Where Do Design and Business Strategy Meet? Design Thinking

Posted by

Design is a logical art. It’s the thought process behind the first mark on a page. It’s empathy applied systematically. It’s creative through abductive reasoning. In other words, designers are no strangers to strategy. Yet even designers themselves forget that the world of design is much larger than mockups and prototypes. This “capital D” conception of design is often referred to as “design thinking,” a problem-solving framework that can be applied across any number of problem domains and at any

Continue reading

How to Create a Smart Home Product People Actually Want to Use

Posted by

For all the hype around the Internet of Things, most people are still content to control their homes manually. A recent Gartner survey found that they don’t mind getting up to adjust the temperature or turn off the lights, and 58 percent of respondents actually prefer the idea of standalone devices to connected ones. If you’re scratching your head, you’re not alone. If having a connected home makes life easier, why are consumers so skeptical? Who wouldn’t want to control

Continue reading

UX Writing: The Case for User-Centric Language

Posted by

If I asked you what is one of the biggest problems on websites today, I’m willing to bet you wouldn’t say it has anything to do with words. But what if I told you it does? Let’s talk about user-centric language. One research group describes the usability problems that result from something as simple as using the wrong words on websites: “Writers often use the language they are most familiar with when describing offerings on websites, without realizing that those

Continue reading

Now That We’ve Captcha’d Your Attention…

Posted by

[Article edited on May 31, 2018, to clarify that PlayCaptcha and Funcaptcha are separate solutions, unrelated to each other.] The other night I listened to my friend swear his way through the online purchasing process for concert tickets. He knew who he wanted to see, how many tickets he wanted, and his budget. All was going well until he got to a point in the journey that kept tripping him up, and the longer it went on the more frustrated

Continue reading

Changing Minds

Posted by

As you are reading this, how many times will you check your phone for a text, an email, a shared link, or photo? Some of these moments of attention will be based on alerts, but how many are habitual, simply checking the device for potential updates? Our minds are continually looking to continue earlier conversations or to start new ones. We have sometimes dozens of ongoing conversations, not to mention the long list of open tabs and draft emails containing

Continue reading