Pavel Samsonov – Medium

Pavel Samsonov

Pavel Samsonov
in
UX Collective

Stop inventing product problems; start solving customer problems

Low-performing teams choose problems based on what they’d like to solve rather than what their customers need.

Aug 22

Swiss Army Knife equipped with every attachment possible

Aug 22

Pavel Samsonov
in
UX Collective

Tech’s stock crash and the Forgetting Trick

Tech leaders often make claims that their track record doesn’t support — but audiences still fall for it every time. Product managers…

Aug 10

Slide from the WeWork fundraising pitch deck labeled “hypothetical illustration of EBITDA”. There is a tiny label that says “future” to mark where the chart of EBITDA changes from actual data to made up, and a big blue arrow labeled AIM TO ACHIEVE TURNAROUND next to the made-up part of the data which is going up after the real data is shown going down for the entire time being tracked

Aug 10

Pavel Samsonov
in
UX Collective

Nike’s $25B blunder shows us the limits of “data-driven”

The illusion of data as “objective” conceals that it rarely shows you the whole picture. Making decisions based on the easiest data to…

Aug 22

Elaine looked stricken. Gina snatched the list from her and wrote: 1. Optimize potential. 2. Facilitate empowerment. 3. Implement visioning. 4. Strategize priorities. 5. Augment core structures.

Aug 22

Pavel Samsonov
in
UX Collective

How PMs can turn process from a time-waster into their greatest superpower

Design has no value for a team driven by outputs. But neither does Product. To make the jump to delivering outcomes, Product needs Design.

Jul 29

A haggard looking man gestures wildly with the Deloitte Agile Landscape diagram in the background

Jul 29

Pavel Samsonov
in
UX Collective

“What have we already tried?” is the most powerful product question you can ask

To find product pitfalls without creating waste, use UX research to understand what your org has already tried and how those efforts…

Jun 20

A clear cube with the sides marked depth of use cases, breadth of use cases, and design & development process. A blue prism marked “MVP” shows that depth in the process dimension is the key to a successful launch.

Jun 20

Pavel Samsonov
in
UX Collective

Low fidelity design is higher up the value chain

Designers going all-in on user-facing high fidelity visuals are abandoning their most powerful tool for influencing strategy

May 21

Two feedback loops with UX in the middle. One is called Opportunity Definition and is with internal customers such as stakeholders providing requirements and UX providing lofi designs to push back. One is with external customers such as users with UX providing hifi design and taking measurements of changes to behavior on response.

May 21

Pavel Samsonov
in
UX Collective

Don’t make “data-driven product decisions”—build a data-driven semantic environment

Without UX, “data-driven” organizations can only use that data to confirm their biases, not to understand where to change course.

Apr 11

A screenshot from a vintage role playing video game showing a girl in a library and a text box saying “Knowledge can be a guide or an obstacle depending on how you handle it.”

Apr 11

Pavel Samsonov
in
UX Collective

Product tools have created a leadership crisis. Only tools from the outside can solve it.

TTRPGs show us that success doesn’t come from mastering the tools— it comes from knowing what you want tools for in the first place.

Mar 13

Two men in medieval clothing holding torches descend into a dark dungeon.

Mar 13

Pavel Samsonov
in
UX Collective

Empathy for colleagues: why UX Design is a leadership skill

Designers can build new ways of working by turning user-centered design methods inwards — if we can give up our Superman myth

Feb 24

jackie Chan fighting with a stepladder

Feb 24

Pavel Samsonov
in
UX Collective

No, AI user research is not “better than nothing”—it’s much worse

Synthetic insights are not research. They are the fastest path to destroy the margins on your product.

Feb 7

Greek style illustration of a man who can only see shadows cast by real objects on the wall of a cave where he is trapped

Feb 7

Pavel Samsonov

Pavel Samsonov

Problem designer at AWS. Sick of rectangles. All opinions are my own and do not represent my employer. https://pavelsamsonov.com

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