100: Tom Greever (Bitovi)

Tom Greever on Innovation City

“If you can’t articulate your design decisions, then you might as well stay home.” — Tom Greever

Welcome to Innovation City—powered by Venture Cafe—where Tyler Kelley and Michael Johnson, Co-Founders of SLAM! Agency, interview innovators, creators, and disruptors to discover how business is changing in the modern world.

Created and produced by SLAM! Agency in cooperation with Venture Cafe St. Louis and Venture Cafe Miami, Innovation City gives you an inside look at how rapidly business and culture are changing thanks to increasing diversity and inclusion, heightened creativity, and a stronger and better-connected business community. Venture Cafe is the largest combined gathering of entrepreneurs and innovators anywhere in the world. Events are held every Thursday in St. Louis, Miami, and other leading innovation cities around the globe.

Today’s guest is Tom Greever, President, UX & Design at Bitovi. Bitovi is a front-end design and development consulting company. Tom joins the team to discuss how UX can be expanded outside apps, his book, Articulating Design Decisions, the different types of UX specializations, tips for how to articulate your design choices, and much more!

They discuss:

• Most people think of the aesthetics of design first
• The importance of watching how people use an app or website
• Constant optimization of helping people complete tasks faster
• UX can be expanded outside of just apps and websites
  • Ex. retailers streamlining UX from app/website to in-store to phone customer service
• User testing can take place in a formal setting or in context to what the app is for
• The most important thing is seeing the app being used in the right context
• Push and pull door handles are a great example of how to think about natural human behavior and interaction with products
• Tom’s book, Articulating Design Decisions
  • The book came from a presentation he made for the St. Louis UX Conference
  • Many designers have a hard time articulating why they design something a certain way
  • The book encourages designers to think about their intentions for design choices
• The different types of UX specializations:
  • Research
  • Visual
  • Interactive
• Many times designers are expected to do all 3 specializations
• Business stakeholders typically look at the face value of design
• The importance of always going back to main goal and problem you’re trying to solve
• Ways to communicate with business stakeholders:
  • How is your design is going to solve the problem?
  • How is it better than the alternative or the recommendation?
  • How does it affect the user?
• Many times, communicating the design is more important than the design itself
• Tips for how to articulate your design choices
  • Write the reasoning down
  • Ask yourself questions about the design
  • Go to events and talk about your work with design peers
• Purchase his book on Amazon or at most major book retailers
• Connect with Tom on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and his website