The UX Drinking Game

February 21, 2014

Post Author

Patrick Neeman

Patrick Neeman is the director of product design at Apptio, an IT spend management platform. Prior to that he was director of user experience at Jobvite, a social recruiting and applicant tracking platform. Previous experience includes working as a social media and user experience consultant for Microsoft, building a 25-person user experience team at a consultancy, working on the prelaunch team at Orbitz, and the successful launch of several startup sites. And yes, he has also been a product manager. He runs the UX Drinking Game at www.uxdrinkinggame.com and has a blog at www.usabilitycounts.com. He can be reached at pat@usabilitycounts.com.

View all posts

Being a user-experience designer can get frustrating—enough to drive a person to drink.

In 2011, I decided to share some of my frustrations with the role by creating a website, www.uxdrinkinggame.com. People soon began submitting their own frustrations, and the site currently has a list of more than 1,000 of them–most of which are funny, but also sadly true.

Having worked in both product management and UX design myself, I found it interesting that so many pertain to the struggles of the two roles working together. This article is devoted to five of those reasons, and how we can work together more effectively and stay sober.

If someone says the project is so important that we aren’t following process, drink. Understanding the user experience is a process that should be practiced when any product is built. Whether it is practiced well is another issue. When I explain the process to people, I call it “see ball, hit ball, run.”We follow a number of defined steps that allow us to succeed.

Patrick Neeman

Patrick Neeman is the director of product design at Apptio, an IT spend management platform. Prior to that he was director of user experience at Jobvite, a social recruiting and applicant tracking platform. Previous experience includes working as a social media and user experience consultant for Microsoft, building a 25-person user experience team at a consultancy, working on the prelaunch team at Orbitz, and the successful launch of several startup sites. And yes, he has also been a product manager. He runs the UX Drinking Game at www.uxdrinkinggame.com and has a blog at www.usabilitycounts.com. He can be reached at pat@usabilitycounts.com.

View all posts

Author:

Patrick Neeman

Patrick Neeman is the director of product design at Apptio, an IT spend management platform. Prior to that he was director of user experience at Jobvite, a social recruiting and applicant tracking platform. Previous experience includes working as a social media and user experience consultant for Microsoft, building a 25-person user experience team at a consultancy, working on the prelaunch team at Orbitz, and the successful launch of several startup sites. And yes, he has also been a product manager. He runs the UX Drinking Game at www.uxdrinkinggame.com and has a blog at www.usabilitycounts.com. He can be reached at pat@usabilitycounts.com.

Tags: Agile

Other Resources in this Series

Most Recent

Article

December 1, 2022
Pragmatic Institute

How to Set Effective OKRs

This article will guide understanding what OKRs are, how to use them, how to set them and how to measure them.

Category: Product Management

Article

November 22, 2022
Mike Smart

Measurement-Driven Product Management

If you are a vice president, director or team leader for a product management function, one of the biggest challenges you face today is how to demonstrate the team is making a significant contribution to top line or bottom line targets. If you can’t measure your team’s effectiveness, or if you are focused on the wrong metrics, your headcount and budget allocation could be at risk.

Category: Project Management Uncategorized

Article

November 16, 2022
Pragmatic Institute

23 Metrics Mapped to the Product Life Cycle

Learn what to measure and how to avoid vanity metrics during each stage of the product life cycle: development, launch, growth, maturity and decline. Also learn the difference between a mission and objective and how to identify which stage your product is in.