Hey, this is Simonas with a monthly issue of the Design Magic UX newsletter! In every issue, I share handpicked UX Design resources and insights.

Quote of the month 📖

"The key design skill is less about beautiful all-encompassing Figma documentation with all the kinds of journey maps and personas, or mastering a “process”. It’s about being so keenly situationally aware of what unknowns are in front of you so you can pick out what tools or design activities target them precisely."

Eduardo Hernandez

Insights from LinkedIn ✍️

50+ Product Management templates for UX designers

There is very little difference between PM and UX disciplines. Most educational materials and foundational knowledge are the same.

In many companies, UX performs PM tasks or vice versa.

Paweł Huryn 🇺🇦 shares this great Notion document with various templates, frameworks, and models. There are multiple concepts that UX should understand, and use on a daily basis.

Disclaimer: templates are just tools and should be taken with a grain of salt. Use it for learning purposes.

How to influence people as a UX designer?

... Many UX and PMs often push to represent the user and ensure the best design practices. The fix for the situation is hard work and building influence.

Here are a few tips that help to make an impact as a designer.

Prerequisites:

1. Caring
Be the person that cares the most in the room.

2. Building social influence
Build genuine connections and friendships. Help others. Grab a beer with your colleague.

3. Knowing the thing
Learn everything that needs to be known on the subject and industry. Build craft and knowledge authority.

4. Become assertive.
Don’t be afraid to speak up. Be calm and positive. Smile.

Tactics:

1. Casual pushback (Disagreement)
In many cases fruitless without strong evidence. Learn to speak business and numbers.

2. Escalation - organizational level.
Never works. Great way to find enemies.

3. Going rogue.
Just do the thing and apologize later. Short-term solution - you have to live with consequences.

4. Escalation 1:1 (Sharing your concerns)
Relatively effective.

5. Consistent casual pushback (AKA nagging)
Works from time to time. People sometimes just need to be reminded.

6. Ignorance (doing nothing)
80% of problems solve by themselves. There are only a few left, that are worth the fight. Pick the right ones.

7. Rallying support
UX and product is a team sport - makes wonders.

8. Teaching design and product
Mixed results. People do not like to be told how to do things.

9. "Google has it!"
Using the example of a well-known brand as an argument. Limited usage, can backfire.

10. Involvement
One of the most effective techniques is to involve decision-makers in your UXR activities. People need to see and experience problems by themselves.

Upcoming UX Events ⭐

TheUXConf 2023 in London
Tired of the same old theoretical UX conference talks? We've got no «waffle», no slides UX design conference on September 13th, 2023 at the iconic Southbank Centre in London 🇬🇧 and online 🛋️ — just live demos of UX and UI tools, design quiz, and «Designer vs AI» battlefield. The most diverse crew of speakers from Eurostar, Tripadvisor, HubSpot, and others.

Get 10% off the conference tickets using discount code DESIGNMAGICNEWSLETTER10 at theuxconf.com

UX Resources 💎

The UX Cookbook
Handcrafted recipes to get you started with everything UX — user research, design, usability testing, and more. We're always cooking up new recipes, so check back frequently!

Practical UI - Ultimate UI design book
A book to learn a logic-driven approach to design intuitive, accessible, and beautiful interfaces using quick and practical guidelines.

Monthly UX Reads ☕

High UX Salaries have Held Steady for 25 Years
After adjusting for inflation, salaries for UX professionals have been about the same from the earliest salary data in 1998 to the newest data collected this year. The gap between entry-level staff and senior UX professionals has grown in recent years, marking a noteworthy rise in the value of UX experience.
How do you visualize the impact of a feature?
A great example from Leah Tharin on mapping out and visualizing the impact of features.
Dark Mode vs. Light Mode: Which Is Better? (Light mode is a winner)
"Light mode leads to better performance most of the time."

Featured Design Jobs 💼

Find new UX design career opportunities.

Open UX positions:

Senior Product Designer at Remote
Global · Remote · Full time
Product Designer at LoopReturns
Global · Remote · Full time · $110,400 - $165,600 a year
Product Designer at MetaBase
Global · Remote · Full time
Product Designer at WidfallData
United States · Full time · $120,000 - $140,000 a year
Product Designer at Smartwyre
Global · Remote · Full time

→ Join talent collective or post your job listing

UX meme of the month 🦄

The bittersweet comic is brought via Hang Xu

"One of the biggest risks of working in design immature environments is that the quality of your portfolio is dragged down by your stakeholders.

I've seen far too many designers whose case studies didn't have the requisite process, depth, and logic that hiring managers are looking for.

- No research or testing to mitigate risks
- Rushed and half-baked features
- Zero strategic planning or logic
- No KPIs/OKRs or metrics of any kind
- Feature flops post-launch
- Quickly abandoned and never iterated on"

Want to learn more about product design? 🎓

Here are 3 ways I can help you:

Follow me for more insights about UX and Design on Linkedin
Check out my UX Portfolio Resources to learn how to build your design portfolio
Book a call or portfolio review with me

Support Newsletter 📬

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Share your ideas on how it can be improved. Reply to this email or simply ping me on LinkedIn.

Created by Simonas Maciulis

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