Christina Wodtke
Stories by Christina Wodtke
Which version of the ‘suspended account’ dashboard page do you prefer? Version A Version B Perhaps you don’t really care. Each one gets the job done in a clear and obvious way. However, as the UX architect of the ‘overview’ page for a huge telecom leader, it was my job…
January 13th, 2015
A Beginner’s Guide to Web Site Optimization—Part 1
Practical advice for starting and running your own A/B testing program
Web site optimization, commonly known as A/B testing, has become an expected competency among many web teams, yet there are few comprehensive and unbiased books, articles, or training opportunities aimed at individuals trying to create this capability within their organization. In this series, I’ll present a detailed, practical guide on how to build, fine-tune, and…
When I wanted to make a career shift to information architecture, I was reluctant because I loved the team I worked with. So instead of leaving to find the right work, I tried to start doing it where I was. What follows are my recommendations on how to make similar moves. It’s not rocket science,…
December 23rd, 2014
Designing for Harmony
How Design-Driven Innovation Helped Intuit Get Its Groove Back
In 1982, Scott Cook was watching his wife sit at the kitchen table struggling to balance the family checkbook. Personal computers were just becoming popular and he had seen them transform work at Procter and Gamble; yet here was his wife fighting to do something challenging for humans but trivial for computers. In a flash…
December 16th, 2014
Plateaus are Harder Than Mountains
How can design help real people use data in their lives?
Bold claims have been made about applying “big data” to solve the world’s problems, from health (Fitbit) to saving energy (Nest). Data is all around us, appearing in slick devices and colorful dashboards, yet focusing on the technology can cause us to miss the people who have to use it. Our job as designers is…
In 2008, Lloyds Pharmacy conducted 20 minute interviews1 with 1,961 UK adults. Almost one in five people admitted to having taken prescription medicines incorrectly; more than eight million adults have either misread medicine labels or misunderstood the instructions, resulting in them taking the wrong dose or taking medication at the wrong time of day. In…
October 7th, 2014
Teaching/Learning UX: Considerations for Academic-Industry Partnerships
Higher education is poised to help produce the next generation of user experience designers, but we can’t do it alone. In the wake of Fred Beecher’s recent “Ending the UX Designer Drought” and studies by Onward Search, UserTesting, and the Nielsen Norman Group, it is clear that the UX market is booming and that UX…
This article is a guide on what to expect, and how to get the most from your UX researcher–a user manual, if you will. You will invest a lot in your researcher and you deserve the greatest return. You should have high expectations for this critical component of your UX team, and following the recommendations…
Why are you in UX? It probably isn’t to get rich. Yes, there is plenty of money in being a UX professional today. If you’re competent, you should be enjoying a very nice lifestyle. But we do this not for money–being on the business side would be far better at achieving that goal. We do…
September 16th, 2014
Five Things They Didn’t Teach Me in School About Being a User Researcher
Graduate school taught me the basics of conducting user research, but it taught me little about what it’s like working as a user researcher in the wild. I don’t blame my school for this. There’s little publicly-available career information for user researchers, in large part because companies are still experimenting with how to best make…