Career Stagnation
Hello folks,
I'm looking for some thoughts and opinions on my current situation, maybe some of you out there can relate!
I've been working as a UI/UX designer for a SaaS company for about 10 years now. The team I work on is very old-fashioned. Much of the product direction comes from the top-down and that is part of the reason the product has been languishing and as of late falling very much behind the the competition in terms of user experience, feature set, performance.
My education background is graphic/web design and front-end development. I accepted the role of UX designer after taking some additional training. However the reality of working never really met my expectations (shocker, I know). The company had decided that they needed a UX person and I was it. There was no mentorship, which would have been helpful.
The product is actually a collection of various inter-connected products (think google office suite or ms 365...). Each project (6) is managed separately and has its own teams... except for UX/UI. Up until recently there were two UX/UI folks on staff, including myself. Between the two of us we were responsible for customer research (interviews, surveys), competitor analysis, wire framing, mockups, hi-fi-designs and follow-up for each of the 6 products. Mostly we just do mockups (more on that later) The other designer was recently let go due to cost-cutting.
Product design and development lifecycle has always been:
- get a customer complaint
- create a work item for it
- have a short discussion with the developer on how to fix it
- ask for mockups from UX/UI.
This has changed slightly in the last 18 months to include annual product plans where management sets out their goals for the FY. The creation of the plans has never included participation of UI/UX.
Over the last 10 years I have advocated relentlessly for greater involvement from design in the planning and execution of product and feature design. My direct manager seems to agree with me, but nothing ever changes. I've spoken directly with the various PM's about the issue as well, but they are always laser-focused on their deadlines and resources, and tend to ignore anything else.
According to the user feedback, satisfaction keeps getting low and lower, with many of the complaints directly in the realm of UX.
On rare occasions I have been given the reigns to conduct a feature or product development on my own terms. I assemble teams, conduct research, lead engaging design sessions, validate designs with customers, get approval from stakeholders and management, only to have the project go off the rails after handoff. Someone from engineering who has a long history with the company will veto most/many features without providing rationale apart from "I don't like this" or "customers don't need this". This person doesn't interact with users of the product very often but due to their history with the company, feels like they "know" the market and the user base.
Some things I've tried to introduce to the company in the past, that have been ignored.
- Adding user feedback surveys in all products and sending out user feedback surveys in our quarterly emails
- harmonizing the UI across our products (every product was developed at a different time or purchased from other companies, as a result everything looks and behaves differently)
- Improving integration between products (similar to the previous issue. Across 6 products there are 4 notification systems, or 5 different user management systems)
- Creating a process for selecting which features or products will be designed and developed based on their value to customer and business. Currently we just make whatever the highest-paying customers ask for.
- implementing basic analytics tools to see how customers interact with the product.
- Establishing regular UX touchpoints with customers so we know what's going on with them and our product. (We have customer liaisons who kind of do this, except they are usually only speaking with the customers about complaints, and since they have regional portfolio of customers that they need to keep in order stay employed, they just create top-level urgency for every customer issue that comes up)
- Follow-up with customers post-release to ensure the features have met their needs and expectations
- Include design iteration in the product plan. Today we just release something and forget about it, unless it breaks something else.
I could go on. At this point though I feel like I'm just wandering in the desert. I've worked at this company for so long and yet I still don't feel like I've got anything to show for it. I'm concerned that I'll be stuck here forever, just banging my head against the wall.
I've started to look for work elsewhere, but I'm concerned that the go-nowhere chaos of my current job is going to have a negative impact on my prospects.
Anyway, has anyone here been in a similar situation? Managed to find a way to improve or leave?