Designing the experience of company transition
As designers, we grapple every day with challenging projects. This of course is part of what keeps us coming back. Some challenges, although not directly related to project work, can still be looked at through a UX lens. In this case, I’m talking about a phenomenon you’re likely familiar with: company reorganization. If you’ve been…
Forms are one of the most important parts of any site or app—they are the most common way for our users to give us the information that we need to help them do what they want to do. But in many instances, we design forms statically, often as wireframes. But so often, what makes or…
Part 1: A New Apprenticeship Architecture
The user experience design field is booming. We’re making an impact, our community is vibrant, and everyone has a job. And that’s the problem. A quick search for “user experience” on indeed.com reveals over 5,000 jobs posted in the last 15 days (as of March 15, 2014) in the United States alone! Simple math turns…
So you want to extend your website’s account management features to mobile devices. Well you’re not alone; most major websites today have cross-platform accounts and profiles that make for a more engaging and cohesive user experience. And many sites enable account management features on mobile devices. After all, you want people to be able to…
A story about a game, a bit of magic, and human thought.
Intelligent machines. There was a time when the mere mention of artificial intelligence was wrapped in constant debate and triggered images of Hollywood-crafted products, like Hal 9000. The concept itself is quite controversial; it challenges human thought as Darwin once challenged human origins. But we moved on, and now we carry these intelligent machines in…
The following is a composite of experiences I’ve had in the last year when talking with startups. Some dialog is paraphrased, some is verbatim, but I’ve tried to keep it as true as possible and not skew it towards anyone’s advantage or disadvantage. As professionals in the user-centered design world, we are trained and inclined…
That old cliché isn’t true: all good things don’t have to come to an end. It’s possible to prepare your team for ongoing success and growth, but you have to be smart about how you do it. In this series I’ve shared what’s worked for us at Intuitive Company. How we thought of our team…
Does your company have display booths at trade shows and conferences? Typically, these are marketing-dominated efforts, but if you make the case to travel, working the booth can be used for user research. Here’s how I’ve done it. Positioning and justification At times it can be a hard internal sell to justify the costs and…
The process of designing any sort of human experience, regardless of purpose or platform, is centered around reaching a desired outcome, ideally with as little fuss and as much joy as possible. The purpose of an experience and the platform on which the experience takes place will vary: purchasing a plane ticket on a tablet…
After discussing how to prepare, plant, water, fertilize, till and experiment with and then observe and protect your organic garden of a team, I’m happy to announce that the last two steps are quite fun. You’ve worked hard to grow your business and have made the necessary tweaks along the way. Things couldn’t be better….