Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

What Is It Like To Be Part of The UX Team at Compass?
Gold
Thursday, March 11, 2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Share the love for this talk
What Is It Like To Be Part of The UX Team at Compass?
Speakers: Andreas Huebner , Amy Takata and Craig Brookes
Link:

Summary

Join the moderator, Andreas Huebner (User Research Manager), as he runs a Q&A session with Amy Takata (User Researcher), and Craig Brookes (Staff Product Designer) to discuss life at Compass, the team culture, and the reasons for joining the Compass team.

Key Insights

  • User research and design at Compass are deeply interwoven, resulting in stronger, user-centered products.

  • Generative research conducted remotely using low-fidelity sketches encourages authentic user input without pressure.

  • Pandemic-driven virtual collaboration tools, like InVision and Slack, enabled effective remote user research and team communication.

  • Research drives both discovery and validation phases, ensuring designs align with actual customer needs.

  • The Marketing Center team at Compass focuses on automating marketing content tailored to distinct agent personas and regional differences.

  • Rapid growth of the UX team at Compass has increased leadership buy-in and elevated research’s influence on product strategy.

  • Cross-disciplinary collaboration leads to proactive problem identification, not just reactive responses to requests.

  • Remote work has prompted creative social interactions, helping maintain team culture and connection.

  • User journeys specific to Compass’s platform are complex and require in-depth exploration rather than assumptions from general market research.

  • Compass operates in a 'blue ocean' space of unexplored marketing automation, making their UX work uniquely pioneering.

Notable Quotes

"Design and research at Compass have become so integrated that we are powerful partners shaping product vision together."

"We had to figure out new ways to do generative research virtually, like having users design with us over video chat."

"I work with Amy almost every day, but we’ve never met in person — all collaboration has been remote."

"Creating low-fidelity sketches allowed users to focus on their journey without feeling pressure over polished designs."

"Everyone at Compass now wants research on everything, showing increased curiosity and buy-in across teams."

"Our user base is really fun and complex; agents vary from hyper brand-specific to wanting broad automated content."

"Compass is exploring unknown territory — we don’t know what we’ll find, and that makes this work exciting."

"We moved from tactical research to addressing big open questions thanks to leadership support."

"Remote work forced us to be more intentional about communication since we lost casual walk-by chats."

"The culture at Compass made me feel like I was working with friends every day before the pandemic."

George Abraham
Design Systems To-Go: Reimagining Developer Handoff, and Introducing App Builder (Part 2)
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Christian Rohrer
Insight Types That Influence Enterprise Decision Makers
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Brendan Jarvis
Framing Tomorrow by Questioning Today
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Kelly Dern
AI as a Design Partner: How to Get the Most Out of AI Tools to Scale Your Process
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Frances Yllana
DesignOps–Leading the Path to Parity (Videoconference)
2023 • DesignOps Community
Dave Malouf
Theme 3: Introduction and Provocation
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Jessamyn Edwards
Surviving Your UX Career in Enterprise Design (Videoconference)
2021 • Enterprise Community
Marieke McCloskey
User Science: Product Analytics & User Research
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Mackenzie Guinon
M.C. Escher’s UX Research Career Ladder
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Ops without Designers
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Bria Alexander
Theme 1 Intro
2024 • DesignOps 2024
Gold
Vincent Brathwaite
Opener: Past, Present, and Future—Closing the Racial Divide in Design Teams
2020 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Richard Buchanan
Creativity and Principles in the Flourishing Enterprise
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Paul Pangaro, PhD
Systems Disciplines: Table Stakes for 21st Century Organizations
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Tricia Wang
SCALE: Discussion
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Vasileios Xanthopoulos
A Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approach to User-Centric Maturity at Scale
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold

More Videos

Monty Hammontree

"Satya Nadella talks about empathy a lot; it’s at the center of everything he does authentically."

Monty Hammontree

The Future of UX Research (Videoconference)

December 3, 2020

Liz Ebengo

"Redemption means buying back or restoring something to its rightful place, transforming adversity into hope."

Liz Ebengo

The Burden on Children: The Cost of Insufficient Post-Conflict Services and Pathways Forward

December 4, 2024

Billy Carlson

"Leave your new feature in the context of how people will see it so it’s easy for stakeholders to understand."

Billy Carlson

Tips to Utilize Wireframes to Tell an Effective Product Story

June 6, 2023

Saara Kamppari-Miller

"Inclusive design happens on a spectrum from accidental to intentional."

Saara Kamppari-Miller

Inclusive Design is DesignOps

September 29, 2021

Ian Swinson

"Careers as ladders, which is how HR wants it to be because it fits financial models, but careers aren’t linear—they’re jungle gyms."

Ian Swinson

Designing and Driving UX Careers

June 8, 2016

Jonathon Colman

"Amy Tibido used to call what I was doing dusting the content — tidying words without solving the underlying problem."

Jonathon Colman

How to Maximize the Impact of Content Design

January 8, 2024

Maria Skaaden

"We were told, can you please make the user experience exactly the same a year from now."

Maria Skaaden

Continuous Design: One eye on the horizon and the other on the next wave

November 8, 2018

Bryce Benton

"Python is great for writing scrapers, and these large language models are great for writing Python."

Bryce Benton

[Demo] AI-powered UX enhancement: Aligning GitHub documentation with USWDS at Austin Public Library

June 4, 2024

Marc Fonteijn

"We do not take cost of living, inflation, or taxes into account, so it’s your homework to contextualize the salary data."

Marc Fonteijn

First Insights from the 2025 Service Design Salary(+) Report

December 4, 2024