Blog - Page 26 of 124 - Boxes and Arrows

We Don’t Research. We Build.

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 to think of product design as relying on a solid knowledge, frequently tested, of our potential users, their real-life needs and habits. We’ve seen the

February 11, 2014 Learning From Others / Workplace and Career

Evolving a Creative Workplace: Step 8

Posted by Sandy Greene

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 as an organic garden and realized that once we had all of the right elements established, we didn’t need to mess with things too much.

February 4, 2014 Discovery, Research, and Testing / Learning From Others / Process and Methods

Guerrilla Usability at Conferences

Posted by Nick Cawthon

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 diversions to take your one- or two-person show on the road, all the while piggybacking off of another department’s efforts. Yet, standing on your feet

January 30, 2014 Learning From Others

Elements of Learning Experience Design

Posted by Andre Plaut

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 to vacation, enjoying a musical performance in a theater, or learning to code in a classroom. Although each of these experiences require their own unique

January 28, 2014 Learning From Others / Workplace and Career

Evolving a Creative Workplace: Step 7

Posted by Sandy Greene

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. Or could they? Picking comes next, and it’s a way to recognize the highest achievers and celebrate successes.