In the past couple of years, we have witnessed the rise in the UX Trade school. I am familiar with General Assembly and Tradecraft and have provided some mentoring to students. They typically cost updwards of $10k and last for a few months. Recently, I have heard senior designers lament that…
Last night I was at a meetup for new designers. Some experienced managers and I reviewed people’s portfolios and gave them mentoring and advice. Alot of the advice I gave them reminded me a presentation I gave last year titled How to become a UX Designer. I figured I should…
I actually hate patents. I think they undermine the creativity and progress of technology and startups. There is a great radio program on how software patents are awful and have lost all modern meaning they once held. (Produced by This American Life in 2011) However, when I was told that there…
The magic triangle is used for any decision making model. See Figure below. The words are sometimes slightly different, but the meaning is the same. There is only 1 rule: In any decision, you may ONLY pick two points on the triangle. The third is deficient. If you choose Scope,…
There are lots of opinions. However, there are opinions you should take much more seriously than others. These are the opinions of 10x people. A 10x person is someone who can do the work of 10 people. When I worked with Crash Tung, he looked me in the eye and said,…
Whenever I design business software, I imagine three stages that I need to design for. See figure below. Demo How good does it show to someone who has no idea how this thing works? In other words, how much will this feature help the sales rep. Generally, I design for the…
I recently traded in my Samsung Galaxy Note 3 for a Nexus 6. I wanted the latest greatest OS from Google. I could have gotten an iPhone 6 Plus or a Galaxy S6 (or Note 3) or other device, but I chose the Nexus mainly because I wanted to get the…
Let’s get something out of the way. I appreciate Apple, but I don’t like MacOS X. I have many different kinds of devices, iPods, iPads, Laptops, Wearables, Mac Minis and desktops. They have a wide array of operating systems. I think iOS is brilliant for the iPad/iPod/iPhone family. However, I…
Yesterday, a colleague asked my opinion about the Data vs. Intuition debate amongst designers. Should a designer rely on data or intuition to do their job? It seemed to me to be a false choice. These are not mutually exclusive ideas. Great design requires both at different times. When a…
It’s not the most common technique, but I fully endorse the idea of employee on-boarding by spending time on phone support. I think 3 weeks is probably the right amount of time. Certainly 3 days is too short and 3 months is too long. The reason this is a good…
UX should apply to your working environment. Naming your conference rooms as funny names will actually change the culture in your office. Here are a bunch of name themes I have collected that are fun. Some are better than others. This is meant to inspire you to name with some…
Contrary to what you have heard, size matters. However, bigger isn’t always better. Here is the rundown: Taller In business, if you are taller, you are more likely to be promoted. Also, in SmartPhones, a taller screen is helpful. Especially if you are scrolling down. In fact, I have three…
When you want to change people’s behavior you must take into account a simple social fact. Early adopters feel social anxiety when everyone is doing the same thing. They feel wrong when they are in the pack. On the contrary, the early majority feel anxiety when they are NOT following…
I was in a nice restaurant in Palo Alto. (Less than a mile away from Stanford University). This was a picture I took in the bathroom. Nice, real nice. Classy.