Over the soon to be three years I’ve been freelancing I’ve come across places where UX and collaborative working has been an integral part of the process and value that a company provides, and other places where it’s still been in its early infancy.
With the latter there is often some initial resistance to working collaboratively across disciplines, or even to get the other team members to share where they are up to. As I only do freelance work through recommendations, those who bring me in knows that I’m all about close collaboration across disciplines, and that’s often why I’m brought in. They also know that I adapt how and what I do as best as I can to the in house teams. There’s no point in me doing wireframes if the visual designers won’t look at them, or that I jump straight in and put together personas and user journeys if the creative idea is up on the pedestal and the users further down.
After all introducing UX and collaborative working is about building trust, adding value in the ways you can, as well as show the rest of the team how you’re actually helping them and not competing with them. It’s an initial courting period where you get to know people and their way of working and slowly win them over. Sometimes it’s quicker and sometimes it takes time.
When there’s more resistance I do a lot of work in the background, introducing it bit by bit when the time is right. For some projects I don’t do a single wireframe but pull together a sketch and some examples for the creative team around ideas for how things could work and look. It’s also a way to demonstrate that what I do is not just about drawing boxes and arrows but that I in fact also have a creative side. Other times I write out the pages and views that we need, what would be good to have on each one and slowly start introducing the ‘Why’ related to User Centred Design thinking. I stay away from preaching or enforcing the UX way, but use the first project/ part of the project as a stepping stone for what’s to come.
Introducing change is often met with some resistance and as a result that first project/ part of a project we do together is often not how it ideally should be, but it’s a first step on the way that can ensure that the next/ rest of the project runs with UX and collaborative working being a more integral part of it. Most of the time I doesn’t take very long to get collaborative working going and I soon have the rest of the team come and seek me out and not just the other way around. But there are times where it takes a bit longer and where particularly the creatives stick more to themselves and rather than trying to convey that we’re a team and “Anna’s said that she is still working on…” do the contrary and put me on the spot with negative comments.
Those times I take a deep breath, respond nicely and reflect on how the approach I’ve taken so far is clearly not working but needs to be amended. I’ve worked long enough to be secure in my role, myself and what I do, but of course I’m only human and those instances sting. They consume energy, lowers my initial motivation but then spurs me onwards to win them over. I’m the new one. I’m the one who’s coming in and changing things and I can’t expect it to always run smoothly, or for the rest of the teams to embrace me straight away. In the end however, they always do and though the road there isn’t always without ups and downs, it’s usually an enjoyable journey.
Image source: Creativity written on blackboard via Shutterstock
