MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product. I have had a long distaste for this acronym, but I think it is worth a deep-dive. I found an image on this website that sums up some of the problems. I’m going to deconstruct it to explain better. Strategy #1: Build too much before…
When designing a new product or brand, you need to get inspiration from somewhere. We are about to launch some new stuff and I realized where my inspiration came from…it was the view out of our window. During the day, it’s especially bright and the reds in the wood glow.…
Product Camp is a free, user-driven, collaborative “unconference” for Product Managers and Marketers. It’s in a few cities now. This weekend was the 2016 Silicon Valley edition. I usually go every other year. This year seemed to have diminished in attendance from previous ones. Accordingly, the number of sessions was…
I’ve seen two advertisements leveraging this Donald Trump meme. One was a billboard on 101 that stated “Make your data great again!” and today, I got this email that proclaimed, “Make your events great again!” Both times I saw the ad, Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan came to…
My title at Marketo was Mayor, Awesome Town. I requested it on a lark, as a joke of sorts. They let me have it. Since then, I loved giving my cards to people. I figured I should leave Awesome Town behind with my new gig at Engagio. Now my title…
I just got this email. It has several major UX issues. Problems: Alignment. It is harder to read centered text than left-justified. Contrast. Gray on white is hard to read. Size. Text is too small and hard to read. Serif. Serif is harder to read than sans-serif, especially when small.…
There have been many business software platforms over the last 20 years. Usually, these things go in waves of popularity. Some examples that were very popular: Novell Windows 3.1/95 Netscape Flash (short lived) IE6 iPhone/iPad Android Facebook Salesforce I see a new platform gaining in popularity: Browser Extensions. I have…
It’s slow and steady progress, but you can almost see the diminishing returns. Getting to that green line is going to be difficult. Whenever I see data, I want to visualize it. I hate looking at tables of data. The line shows a trend, the numbers are harder to understand.…
I have not had an easy time adjusting to Google Apps. GMail is ugly, Inbox is pretty but severely limited and Google Calendar is deeply frustrating. More and more, I have been missing the power and elegance of Microsoft Outlook. I decided to try and use Outlook on top of…
Based on a quora question, I was inspired by Bert Green‘s answer. For the purposes of this blog, I am going to make it shorter (20 min) and possible to do in an office. Here is the question: Show me how you would build a 6″ wooden box. Show me…
CAVEAT: I design B2B Applications, not marketing websites. The following is specifically targeted at that kind of project. I’ve been using PowerPoint since 2007 for UI storyboard design with much success. I’ve posted several blog posts about it: Using PowerPoint for Storyboards Suggestion for MS PowerPoint PowerPoint 2007 for UX…
No matter how long I live, no matter how big they get, my kids will always look like this to me: It was taken in 2009 during our infamous Tahoo trip. It’s funny how kids get frozen in that moment. This one picture of pure boyish joy was the moment…
I’ve been helping my sister with her resume. Here are a few good rules of thumb: Make it look nice visuallyBefore anyone reads it, they look at it. The first impression happens in less than 2 seconds. Make it look nice. I downloaded a free template and then modified it. If…
My wrist adventure has just been a nightmare. I want to chronicle it so far. Date Doctor Prognosis Sep 2014 Me I hit a tennis shot funny and my wrist hurt. I said, “Ow!” – Unbeknownst to me, I tore ligaments in my wrist. 1 week later Doc #1: Kaiser…