Christina Wodtke, Author at Boxes and Arrows

Author: Christina Wodtke

An established thought leader in Silicon Valley, Christina is a “curious human” with a serious resume. Her past work includes re-design and initial product offerings with LinkedIn, MySpace, Zynga, Yahoo! and others, as well as founding three startups, an online design magazine called Boxes and Arrows (that's us!), and co-founding the Information Architecture Institute. She is currently a Lecturer at Stanford in the HCI group in the Computer Science department. Christina teaches worldwide on the intersection of human innovation and high-performing teams. She uses the power of story to connect with audiences and readers through speaking and her Amazon category-bestselling books. Christina’s work is personable, insightful, knowledgeable, and engaging. Her books include Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web, Pencil Me In, and The Team that Managed Itself. Her bestselling book is a business fable called Radical Focus, which tackles the OKR movement through the powerful story of Hanna and Jack’s struggling tea startup. When the two receive an ultimatum from their only investor, they must learn how to employ OKRs and radical focus to get the right things done. To connect with Christina or to get more information on how to become a whole-mind, high performing team, visit http://cwodtke.com/ or http://www.eleganthack.com.

Articles by this author:

How to Make a Concept Model

Posted by Christina Wodtke

I can draw. I went to art school. I studied painting until I fell out with the abstract expressionists and switched to photography. But I can draw. What I cannot do is diagram. I always wanted to. I have models in my head all the time of how things work. But when it comes time to make a visual model of those ideas, I can’t figure out to to represent them. I find myself resorting to pre-existing models like four-squares

November 13, 2012 Foundational Thinking / Process and Methods / Workplace and Career

Mythic Design

Posted by Christina Wodtke

When I agreed to teach a twelve-week course on user experience design, I did what anyone of us would do: I went to find something to copy. I trolled the articles and syllabi I could find online, and I was horrified. Sometime in the years between Jesse James Garrett’s lovely diagram and his incendiary demand that a room full of information architects, content strategists, and interaction designers rebrand themselves as user experience designers, user experience design had grown small. Jesse’s

November 13, 2012 From the Editors / Professionalism

Not Dead Yet

Posted by Christina Wodtke

When Boxes and Arrows was founded a little over ten years ago, there was nothing quite like it online. There were peer-reviewed journals, and basic how-to articles. A List Apart was much more concerned with the CSS behind the interface back then, and UX Matters, Johnny Holland and Smashing Magazine were not even a twinkle in their creators’ eyes. So a bunch of scrappy volunteers gathered together and pushed to get the stories we wanted to read online. We were struggling

June 8, 2012 Design Principles / Learning From Others

Flow, Mastery and Ease-of-Use

Posted by Christina Wodtke

As the web design community explores using game design principles in our work, we must be aware of how and when they are appropriate.

Christina Wodtke takes a closer look at two key principles, mastery and flow, and explains how we might use them in application design.

July 10, 2007 Learning From Others / Podcasts and Posters / Professionalism / Workplace and Career

Straight From the Horse’s Mouth with Chris Fahey

Posted by Christina Wodtke

Christina talks with Chris Fahey about how starting a consultancy both fulfilled his professional dreams and forever changed his practice. (Part 5 of a series)