Product and Design at Bloomberg: A 15-year Evolution
Summary
Bloomberg's UX team is excited to share its 15-year evolution -- from employing UX as a new, innovative process to UX playing a central role in every part of the product development lifecycle. Ash Brown, Global Head of UX, will share how the company's UX team has grown and how it collaborates with its partners in Product. This will be followed by a panel discussion with two designers and two product managers who will talk about the different ways they've worked together. Bring your questions, because we’ll close with a Q&A session.
Key Insights
-
•
Bloomberg’s UX evolved through four phases: innovating processes, taking on special projects, embedding UX in product teams, and fostering UX skills across the organization.
-
•
Initial UX efforts focused on methodical user-centered design techniques like wireframing and storyboarding to reduce bias and increase value delivery.
-
•
Embedding UX designers alongside product managers and engineers leads to more strategic, continuous collaboration rather than reactive design fixes.
-
•
Product managers benefit from designers who ask curious, probing questions and are open to exploring multiple solution options.
-
•
Providing detailed context and understanding business goals enables designers to deliver more effective and relevant user experiences.
-
•
User research and usability testing are critical to validate hypotheses and inform product pivots before development.
-
•
Successful collaboration needs mutual trust and respect, treating UX, product, and engineering as equally important partners.
-
•
Healthy disagreements are constructive and should focus on shared outcomes rather than individual ideas or territoriality.
-
•
UX is not just about consistency but tailoring experiences to different platforms and user contexts, such as mobile attention spans.
-
•
Good design directly impacts business value by increasing usability, adoption, and customer satisfaction.
Notable Quotes
"Good UX is good business."
"If it’s not usable it’s not valuable."
"UX success equals team success."
"We are like three legs of a chair: product, engineer, and UX all contribute to stability."
"Curiosity and asking lots of questions helps push boundaries and improve solutions."
"Providing context to designers leads to much better design outcomes."
"Design needs to balance business strategy and technology limitations but always keep users centered."
"Healthy debate is key, and we should be biased toward a successful outcome, not our own ideas."
"It’s important not to fall in love with a feature but stay open to new information and feedback."
"Investing time upfront in user research and discovery avoids rushed fixes that don’t meet clients’ needs."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"You want to catch accessibility defects early through automated testing in your CI/CD pipeline, what we call shifting left."
Sheri Byrne-HaberAccessibility at Scale
June 9, 2021
"Integrating psychology into product strategy isn't optional; it's essential for success."
Prayag Narula Hannah HudsonEmpowering Designers to do Good Research
March 11, 2022
"Inclusive research means building for diverse people, not just for ourselves or a narrow segment."
Janelle EstesUX Research Trends
January 28, 2021
"Finding a leadership champion and building on small wins creates momentum for integrating research and content."
Craig Brookes Andreas Huebner Morgan Quinn"Just Make it Look Good" and Other Ways We're Misunderstood
June 11, 2021
"We encourage one-to-one video calls to build rapport and feel comfortable reaching out for advice."
Marc Fonteijn Ru ButlerIncrease your confidence, influence, and impact (through a Professional Community)
December 3, 2024
"Research ops is heavily reliant on clear and consistent research leadership to define strategy and priorities."
Kate TowseyThe State of ResearchOps: More Than Just Theory
June 20, 2019
"Psychological safety is the number one factor determining team effectiveness and performance."
Alla WeinbergDesign Teams Need Psychological Safety: Here’s How to Create It
September 9, 2022
"Throwing a potluck sounds easy until you realize you don’t have a group that magically reads each other’s minds, resulting in a random table of snack foods."
Shawna Hein Kevin HoffmanCreate a Cohesive Civic Design Practice Across Agency, Vendors, and Contracts
November 17, 2022
"Being comfortable with discomfort is key — if someone tells me I'm wrong, I'm okay with that."
Tricia WangSCALE: Discussion
June 15, 2018