When you start something – a team, an initiative, a company – you always have great opportunities ahead of you, but also great challenges. Daniela Hellmann and Karin Pirklbauer founded Cloudflight’s user experience team with a common goal and shared responsibility, open communication and persistence. Recently, the team has become an integral part of the success of enterprise projects. Read more about the team’s initial struggles, working methods and future plans.
What exactly UX/UI professionals do?
“The UX profession is exciting and fulfilling for anyone who enjoys working with people, understanding their needs and problems, and likes to solve problems iteratively and creatively,” says Daniela. “It’s a varied job where you can really make a difference and make people’s lives easier.”
Why do you need a UX team in a software company??
“UX is important for software quality and user adoption,” says Karin. A few years ago, when software projects at Cloudflight required UX contributions, we got last-minute requests from project managers that were difficult to handle. Also, we didn’t have an overview of the workload of other UX experts and professionals. Most of the time, each UX developer worked on their own and since there was no team, there were few opportunities to learn from each other,” Karin describes the hurdles in the early days.
“We wanted to find a solution for that and create an environment where everyone can grow,” Dani adds. “That’s why we created the UX team.”
First steps in building a team
“We knew we had to create a framework where we could share and talk to each other. So we introduced weekly meetings where we coordinate, show what we’re working on, and also get feedback on our work. We use chats and ad hoc calls to brainstorm, discuss concepts and share ideas together. While building our team, we could feel the benefits of the agile way of working from the beginning: we use retrospective meetings to learn and share ideas in regular stand-ups. It’s great to have people around who are as interested in UX as you are. That’s where the best solutions come from,” reveals Karin. “Even though we don’t work in the same places (I think I’ve seen Dani in person five times), it feels like we’re in the same place. As leaders of the UX team, Dani and I are also responsible for coordinating the UX work in the company and making sure everyone is well utilized. Together it’s much easier. We also review and discuss applications together to find new people for our team. Now in the summer of 2021, we are a group of seven and are looking forward to welcoming a:n new:n employee:in soon!”
The driving forces behind the UX team
When we asked Karin why it is best to build a team with Dani, she told us: “Dani is a very empathetic person. She finds the right words even in tricky conversations and always has everyone’s best interests in mind. That being said, she is a highly skilled UX developer and a very good friend. We share our ideas, challenge each other and push ourselves even further.”
Dani got the same question from us to Karin: “Trust is the foundation of our great collaboration. We can talk about anything and there are no taboos. I really admire that Karin looks at challenges and changes from different perspectives and focuses on the positive aspects and side effects. She’s a creator and a doer, which means she’s not only efficient but fun to work with. We are good friends, great sparring partners and an unbeatable team – that’s why I know we can achieve anything together.”
Teamwork and future milestones
Starting something is one thing. Maintaining and evolving it on an ongoing basis is another. The UX team has been at Cloudflight for ‘years. The big question now is how the founders see the future of UX in the enterprise.
“In the beginning, it was often easier to sell UX to our clientele than to build it up internally within our company. But today, it’s clear that our user-centric thinking, agile approach and long-term planning mean that we work regularly and closely with colleagues on Cloudflight projects,” says Dani. “We prioritize, try things out, do multiple iterations (not everything has to be perfect from the start), provide regular feedback, and participate in retrospective meetings.”
“First of all, I’m grateful for everything our team has accomplished so far. It amazes me how motivated, helpful and responsible everyone is,” says Karin, highlighting the benefits of teamwork. “Over the last few years, we have been able to refine our profile in the company very well. Now is the time to focus on bringing our successes and capabilities to the outside world. I believe Cloudflight is known for great software. In the future, I’d love to hear people say, ‘Oh, and they also do great UX. ‘” admits Karin.
The mission of User Experience
“Our mission is to share knowledge about UX within our team, our company, with our customers and clients, and even beyond (conferences, meetups, courses),” Dani explains.
“I strongly believe that focusing on user needs, goals and desires in software development increases the quality, acceptance and success of an application. That’s why I personally – but also we as a team – like to be involved in all our projects and create software projects with great user experience and usability for our clientele,” Dani reveals.