by From UX Craft to Product Strategy: A Google Expert’s Take on Evolving Industry Expectations
Utkarsh Seth is a Senior Staff UX Research Manager at Google. Utkarsh has over 15 years of industry experience in the field of UX. His primary focus is to enable organizations to ship user experiences that are crafted, useful and usable. Over the last several years he has built and scaled multiple complex UX teams both within and outside the United States. His work revolves around empowering his team to achieve UX excellence by coaching people not only in their craft but also integrating in the product development process and co-own the product life cycle.
Outside of his core UX work, Utkarsh is deeply passionate about coaching and mentoring aspiring UXers entering the field. He has been collaborating with Savannah College of Art and Design over the past 8 years to bridge the gap between academia and industry. His work has been published in Worth Magazine, Augusta Chronicle & Fast company. More recently, Utkarsh has been a close advisor on the UX Research program SCAD has launched. Utkarsh continues to ensure that the curriculum is informed by the needs of businesses that hire for the role and that the students are going through coursework that will fulfill those needs.
UX360: What motivates you to join the UX360 conference and what is the core message of your talk?
Utkarsh: After being out of the conference and on a networking spree for a while, my main motivation for attending the UX 360 conference is to network with like-minded people and learn and absorb as much from them as possible. In my day-to-day, like other people, I am heads down with my own work and this conference gives me the opportunity to expand my learning scope and learn from people who have perspectives and opinions different from mine. I have always believed in inclusivity and diverse perspectives and this conference gives me that opportunity.
The core message of my talk is to increase efficiency in our UX process to make it more likely to achieve the outcome we as UX researchers are accountable for – and that outcome is impact. My talk, while it goes deep into specific research activities that can help people achieve that outcome, also provides an overall framework any research organization or individual can plug and play on their team. It provides a framework across the research lifecycle on how UX Researchers can think about investing time in their process with the knowledge of what activities will increase the likelihood of impact from their work. We have spent way too much time conducting research but seldom thought about what aspects of our work have more/less weight in producing impact, and this talk specifically addresses that question.
UX360: How has UX as a practice evolved in the last couple of years, and how would you like to see it evolve in the next few?
Utkarsh: The more important question here is how the industry and its expectations of UX has evolved in the last 7-10 years and how UX has still to catch up to those expectations. An aspect of that changing landscape is that the UX discipline continues to operate as if old challenges are still relevant, but that’s no longer true. Our scope of responsibility and accountability has grown. While UX values practice and cra, it has made the discipline overly focused on perfecting execution, and not on the bigger picture within which UX happens. The discipline has not taught us that execution is only one part of our accountability & therefore has created a bubble where UX is believed to start with study and design planning and end with delivery, completely ignoring the larger context of product development to which it is accountable for. An example of this increased accountability shows up when we think about what types of conversations we’re in day to day and what questions are being asked. In our partner conversations we never engage in discussions that focus on our cra but more in discussions that involve trade os, decision making, prioritization of work etc.
This is where I see the discipline grow even more. The focus on having a holistic product mindset (along with a UX mindset) will grow as organizations become more mature. I see this trend becoming even more important in the next few years and UXers have to do quite a bit of work in terms of skill development to catch up to these expectations.
UX360: Given this evolution, what are two expected and two less obvious skills UXers should possess, and why?
Utkarsh: In order to meet these expectations, UXers will have to build a product mindset in their day to day work and come out of the UX bubble. Some concrete ways in which this can happen are
- Co-owning the product end to end – Being accountable, speaking to and defending decisions that led to launched products by having a holistic product-minded approach. This can happen when UX comes out of its bubble and engages in discussions that deal with trade-offs and constraints within which design and research has to happen and align on those decisions with partners.
- Knowing the business – In order for the above to be true, UX will have to invest time and energy into understanding how the business works both from a management and technical perspective so discussions like the ones above are possible in the first place. We will have to come out of our shell to know the business, the environment and the context within which our work happens to really deeply know what unique value UX can provide and how that value can follow through even with constraints in place.
UX360: Apart from work, what can delegates at the event talk to you about? Do you have any particular personal interests, hobbies or extracurricular activities and engagements?
Utkarsh: From a work perspective, I am very interested in learning about strategies around scaling UX across large organizations. Personally, I love playing tennis and doing landscape photography, and would love to meet like minded individuals. Outside of this, I am open and am happy to talk about anything and everything. Excited to be attending this conference.
UX360: Last but not least, favourite recommendations to make to industry colleagues for inspiration, innovation, guidance and leadership:
- Must read – Book/Blog: “Fall in love with the problem not the solution”, “HBR”, “The ethnographic interview”
UX360: Thank you so much, Utkarsh! We look forward to welcoming you to the event!
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