Episode description

In today's episode, we dive deep into how UX professionals can effectively demonstrate their value within organizations, especially during challenging times when the shine has come off UX and attention has shifted to AI.

We kick off by exploring some exciting form analysis tools that can revolutionize how we optimize web forms. Tools like MouseFlow, Zuko, and EXATOM offer powerful insights into form performance, helping identify where users struggle and drop off.

Zuko particularly caught our attention with its focused approach and reasonable pricing, making it an attractive option for teams looking to improve their form conversion rates.

The main segment focuses on practical strategies for UX professionals to demonstrate their value within organizations. We explore several key approaches:

• Show, Don't Tell: Create tangible assets like prototypes and user journey visualizations rather than getting bogged down in documentation. This could include creating proofs of concept under the radar to excite senior stakeholders and help remove roadblocks.
• User Exposure: Get stakeholders in front of users through open usability sessions and compelling "horror videos" of user testing. Consider making session attendance mandatory for project stakeholders, like gov.uk does.
• Collaborative Workshops: Engage stakeholders through exercises like customer journey mapping and the "user attention points" exercise. The latter helps stakeholders understand the importance of prioritization by giving them limited "attention points" to allocate across page elements.
• Internal Education: Become an educator through newsletters, lunch-and-learn sessions, and guerrilla marketing tactics like creating mouse mats with personas or mugs with design principles.
• Data-Driven Approach: Establish meaningful KPIs and consistently encourage testing. Start by simply suggesting "Why don't we test that?" whenever there's disagreement in meetings - over time, this mindset can become part of the organizational culture.

From our Agency Academy discussion, we tackle the thorny issue of when and how to offer discounts as an agency or freelancer. We explore the importance of having clear policies around discounting and ensuring any discounts come with reciprocal benefits.

We wrap up with a look at a guide to efficient web design workflow, published on the Wix blog, which introduces an interesting approach to breaking down complex fixed-price projects into more manageable sub-projects.

To end on a lighter note, here's this week's joke (courtesy of Marcus):

A Roman soldier walks into a bar and holds two fingers up. He says "five beers, please."

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