Alvaro Alfaro, PMP

Not sure how I missed this podcast with Lenny Rachitsky but this episode with Katie Dill is amazing. There's a reason it has 47k views on YouTube. Just furthering my claim that the very best of Lenny's podcasts are not about product development or traditional product management. His best episodes are about design and business. "The use of the word beauty in books that have been digitized by Google has decreased,  like pretty dramatically. And it's aligned with this idea of, "Well,  functionality is king. Functionality is what matters." As if people think about  functionality and beauty as like two opposite things. No, they're not two  opposite things. Functionality is important. And actually beauty enhances functionality  because it does make things easier to use, more approachable, more comp elling to use.  And the other piece of it that is not talked about in business as often is just  the importance of how people feel. Things that are more beautiful, increase trust. You see that  we've put painstaking detail into this, and we care about the details of how something works,  and that gives you assurance that we care about other details that you can't see too." —Katie All I have to say is YES.

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I really enjoyed this conversation with Alex Smith from Fuego UX on value of designers learning to code, team collaboration, culture, and thoughts for new designers entering the market in the age of AI. Plus, it's short and sweet - just under 12 mins! If anything peeks your interest that you'd like to hear more on, let me know as I may be able to go deeper in future talks or blog posts :)

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UX leaders: Better understand what motivates designers and how you can help them thrive by taking 3 minutes to read this excerpt from Scott Berkun’s new book “Why Design Is Hard”: https://lnkd.in/ev6XyMss

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“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou This truth is especially powerful in product and UX/UI design. While creating a beautiful, user-friendly application might seem straightforward—I've had the privilege of doing it for nearly two decades—the real impact lies in the emotions we evoke. It’s those feelings that turn one-time users into loyal advocates. If you’re curious about how emotions shape user experiences or want to know more about neurodesign, check out this article and others written by @jashsak https://lnkd.in/gtj5JpD6

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Had to share this thoughtful article about the conflicting feelings we have as designers with new AI tools.... made me consider the threat of too much standardization over innovation, or letting your own creative instincts atrophy. Check it out and lmk your thoughts

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Designers neglecting cultural sensitivity risk isolating users. Discover how Latina leaders are breaking barriers to create inclusive, meaningful user experiences and learn from their breakthrough strategies. #ux #ui #designthinking #productdesign

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2 years with Nectar! 🤘🔥 My favorite highlights: → Our team’s growth from 23 employees to 90 employees. Product alone grew from 6 of us to 21 strong now 🙌🏼, and we’re a sleek, efficient, resilient team under Brian Cressall and Nate Tingey. → Established Nectar’s Design System and built our component library, significantly improving speed, consistency, and quality of design and implementation. → Completed a massive UI design refresh for the existing product (bless the devs still building it 🫡 ). → Launched Nominations, the largest and most impactful new feature we’ve built at Nectar yet. → Completely scrapped a project, because it was the right thing to do. Grateful to work on a team that’s hyper-focused on our ultimate goals, and is sincerely willing to let sunk costs be irrelevant. → Ideated, designed, and launched our new product Internal Communications in 8 weeks with a small, mighty team 🤯 I’m still amazed we managed it. → $40M Series B funding in April 2024 with PeakSpan Capital. → Saw our efforts, motivation, and passion pay off when Nectar was recognized as the 2nd Fastest Growing Company in Utah County, 1st fastest growing software company in Utah, 8th fastest growing software company in the U.S., and 87th fastest growing company in the U.S. (across all industries). → 300% increase in revenue in Q3 2023 vs Q3 2024 (Q3 was also 50% above our revenue Q2 2024). → Saw every department at Nectar grow in excellence. I’m in awe of the caliber of Engineering, CS, Marketing, Sales, and what they accomplish. → Relished the challenge and variety of asks in the beginning as Nectar’s sole designer, including working on print design (looking at you, 28’ tradebooth) and animations for the first time. That animation announcing Nectar’s new logo a year ago? That was my first animation, and I’m still proud of myself for figuring it out enough to make that 😂. → Spent way too much on Holiday gas station runs (RIP old office). This is a long list, but for the record I cut it in half from what it was 😅. I’m grateful Nate reached out on LinkedIn right at the perfect time when I was looking to switch things up, and that we’ve made a great team ever since. Getting to work closely with our little product design team—Nate, Mason, Tyler, and Maya—and many, many others keeps me growing and keeps me motivated on the daily. Nectar’s mission and way of working resonated with me from the beginning. It’s rewarding to see our company continue to gain momentum and maturity, all while seeing how much room we still have to grow. Very, very grateful to be part of the journey. As we say, it’s still Day 1 at Nectar. 🚀

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It took me a while to write consistently again, because, honestly, I'm not as consumed by the same topics I was obsessed with 8-10 years ago. I don’t spend my days frustrated about the use of personas or defining what UX is. And, I guess, that’s great…in a sense. It would mean quite a level of stagnation if I kept on defining UX over and over in blog posts, 10 years later. So, what is on my mind? In the past 7 years, I became a parent, there were 2 presidents that I don’t agree with/are unethical, there was a pandemic and long quarantine, I went to a different country to go back to school, layoffs happened all over tech, I was away from my kid for 3 months, I hit middle age, there is a genocide and its denial both ongoing, and the increasing adoption (or marketing) of AI. Lots of life and world things. So. Where my head is at now…is a mix of things: - I want my career to grow, and I still want to be the best practitioner I can be. What does that mean for me now, and how do I get there? (I revisit this every 2 years or so, with a process I've refined over the years) - I want to be a good parent. I want my child to grow equipped for the changing world; and I want a world for her that is caring and wise. I want to understand what’s in my power to shape this world, for the next generation. And, hopefully, not make things worse. (I'm able to tap into what I learned in media research and content strategy for planning my approach to this) - I want to make sure that I can provide. My kid is only 7, so there’s a long way to go before she can provide for herself, and I’m already 41. How do I make sure that my income is resilient enough? Not just for what we need, but for our dreams. - Sub-themes are: - How can I be more efficient: Hit all these, and still have time to breathe - How can I work with people better - How can I grow in my skill gaps And, I always felt that it was…odd to write about these. Oddly personal, and oddly abstract. But, we’ll see, right. I recently read a Cal Newport blog post on “writing your own textbook to learn”. Let’s try and share my progress.

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Patterns for implementing human-centric design thinking and UX to GenAI #GenAI #UX #AI

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If we're not talking about design maturity, agile process, or craft, then us designers are probably talking about ✨quality.✨ I certainly see my interviewer's eyes light up when I mention this magical word. "Design is the one that has to hold the quality bar," I tell them. But what if that didn't have to be true? For a truly high-quality product, I don't think it should be design holding the line. It has to be something baked into the organization - everyone holds the quality bar. Even though "quality" is a slippery thing to define, if we can define it and hold ourselves to it, we can reduce the tension in the org and start to think less about the mere baseline quality for the product and more about raising that bar - delighting the user. I very much enjoyed Luke Anthony Firth's take on how they folded quality into their product building process. Have a read! https://lnkd.in/g4SenmYZ #designleadership #productprocess #productdesign #productquality #designquality #opentowork

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Do you want consistency between designers and front-end developers? Use of design tokens. When everyone uses the same terms, it simplifies things for both teams. Here's Google's introduction to design tokens and how you can implement them: https://lnkd.in/gpWMwqVz

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I know that @Ben Syverson and I are “strange” in the universe of potential business buyers, but I think there is method to our madness (at least that is what I tell myself 😅). Check out why we think we could be a perfect fit for the right business. Know of any leads? Send them my way! #design #designthinking #entreprenurship

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I'm thrilled to share that my latest product and design discovery article is live on Mind the Product! As a consultant, I've observed that the term 'Discovery' can have varying interpretations across different teams. It's not uncommon to encounter a team deeply immersed in a solution yet lacking a shared understanding of the customer opportunity they're addressing. At Lab Zero, we meet clients where they are and advocate for discovery while maintaining flexibility. We often employ lightweight methodologies to foster a shared understanding, even when work is already underway. Teresa Torres' book “Continuous Discovery Habits” is a guide to developing the mindset and practices that enable teams to discover and deliver value to their customers throughout the product development process. Her explanation of the 'Opportunity Solution Tree' helped me articulate a process for asking questions and bridging gaps when joining a new team. The first part of this two-part series looks at reversing the 'Opportunity Solution Tree' to establish a connection between the ongoing solution, customer opportunities, and business outcomes. The second part (coming soon!) will explore strategies for identifying gaps in your team's understanding of customer needs and the necessary measures to mitigate risks before launch. This series will help consultants, new team members, or a struggling team connect with that all-important why and launch valuable experiences for their customers and their orgs. Have you tried something like this with your team? Feedback is appreciated! If you haven't explored Mind The Product's extensive content library, I highly recommend it! In addition to articles about discovery and understanding customer needs, the community has shared insightful perspectives on product leadership, business, and teams. It's a great place to see perspectives on processes and theories informed by real-world use.  #ProductDiscovery #Design #Discovery #ContinuousDiscovery #Onboarding #Risk #CustomerOpportunity #Value #BusinessOutcomes

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Managing people is difficult work that most people aren't prepared for. Design leadership is easy: you can learn how to do a decent job by more or less doing your job everyday and learning from other design leaders. But as you climb the ranks, there's rarely any intention given to people leadership. You're sort of just... thrown into that role as part of a promotion. When I had this realization some years ago, I made it a point to collect information on how to be a good people leader, as well as a good design leader. I had had my share of awful leadership, and never wanted anyone I managed to have to go through the same thing I did. It's not our fault that management isn't prioritized as a skill that needs to be taught, but we can still take responsibility for learning those skills on our own. The thing that made the most impact on me was this article from Carta. It was so impactful that I've structured my entire management / leadership style around it. I constantly refer to it when I have a problem I need to solve or when I have a colleague who asks for advice. If you lead or manage people in any way, or it's something you aspire to do, read this article, save it, refer to it again and again. https://lnkd.in/gtMvXv5d

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🚀 Are Companies Cheating UX Maturity with Design Systems? In a recent blog post (https://lnkd.in/etYdAjDW), I shared how some companies attempt to fast-track their design maturity by adopting a design system before determining the best designs to use in the system. The result is a false sense of UX sophistication followed by surprise, and the system doesn't meet expectations. In a recent conversation, a startup was eager to purchase an out-of-the-box design system but still needed to define their product market fit, audience, or user flows. It's like handing over the keys to a Lamborghini to a first-time driver—exciting but potentially disastrous. Imagine trying to build a spaceship without a blueprint—you might end up with a shiny but ultimately useless rocket ship. A well-defined UX process ensures you have the right tools for your specific product needs suited to your brand. How is your organization focusing on the tools or cultivating a culture? If you need guidance on integrating a design system or getting your organization ready for one, feel free to reach out to @Akendi. We're here to help you navigate the journey to design maturity effectively. 🌟 #DesignSystems #UXMaturity #ProductDesign #DesignCulture #Startup #Akendi #UXDesign

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Most designers are trained to present work to our peers, but as your career matures, your audience expands to include many other departments who don’t speak “design”. This article resonated with me and offers some sage advice about the use of storytelling and a “business lens” to craft more compelling presentations. #ProductDesign #Storytelling #UserResearch #BusinessObjectives

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In my latest podcast interview, Greg Petroff shares insights about the state of design and the opportunities open to designers in these dynamic times. Check it out! https://lnkd.in/gTXpQgjn #UxDesign #Ux #Design #Leadership

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So immensely proud of such an amazing group of people who've been working so hard on this big set of launches at Figma for #Config2024. ICYMI what we launched today, this blog post recap covers it well: https://lnkd.in/gX3KSWj3 I wanted to share a couple fun tweets from a few of the fantastic designers/leaders that worked on some of the things you may have seen in our keynote this morning. * This is not even close to an exhaustive list of those who worked on today's launches, but just a quick lil glimpse showcasing a few who happened to post about them today (also linkedin obscures the links for some reason, but they're all just fun behind the scenes tweets not shady sites I promise lol): Figma Slides - Keeyen Y.: https://lnkd.in/gmxBH3wq - Mihika Kapoor: https://lnkd.in/gr54Upnu - Natasha T. / Ryan Reid: https://lnkd.in/gd-v9gE3 Redesigned Figma (UI3) - Ryhan Hassan: https://lnkd.in/g868XAze (can't wait to watch the behind the scenes talk with him and Joel Miller and KC Oh as well as Wayne Sun's when they come online later) - Tim Van Damme: https://lnkd.in/gQyvqzYr - Nikolas Klein: https://lnkd.in/ge_kKyvD Figma AI - Jordan Singer: https://lnkd.in/gXmFeXTM - Oscar Dumlao: https://lnkd.in/gkACVY_c - Marco Cornacchia: https://lnkd.in/gMt3BvVY - Vincent van der Meulen: https://lnkd.in/gCrHvcVu - Jediah Katz: https://lnkd.in/gMxEu7i8 - Giorgio Caviglia: https://lnkd.in/gCNVQrKC And more: - Jenny Wen (pages design by rocky chen ✌️): https://lnkd.in/gd_6RHAv - Soundharya Muthukrishnan: https://lnkd.in/gsnibt-j - Daniel Destefanis: https://lnkd.in/gu6mYBe6 - Becca Ramos: https://lnkd.in/gqM7RGKQ We hope you enjoy these updates, and excited to meet more of the amazing community at Config for Day 2 tomorrow! I'm particularly excited for Marcin Wichary's talk tomorrow at 3:40 https://lnkd.in/gvJNNerg

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