The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide

Leah Buley's "The User Experience Team of One" fills the void in current UX literature, which glosses over the challenges that UX professionals face in a fledgling UX practice.

There are two parts to the book - philosophy and practice. Philosophy serves as a short and informative primer for beginning UX pros. Practice makes up the bulk of the book and is composed of 27 UX "recipes" that you can use at various stages of a project. You won't find exhaustive coverage of each method here - that's not the point. Instead Leah takes the traditional deliverable-heavy UX techniques and distills them into key components sharing tips on how to use them in the real world. I also liked how each method had a brief section on how to apply them remotely. Let's face it for those of us working in large organizations - we're not all in the same building.

Saying "constraints largely come in the form of other people" Leah cuts right to the heart of the problem. Frequently it's not UX work that's the challenge - it's getting that crucial buy-in. While the title suggests a "Team of One" Leah's theme throughout the book is collaboration. By immersing folks into the process from the beginning you build support for your work over the course of the project. But even if that's not enough there's a dedicated chapter on UX evangelism.

So if you're newly minted UX professional and you're joining an organization with a growing UX practice - buy it. If you have experience and even if you're not a team of one - I still recommend you take a look due to the book's fresh perspective and practical focus.

In the end, The User Experience Team of One serves as a UX catalyst giving you tools to get started while arming you with tips to overcome the inevitable barriers in building a UX practice at your company.

This book's title is what caught my attention and after reading it.....I think the title is prefect. Through this book, Leah is giving UX designers, both aspiring and existing, techniques and the motivation to
bring focus to the role of a UX Designer, as well as strategies on how to convince an organization that the role of UX should exist.

This book definitely has an audience and if you're part of that audience, it's a great resource; so, it's important to know who the book is not for. This book isn't as valuable for those who are already experienced UX designers and / or work in an organization which already has UX processes in place. Another situation where this material would not be helpful would be with start ups or organizations who have a more contemporary product design philosophy, e.g. anything 'Lean'. This has to do with how much the book relies on generating deliverables....lots of them. Deliverables make total sense when you're trying to convince others that UX should be taken seriously and / or if you're working in an organization which has disconnected team members. Again, if you're in situation where progress is measured by how many charts, graphs and wireframes are created - then this book is perfect for you.

Besides being very well structured and having great 'If You Only Do One Thing...' summaries, the work throughly covers situations and gives strategies on how to be successful in navigating them. Have trouble getting buy in from the boss that UX is important? ... not sure if you should be freelance or not?...dealing with an organization filled with doubters of UX's value? This book has you covered... and then some.

The '...and then some' is what leads to a kink in the book which holds it back from being invaluable from end to end.Read more ›

I knew this was going to be a great book ever since I saw Leah Buley's excellent 2008 presentation with the same name. As soon as it hit my Kindle I read it from start to finish. Between the UX philosophy presented and suggested real-world tools, I am confident that what I learned from this book will help me strengthen my skills as an independent UX consultant. Thank you Leah Buley!

Use this book if you need to be completely flooded with techniques on conducting UX (mostly) on your own.

This book is written for people just getting started, but it's great for UX practitioners (like me) who find themselves introducing user research into a team that knows the benefits, but has no clue how to execute and scant patience.

You may recognize a lot of the techniques, and most of them are geared for quick and dirty implementation. I encourage you to read the table of contents, as all discussed techniques are listed there.

Fantastic book for both experienced and new UX designers. I went into this thinking that it was going to rehash techniques and methods I already knew about, but instead it provided me with a very practical manual of tools, how and when to use them, and how to deal with being the only person on your team advocating for UX. Highly recommended.