User Experience at Centerfield
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Step onto the plate and learn about what it is like to bat for the UX/UI team at Centerfield.
We sat down with our VP of Product, Mike Brock, for his insights on the job.
What brought you to Centerfield?
It was the opportunity to work with a company at a much larger scale, be surrounded by peers who are experts at what they do, and to be exposed to their methods of problem-solving. I was looking for a great working environment where I can further my career by increasing my domain knowledge of the product, its users, and the company.
Describe your role, what do you find interesting/challenging/fun about your job?
Part my role is to do the following: understand who our audiences are, how they interact with our product, where we can improve through testing, and validating success post-release. All this requires me to work directly with the design, development, product, and media buying teams.
The cross-departmental and team-centered aspect of the job is what makes it very interesting, challenging, and fun.
Here at Centerfield, we tackle problems together as a team.
What does it take to create a great UX? How do we execute that at Centerfield?
Great user experience is a result of being obsessed with the audience you’re trying to sell a solution to.
The UX Cycle at Centerfield is as follows: First, start with insights about our audiences and looking at our competitive landscape with the perspective of how they’re addressing user’s problems. Second, it translates these insights into our designs and deploying tests to measure and validate success.
Along the way, we lean heavily into the user data by accurately measuring and analyzing it to create and validate these insights.
- Be hypercritical with whether the designs are doing a good job and where they can improve
- Effective design is more important than a “pretty design”
What’s especially great at Centerfield is the synergy between media, design, development, and data warehouse to efficiently deploy and measure at a much higher capacity than your normal company.
For any aspiring UX Designers, Mike has three pieces of advice:
Be Obsessed with Your Users
Address whether you’re solving their problem or not, and genuinely understand the issues your users are facing. Be aware of the type of solutions currently already out there
Don’t Be Afraid to Take Risks
While you mostly want to execute on practical ideas, in a testing environment, there’s more control to quickly pause or revert ideas that take a turn for the worse.
Always Remember: UX is more than a pretty design, it’s an effective design
While I’m not advocating ugly designs, the focus should be beyond incorporating trendy UI and design language. The core user problem needs to be addressed, and the solution needs to be effective.
I’ve met many designers showcasing portfolios creating and ideating prettier versions of Facebook or Netflix. However, if it’s not addressing practical problems to improve the product, it’ll probably never be considered in a real use-case scenario or interview.
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