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Key Takeaways from the 2021 Design + Diversity Conference

Embedding inclusive design and user accessibility into our everyday ways of working starts with us designers. At ITX, we walk the talk and take our commitments seriously. So when we learned about the 2021 Design + Diversity Conference, we made a point to show up – in force.

The 3-day, virtual event featured a diverse set of speakers and attendees. Conference keynotes addressed the following topics, each fundamental to the growth and acceptance of inclusive design…

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Why Adopting a Diverse and Inclusive Mindset Matters in Your Product Development Process

Whether you’re building products for hundreds, thousands, or millions of individuals, design that provides as many points of access as you have users is no longer a nice-to-have. For reasons based not only in social responsibility but in sound business management, inclusive design is a must. And embedding it into our everyday ways of working begins with the designers and design teams whose duty it is to carry the banner forward.

Over the past few years, the UX design team at ITX started thinking about adopting a more inclusive lens in our work and soon came to realize why it was so important to us as designers, but also as human beings.

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How To Conduct Effective Virtual Design Sprints

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Coronavirus Adds New Opportunity For Distributed Design Teams To Go Virtual
Even before coronavirus isolated us from our software product team members, UX designers at ITX Corp. created a guide for translating the design sprint process to a virtual environment. Our already-distributed workforce has enjoyed using the virtual design sprint for months. And they’re confident its value will outlive the pandemic that inspired its expanded use.

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Human-Centered Design

Product momentum graphic human centered with factors on the outside

Product people get excited about solving problems that make people’s lives better. On that we can all agree. It’s the approach we choose to achieve that goal where differences arise. Sometimes the differences are significant and obvious – Agile vs. Waterfall, for example. Sometimes, they seem much less so. Take user-centered design vs. human-centered design. Aren’t users of our products human? Of course they are, but there’s more to the difference than a mere distinction.

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Product momentum graphic human centered with factors on the outside

ITX Product Momentum Podcast – Episode 14: Taking Product Design Beyond Today’s Conventions

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The common understanding is that to be successful in today’s digital environment designers need to solve problems while building products that people want and need to use. While that may be the core of it, it’s only the core. There’s so much more to it. When we talk about interaction design, designing software products, and today’s rapidly emerging next-gen experiences, designers now need to think about what it means to learn, to adapt, and to change.
In this episode, Sean and Joe chat with Tim Wood. Tim wears a couple hats these days, one as Professor of Industrial Design and Interactive Design at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), the other as Design and User Experience Innovation Lead at Corning Inc. Playing in both sandboxes gives Tim the opportunity to engage in the private sector while peering beyond the horizon through the lens of higher education.

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What’s My (Product’s) Purpose?

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For years, thought and expression had been democratized. Ultimately, the rod of creation had been surrendered to the people, and we watched chaos ensue (among other good things).

A liberated media is an invaluable commodity, don’t get me wrong. In fact, that type of unorganized drive gave momentum to otherwise underprivileged causes and previously silenced personalities, effectively leading traditional media and 20th century propaganda machines to a state of near demise.

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ITX Product Momentum Podcast – Episode 10: Evolution of the Product Manager Role

Illustration project manager juggling roles and responsibilities

The product manager role has been around for decades, but its contributions have been generally overlooked and misunderstood. Opportunities to apply the product manager skill set as a lever of growth had not been fully realized – or were missed entirely. No longer is that the case, according to the 2019 State of Product Leadership report, prepared by Pendo + Product Collective.
In this episode, hosts Sean and Joe speak with Pendo Chief Marketing Officer Jake Sorofman about the recent report and the continuous evolution of the product manager role. “It’s a role on the rise,” Jake says, “but also one in a state of transition. It’s only in the last 10 years that digital product management has really come into focus as a very strategic part of the business.”

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The Importance of Search – Part 1

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“But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”

This classic lyric from Bono and U2 hails from their 1987 song of the same name. Unfortunately, this introspection often typifies many users’ experience when using the search functionality on a site or platform.

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Illustration of search leading to data, video and information

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