Remote working is an appealing option for many people working in the tech industry. What’s not to love about working from home or across borders?
But remote working can be challenging too, and you’ll need a few skills to make it work. This article will cover everything from personality skills and traits, to communication tactics and ways to connect with your teammates remotely.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a product designer or UX designer; this article has something for everyone who wants to work successfully as part of a fully remote team.
We’ll cover: what it takes (and doesn’t take) for success when working remotely as a product designer or UX designer; how working remotely affects your productivity; how technology facilitates -or hinders
History of remote work
Remote working is an appealing option for many people working in the tech industry. What’s not to love about working from home or across borders?
Remote working is an appealing option for many people working in the tech industry. What’s not to love about working from home or across borders?
In the 1960s, IBM employees working from home solved a rubik cube in 20 minutes when working from their homes. Nobody could solve a rubik cube in that time working in the office. This inspired more companies to adopt remote working.
A majority of the Fortune 500 companies use remote working policies to help them compete for top talent and reduce costs. Some might argue that working from home feels like freedom while others might find it isolating.
In recent years, remote working has become increasingly popular with people who want more flexible working arrangements, or who are unable to work for other reasons such as sickness or lack of access to transportation.
A recent study by Owl Labs found that 44 percent of U.S. employees work remotely at least some of the time, and that number is only going to grow. As working remotely becomes more popular, more people are looking for tips on how to be successful when working remotely.
What do the experts say about working remotely?
A recent study by Owl Labs found that 44% of US employees work remotely at least some of the time, and that number is only going to grow. As working remotely becomes more popular, more people are looking for tips on how to be successful when working remotely.
“Working from home has a long list of perks: working hours are flexible, salaries can be higher, there’s no commute, and working from bed sounds glorious. But the perk list doesn’t end there.”
Working from home enables employees to take care of family needs like caring for children or aging parents. Working from home also reduces environmental impact- which is an increasingly important issue for many employers and employees alike.
The same study by Owl Labs found that working from home resulted in working 2.5 hours more per week, without any additional distractions or disturbances.
Remote working also helps employers compete for top talent by offering a unique working arrangement. It’s easier to hire new employees across borders if the working arrangements are non-traditional.
Many tech companies are working with remote teams because of their international reach and flexibility that enables them to work around time zones and schedules. Remote working also facilitates collaboration between different departments that otherwise might have been working separately due to location constraints. Many tech companies find it hard to manage timezones across long distances, so privacy is another benefit employees love about working remotely for tech companies.
As an example, Buffer is one of the most successful tech companies that use 100 percent remote working arrangements. They’re able to manage a fully remote team because of the wide range of tools that have been introduced into working remotely, such as Slack or Google Docs.
“Research from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business found that employees working from home were more productive and happier and quit less than those in the office (a finding backed up by most evidence).”
Remote working can be harder for people who aren’t good at working independently, but it also helps people develop independent working skills along with their technical ones.
“According to research conducted by Dr. Paul Marcoux, working from home is beneficial for engineers (and perhaps others) because they can focus on doing what they need to do without interruption.”
Working from home can motivate employees who have more working flexibility to work harder. This is especially true of working from home at the beginning of a working relationship and after working relationships end with employers.
Aside from these points above, we wanted to mention some of our favorite benefits of working remotely.
Standard benefits:
- working remotely is an appealing option for many people working in the tech industry. What’s not to love about working from home or across borders?
- A majority of the Fortune 500 companies use remote working policies to help them compete for top talent and reduce costs. Some might argue that working from home feels like freedom while others might find it isolating.
Emotional benefits:
- Remote working gives you more freedom than ever before, allowing you to work when and where you want without having to worry about traffic jams, train delays, or office politics.
- working remotely is a benefit for working parents and caregivers, who can work while their children are at school or taking a nap. It allows them more time with family instead of being stuck in rush hour traffic.
- working remotely allows you to travel the world while still working. You can enjoy some sun on your lunch break at your favorite beach, working from almost anywhere in the world.
- Remote working offers employees flexibility that many of them cannot find work in an office. There are also several emotional benefits including more free time with family or friends, more free time for recreation, and working locations of their choice.
- Working remotely is a benefit for working parents and caregivers, who can work while their children are at school or taking a nap; it allows them more time with family instead of being stuck in rush hour traffic; remote working gives you more freedom than ever before, allowing you to work when and where you want without having to worry about traffic jams, train
Personality traits needed for successful remote work
The following are the five key personality traits needed to be a successful remote UX or product designer.
Passionate – It’s easy to lose inspiration working remotely, but this is why it’s important for remote workers to stay passionate about what they’re working on. When working remotely, it can feel like your tasks are less visible and less rewarded, which can lead to feeling unappreciated.
Efficient communicator – Communication skills can make or break working out of an office, so communication is one of the most important traits for remote working.
Adaptable – You’ll see how working remotely is different than working in an office because you’ll be working with people all over the world (maybe even people in time zones that will interfere with your work schedule).
Independently driven – working remote is all about working independently and making sure you take initiative; working remotely makes it easier to slip into the rut of working without really thinking about what needs to be done (e.g., updating tasks, touching base with teammates); working as a remote designer means communicating more because you’re not able to just walk over and have a visual conversation about a problem or anything else for that matter.
Best collaborate tools for remote UX/UI and Product designers
There are so many tools and resources to help remote working and collaboration on a project, and some of the best ones for working on a remote team include:
Slack – Slack is a chatroom-like application that allows you to chat with your team, share files and work together. Slack is perfect for working on a remote team because it lets you create channels for different projects so that everyone knows where to go for what.
Notion – Notion is more than just another collaborative tool, it lets remote working teams build their own knowledge base within the platform which means that it’s available everywhere they are. You can attach documents or images right into your notes; there’s also live comment support (for real-time working collaboration), customizable boards (with drag & drop functionality), and more.
Pivotal Tracker – A quick way to keep track of all the tasks you’re working on is by using Pivotal tracker; this project management tool can be used by working remotely in a team. It allows you to add the specifics of your products, workflows and working stages so that everyone is on the same page from day one when working from remote.
Basecamp – Basecamp is a popular collaborative tool when working with remote teams, but it works best for design projects where there are multiple designers working collaboratively, rather than just UX/UI designers working alone remotely. There’s nothing like having an example of how working collaboratively can benefit your team; working at Basecamp has shown how teamwork has more benefits (especially if you’re working remotely). You get access to unlimited software; clients can sign up too; there’s no need for any 3rd party integrations or extra tools; and the design is user-friendly (and great for working remotely).
Teambition – Teambition is a project management tool designed specifically for the remote working teams. It has an intuitive interface that makes it easy to chat, share working files or discuss upcoming tasks or problems with your team. This tool lets you use the Kanban board to manage your working processes by adding new features, tasks, and clients/projects directly into your workflow. With this feature, teams can work collaboratively on projects without having to constantly switch between different working tools.
Google Docs – You know Google docs are great because they’re part of the G Suite family which means they have their own built in collaboration method, where multiple people can view documents at the same time and working on them collaboratively. You can use this feature to share working files with your team, as well as for working asynchronously on projects.
WeTransfer – When working at a distance working we all know that we need to send working files between each other so we can… you guessed it: work! One of my favorite ways to do this is by using WeTransfer; it’s simple and easy tool which allows you to attach and send big working files (like videos or large designs) with ease; no hassle downloading; thanks!
Evernote – Evernote isn’t just an old note-taking app that most people tend to forget about, but rather a great collaborative software suitable for working remotely. The best feature about working with Evernote is that it’s a cross-platform app. So whether you’re working on Mac or Windows, or using Android or iOS for your mobile devices, you have all the working notes and project files accessible at any time during working hours.
Doodle poll – Doodle poll is a great working tool because it allows you to create polls for your working group with ease; which means no more working with different working software or apps when working with remote teams. You can use Doodle poll in order to plan meetings, schedule working hours or simply fix time zones that are using different daylights saving systems.
Jira boards – Jira is a popular working tool for agile working software, but it can also be used as a project-management working solution. Multiple testers and developers working on different features or projects together can organize work better by simply attaching Jira boards to their working thread; which means no more working discordantly with remote teams.
Coffitivity – Coffitivity is a working tool that recreates the working environment of a busy coffee shop. This working tool can be used in order to better concentrate or to simply have some working background noise when working from remote. It helps working remotely by masking external working noises and distractions, which can really help improve working productivity rates for remote teams.
tl;dv – tl;dv is a meeting working tool that uses working video chat to work with remote teams. One of the best working features about tl;dv working is that it’s designed for working remotely, so you don’t have to worry about any annoying or complicated conference calls. You can use tl;dv working in order to discuss upcoming projects, share working files or simply to have casual working chats with your team.
Loom – Loom is a working tool that allows working teams to record working software demos so they can share them with remote working teams. Using working video as a working format helps working teams to communicate better when working remotely.
Trello – Last but not least one of my favorite tools to use when working remotely on products is by using Trello; this app lets you organize projects into boards (which act like projects) with lists (which act like tasks). It has tons of collaboration features that makes working remotely easier (especially if you’re part of an agency or remote team). And now they’ve come up with integrated apps so you can use your favorite tools too!
Final thoughts on remote working within a product team
Working remotely is a great way to improve working productivity and to have more flexible working hours. When working remotely, it’s important to use working tools that will help improve communication and working productivity. In this article, we’ve looked at some of the best working tools for remote teams. Remember: working remotely doesn’t mean you can simply work at any time and place of your choosing. You should always organize working hours with working tools that create the best working flow and collaboration.
