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 the graduates are not very…
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 post it. Most of my…
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, it means that you have…
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, “Don’t hold back!” As a…
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 intermediate user, which doesn’t demo…
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 latest OS quicker. (Current version…
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 think MacOS X is inferior…
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 new feature or product begins,…
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 screens on my desk. See…
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 the pack. If you want…
Google is trying out a new interface for GMail called Inbox. I asked for an invite and received one that day. Clearly the design has been lifted from Google+. It’s all circles and material design. At first, I didn’t like it because it was too full. Then I discovered a new way to “Archive”. They…
We had a UX team exercise today, where we tried to redesign the car wash experience. It started with a picture of a completely dysfunctional UI. Funny, isnt it? Then the team all designed alternatives. My mind wandered to my feelings about the car wash experience in general. As a kid, I remember going with…
Last year, I tried to switch to a newer icon collection. We researched hundreds of different collections and chose one by Axialis. We thought our requirements were this: Looks nice and modern Lots of variety in shapes Big sizes (up to 256) We then went about converting the icons in the system to Axialis. Unfortunately,…
We have had the same couch for almost 20 years. It looks pretty ratty at this point and needs to be replaced. We have been searching around at different places and stumbled upon Monarch Sofas. Really interesting and counter-intuitive UX. The website looks cheap. Made us think it was a discount place, when in reality…