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Alex Jones

I lead teams at the intersection of strategy and design. Autodidact. Polymath. Barbecue acolyte. I start fires (the good kind).

Product Management

The (Updated) UX Career Path

Mapping the UX Path
Mapping the UX Path

This entry supersedes my earlier post laying out my take on the career possibilities for UX professionals. With this, I aim to shed light on the differences between the options, the responsibilities of the positions and the steps needed to transition from one role to the next.

This post remained a draft for far too long, held there by my hope that I would find time to fill in all of the job responsibilities specific to the PM and UX roles. I lay out four major levels: the Individual Contributor, the Manager, the Senior Manager and the Executive, which I acknowldege is far from exhaustive. There are steps between and within these levels, which aren’t included and there are branches into independent contractor roles as well as design and engineering paths that go unrepresented. Instead of waiting for everything to come together, I’m publishing this as a starting point for us to discuss the possibilities and realities of the industry.

I would love your feedback and look forward to a wide-ranging discussion.

This is just the intro, let’s dive into the details! »

On Convergence and Features

Anything can be forced to converge, but the problem is about trade-offs, and you end up with trade-offs that don’t please anyone. You can converge a toaster and refrigerator, but the end result won’t be pleasing to the user.

Tim Cook

Every single person involved in product management or user experience should read this at the start of each day. It doesn’t matter if you’re working at a giant multinational or for yourself, this applies to every feature decision, large and small.

The Task Analysis Grid

The Task Analysis Grid is an interesting alternative to the standard requirements doc. I think I may give it a whirl at my next opportunity. As noted on the site, it’s a “single document allows anyone looking at it to see the entire scope of a project, figure out what’s in this release (1) as well as what we’re planning for future releases (2, 3, and 4). It’s an extremely effective artifact for getting everyone on the same page.” The numbers (1 – 4) map to priority levels assigned to each requirement.

Software Development's Evolution towards Product Design

From Lost Garden comes Software Development’s Evolution towards Product Design a great explanation of how software development should flow, with an excellent, tongue-in-cheek illustration of the entire process.

With a great flourish, I whip out my gold nibbed pen and draw a little diagram on a napkin that explains concisely how modern software development works. In the grand finale, I circle one of the little scribbles buried deep in the entire convoluted process and proudly proclaim “And that is what I do!”.