Why did we hire a UX specialist to regenerate ProdPad?

If you’ve been following Janna’s posts on our ProdPad regenerated project, you’ll know that we’re full swing into a complete rewrite and redesign of ProdPad. When we kicked off this project one of the very first decisions we took was to bring in a dedicated UX designer. This might seem strange given that both Janna and I are Product Managers with extensive experience in UX, for a variety of different products. So why did we bring in Mojca?

This can be put down to three pretty good reasons:

Time, A fresh pair of eyes, and expertise.

A UX specialist saves us time

Both Janna and I knew that we’d lack the time to produce every wireframe and update all the interactions properly. Saving us time has not only freed us up for other aspects of this project, but it has saved everyone time across the entire team. If either or both of us were responsible for UX then the developers could only move as fast as we could get them updates. We wanted to remove ourselves as bottlenecks completely from the ProdPad Regeneration project

Not only would this lack of time have delayed how quickly we could move, but a patchy process of wireframing – executed when we could grab a spare 30 minutes – would have seriously limited the scope of what we could revamp and improve. Hiring a UX expert has helped us to avoid creating a disjointed UX experience; instead we’re developing something that’s focused and cohesive across the whole app.

A UX specialist offers fresh eyes

Like any founders, both Janna and I have been completely immersed in ProdPad for the last few years. We know too much about the logic that went behind any UX decisions, and we’ve adapted to all oddities. We applied as few constraints as possible for Mojca and we made it clear that we were keen for her to question absolutely everything.

We wanted the UX update for ProdPad’s regeneration to be a revolution instead of an evolution. By bringing in fresh eyes and a fresh perspective we opened up the redesign to wider possibilities, that Janna and I were just too close to see.

Which brings me to my last and most important reason

A UX specialist brings us real expertise

While Janna and I can do UX, there is a difference between doing this as product manager versus as a professional. We just don’t have the same knowledge and expertise as someone who’s studied UX in detail and worked on a huge number of projects for a huge variety of applications.

The expertise that Mojca has brought to the table has been the key component to allow a revolution for ProdPad’s UX in this project. Her expertise has offered us three key advantages over and above our efforts going it alone

1. Cohesive and comprehensive UX for interactions, right down to the smallest details
2. UX improvements that neither Janna and I would have thought of that push the boundaries of what I thought possible
3. A stronger foundation of intelligent design so that the UX of ProdPad will suit those just starting out and our advanced users alike

The UX improvements we’re going to bring about through the ProdPad Regenerated project certainly isn’t the end, but Mojca’s work has laid a fantastic foundation for us to continue to evolve and improve the UX of ProdPad in the future. We simply could not have done it without her help.
This experience has brought home for me the role that Product Managers play in the centre of tech, business and customer. While you need knowledge in all three areas yourself, knowing when to step back and bring in the expertise and coordinate with the other functions is even more important. Hiring a UX expert has not only helped us to see through this project, but it has made us better product managers.

If you’d like to find out more about how we’re regenerating ProdPad, or even to get onto the beta programme, get in touch with us here or on @prodpad