Tediosi, Malup S.P.A., Milano
"Interactive and clear course. I learned how I could better communicate with different colleagues or stakeholders and that I should document more. I'm motivated to work better and more efficient."
Paul van den Dool, Epesi
"Established key ideas at beginning and reinforced them throughout the day. The resources and instructions provided are going to give me a huge jumpstart in my organization!"
Chalya MacDonald
"Very informative on how to conduct research and how to create a UX philosophy in your company."
Rozanne van Diggelen, Karify
"This course has given me the confidence and the motivation to increase UX presence and my effictiveness as a true UX hero! Page is great. I'm excited to kick off this momentum I'm feeling."
Lindsey Lindsay, Project Lead The Way
"This course provides a comprehensive and thorough overview of the most important UX research techniques for performing in-house usability research and for becoming a UX Jack-of -all-trades in your specific job role. Page, you did a fantastic job in today's session. I also think you did a masterful job in juggling the presentation of information with answering and discussing questions. Well done and thanks!"
Josh Luedicke, Birkman International
"Modern UX professionals can learn how to breathe new life into products with the wealth of information provided."
Kai Street, HWI
"This course is great for organizations with immature UX practices and offers you with the support and guidance that you need to do your job well and provide value to your organization, but most of all your users!"
Tiffany Huynh, Vizient
"Impressive breadth of knowledge and articulation. Validated/reinforced a lot of my current process, instilling confidence as a designer that pivoted from visual to UX."
"This course was really valuable. It provided the right depth of common challenges that UX designers face as well as information on best practices to overcome those challenges. It validated some of the work we've established, and I left with inspiration of how to improve our UX strategies."
Tamara Sutton, FCS America
"Out of all of the topics, this was the one I was looking most forward to since we currently have no UX team and I'm trying to establish one. I feel prepared to go back to my job with these tools to make improvements and change."
Lauren Clegg
"I was very impressed by Garrett's knowledge and delivery. I expect UX presentations to be filled with fluff and marketing spin but today's session was everything but those things!"
Jeannette Durick, Sydney Australia
"Garrett's style and speed of presentation is extremely well suited to retention. He has a perfect delivery with speaking, not too fast, not too slow. I have enjoyed his class immensly."
Gabriel Sprout, Allianz
"Garrett is a great lecturer. He doesn't hesitate to make time for questions. I felt understood and that my concerns were valid, and also common among other practitioners."
Marsha Chan, NLogic
"Overall a well spoken instructor. Knowledgeable and easily transforms complicated material in a positive way. Would recommend Garrett to fellow professionals."
Christopher Whittemore, Availity
"This session made the daunting task of being a one man show much more managable and organized. I feel less overwhelmed and more prepared to manage my work when I get back home...both with the toolkit and all the anecdotes shared in conversation. Thanks for allowing such an open environment for sharing ideas."
Ashley, Buffalo, NY
"Helps you understand how to utilize the resources you currently have to best assist and support you and the UX activities in our organization. Garrett is very patient and willing to answer any and all questions and provide applicable advice to class members."
Marissa Sinai, Protiviti
"This was a one-stop shop with templated deliverables given to participants as examples of the documents covered. Lots of good content with lots of open discussion."
Brian Revels, Herff Jones, LLC
"It was invaluable to learn how to articulate and work with your cross-functional peers."
Deborah Arroyo, dagraphix, Arlington, VA
"I appreciated the aspects taught; how to operate and how to gain momentum!"
Sarah Lyle, Northrop Grumman
"Being "one of a kind" is a reality in this one-person-UX position. Taking on the attitude of being 'one of a kind' by shining the data, the wins, and the ROIs can mean the difference between being that indispensable 'part to the machine' or the most important one."
Lloyd Ocampo, Federal Reserve Bank, Atlanta
"Garrett is an exceptionally engaging speaker. I would actively seek out courses he instructing in the future because I know he would make the content interesting."
Kim Sharabura, Cantactix Solutions, Cochrane, Canada
"This course is a shifting point in my career path lots of techniques and the speaker Garrett Goldfield is very professional & Rich with information and experience it's a great honor to be attend in his course. I learned a lot thank you so much."
Ebtihal Abdullah, Saudi Arabia
"Garrett was a great instructor, super friendly and passionate about what he was teaching. He also took a generous amount of time to answer all our questions, during and after the course, which was a kind gesture and truly appreciated."
Daniel González López, Microsoft, Madrid, Spain
"This was hands down the MOST applicable course to my consulting work. So many nuggets of gold!!"
Kristine Howell, Duo Consulting
"Really like it. It provides actionable recommendations on how to maximize your work and impact when being the sole UX person on an organization."
Oscar Yepes, Cell Signaling Technology, Danvers
"I appreciated how practical and immediately applicable the course content was. Every one can take something valuable away from this course regardless of title or years of experience."
Lindsay Browder, Roblox, Los Angeles, California
"I'd say pure and simply that if they are part of a ux-team of one, they really should take this course."
João Matos, EY, Lisboa, Portugal
"This course goes through the most common challenges I've found as a UX designer. It covers working with people that don't know anything about UX, getting buy-in to do research, being flexible, listening, effective communication, negotiating, building relationships and finding allies in the team/company."
Natalia Tirado, Switch Software Solutions / Odyssey Group, Montevideo, Uruguay
"This course was fantastic and incredibly valuable despite the vast amount of diversity in attendees. Page did a great job of showing how different tools can be used in different settings depending on your organizations specifics need. I feel very prepared to push forward in my journey as a UX team of one having taken this class and connected with others in a similar situation."
Emma Alexander, Deere and Co, Davenport, IA
"This course reinforced a lot of things that I've been doing which is very reassuring as I am new to UX as well as being the only UX person in my company. Lots of great tips on how to be a "UX Evangelist" and learn how to use your limited resources to their fullest potential- what to ax and how to pull together a scrappy but effective process."
Samantha Uebel, Levven, Cincinnati, OH USA
"It had very pragmatic and actionable advice. I could see putting it into practice quickly. This was well done from the perspective of trying to provide a 100% remote experience. I've gone to the face to face conference and now the remote conference. I was pleasantly surprised to see how much care was placed into allowing interaction among the participants and with the participants and facilitator."
Mark Werner, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, USA
"Yes it was a very practical course with a lot of examples of how to improve and structure your work in a one person UX team."
Anke Gerardts, IXON, Netherlands
"Learned a lot of tools and how to apply them effectively in the company. A great help for a one person UX team!"
Floor-Jan van Schaik, Impala Studios
Instructors
Instructors
Evan Sunwall
Evan Sunwall is a User Experience Specialist with Nielsen Norman Group. A former software developer, he enjoys helping users accomplish complex tasks, tackling the challenges of enterprise-level application design, and exploring effective management practices for design teams.
Garrett Goldfield
Garrett Goldfield is a Senior User Experience Specialist at Nielsen Norman Group with 20 years of practical experience.At Nielsen Norman Group, Goldfield has consulted for clients in a broad range of industries, including e-commerce, automotive, health care, financial, media, telecommunications, education, art and non-profits, as well as highly specialized B2B sites.
Page Laubheimer
Page Laubheimer is a Senior User Experience Specialist with Nielsen Norman Group. He helps organizations focus on delivering outstanding user experience in order to achieve their strategic goals. He combines his expertise in website usability with experience managing a team of designers and developers to successfully implement UX best practices across a range of platforms.
