I have been thinking about my UX career goals since the start of the year and so just before the end of Q1, I decided to write them down so I can refer back to them and hold myself accountable. What follows is my approach to setting my professional OKRs (objectives and key results) for the year which link to an overarching mission. I’m sharing it as it helped me reflect on how the projects I’ve worked on to date have shaped me, and strategically identify areas I’d like to focus and improve on moving forward.

My Mission Statement

To become a skilled UX Designer that designs experiences that render the intentions of users’ behaviours. This was inspired by Jared Spool’s definition of experience design — “Design is the rendering of intent”, which immediately resonated with me when I heard it from my manager.

This means that I ensure that no aspect of the user’s experience with a product/service happens without my conscious explicit intent, by taking into account every possibility of every action the user is likely to take and by understanding the user’s expectations at every step of the way through that process.

This didn’t sound very concrete or actionable to me at first but by breaking the job of crafting the user experience down into its component elements, I can better understand the roadmap towards my vision. While there are several conceptual models that you can use to break down the elements of UX in a digestible and practical way including Norman’s Three Levels of Design, I opted for BJ Fogg’s Behaviour Change model. It’s a model to understand the underlying factors that shape behaviour, which hypothesises that three elements must converge at the same moment for a behaviour to occur: Motivation, Ability, and a Prompt.

I then mapped these to the elements of user experience, at least, the ones I’m particularly interested in developing and growing into and finally defined the relevant OKRs.

As per the model, in order for a behaviour to occur, a person must first be motivated and able to perform the behaviour. Then, if they have an ample level of motivation and ability to perform the given behaviour, they will follow through when prompted. Therefore, to render the intended behaviour all three elements need to be present.

Motivation

There is extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic means that someone can be driven to do something either by external factors, like the prospect of receiving a reward, (i.e. loyalty points, money, etc.) or intrinsic, by internal factors, like the enjoyment derived from doing a certain type of activity.

UX element it applies to: UX Strategy and Research

To uncover users’ motivation, we need to critically ask ourselves: “Do people really care about product/feature [X]? And to answer this requires carrying out research activities to better understand users’ needs, behaviours and attitudes, as well as identify and remove any frustrations and move closer to meeting or even exceeding their expectations.

Objective: Become a strong advocate for users.

Key Result 1:

0.3 — Acquire key facilitation skills and be able to conduct at least 2 usability studies.

1.0 — Do the same for at least 1 generative and 1 evaluative usability study.

Key Result 2:

0.3 — Plan and facilitate collaborative, cross-disciplinary workshops where stakeholders feel comfortable and actively engage throughout discussions and activities.

1.0 — Plan and lead collaborative, cross-disciplinary workshops where stakeholders talk openly about challenges and opportunities and build trust between design and other disciplines.

Key Result 3:

0.3 — Develop user journey maps to gain holistic view of users’ experience and interactions with the brand.

1.0 — Develop user journey maps to identify pain points and proactively provide recommendations to eliminate them.

Ability

There are two sides to ability. On one side, it is driven by the individual’s capacity or skill to do a task. On the other side, it is also increased by how simple the environment or product makes it for users to complete that task. At this point, people are asking, “Can I do it?” or “How easy is it?”

UX element this relates to: Interaction Design and Information Architecture

Information Architecture deals with the arrangement and presentation of content elements to facilitate human understanding. While Interaction Design is concerned with describing possible user behaviour and defining how the system will accommodate and respond to that behaviour.

Objective: Design interfaces and interactions that best align with users’ mental models.

Key Result 1:

0.3 — Undertake IA analysis of our websites and produce relevant artefacts that help ensure information is well presented and organised.

1.0 — Leverage understanding of the relationships between parent — child and sibling categories to inform design decisions for UI elements such as navigational components.

Key Result 2:

0.3 — Create mobile prototypes that are reasonably interactive and can help uncover behavioural and attitudinal insights in user testing sessions.

1.0 -Create prototypes across devices/viewports that are highly interactive, feel very realistic and can help uncover deep behavioural and attitudinal insights in user testing sessions.

Key Result 3:

0.3 — Evaluate current processes/tools in which the team creates and test prototypes with users and explore potential recommendations.

1.0 — Proactively research, test and introduce new processes/tools that could improve quality and efficiency in the way in which the team creates prototypes.

Prompt

Prompts are the most visible aspects of a product or service. They serve as the signal of when and where to take action. Because prompts form part of the sensory world around us, information about them are processed subconsciously. We don’t actively think about “what” are signals or “where” to find them; most often, we perceive and produce an immediate reaction to prompts.

UX element this relates to: Visual Design

Visual design is about selecting the right interface elements for the task the user is trying to accomplish and arranging them on the screen in a way that will be readily understood and easily used. Tasks will often stretch across several screens, each containing a different set of interface elements for the user to contend with.

Objective: Create aesthetically appealing interfaces whose elements are easiest to access and use.

Key Result 1:

0.3 — Design UI components that follow best practices regarding grid-based layout, typography and visual hierarchy.

1.0 — Design UI components that not only follow best practices but also leverage principles of cognitive psychology.

Key Result 2:

0.3 — Deliver at least 2 production-ready features.

1.0 — Deliver at least 4 production-ready features along with clear documentation, links to user flows and prototypes to demonstrate how components will look and behave across use cases.

To keep the article concise and relevant, I intentionally left soft skills out, but don’t be fooled as these are just as important if not more than the technical skills, if any UX Designer is to have a real impact in their organisation. Soft skills may include one’s ability to effectively collaborate, communicate, present, give/receive feedback, show initiative, and plan activities.