Topic: User Experience

Blog archives

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• Which Web Browser? (2024)

  Thinking out loud about my browser situation as we head into the new year.

• The Informed Life with Joe Natoli

  A conversation with a distinguished designer and author on a new edition of a classic UX 101 book.

• Choosing the Right Words for Effective UX

  Clear, consistent terms are critical to good UX. Here are some suggestions for how to pick them.

• The Informed Life with Andy Budd

  Overview of a conversation on how designers can create value in early-stage startups.

• The Informed Life with Scott Berkun

  Overview of a conversation about a new book on what’s required to design effectively in the real world.

• The Informed Life with Tamsen Webster

  A conversation with a message designer on how to effectively drive lasting change.

• The Informed Life with Greg Petroff

  A renowned design executive on the current state of design and opportunities available to designers.

• The Informed Life with Colin Eagan and Jeffrey MacIntyre

  Overview of my conversation with two consultants focused on designing personalized digital experiences.

• The Informed Life with Stéphanie Walter

  A conversation about the importance of neurodiversity in design — and how to achieve it.

• Three Things I Know

  When living in times of radical technological change, look to things that have stood the test of time.

• The Informed Life with Nikki Anderson

  Overview of a conversation about how user researchers can have greater impact.

• The Informed Life with Dave Elfving

  A conversation with a former Apple design leader on his involvement with Gray Area.

• Apple Vision Pro Hands-on (Heads-on?)

  Overview of my initial firsthand experience with Apple’s new spatial computing headset.

• The Informed Life with Elizabeth McGuane

  A conversation about the powerful role of language and modeling in UX design.

• Shaping the Future of Design

  How to remain relevant amid pervasive change.

• The Informed Life with Pierluigi Dalla Rosa

  A conversation about expanding the possibilities of digital experiences through novel computer interfaces.

• The Informed Life with Nathan Shedroff

  A conversation about the importance of strategy in business, and how design can help.

• The Informed Life with Steve Portigal, part 1

  In this podcast, UX researcher Steve Portigal and I discuss motivations for writing our nonfiction books.

• The Informed Life with Audrey Crane

  A conversation about ""shadow design"", its impact on organizations, and potential solutions.

• The Informed Life with Are Halland

  Overview of a discussion about a framework for balancing user needs and business goals.

• Unlock Hidden Power with Command-Line Interfaces

  CLIs will save you time and give you tremendous control over your computer — especially if you work with words.

• The Informed Life with Hugh Dubberly

  An overview of my conversation with a leading designer, thinker, and educator about the evolving role of design.

• The Informed Life with Scott Jenson

  An overview of my conversation with a software design veteran on the pros and cons of designing in open-source projects.

• Context Matters

  A lesson from Warren Buffett on minding the environment around your product.

• Feedback and Design

  Shed the negative associations: feedback is a central concept in design.

• Against Superficial Simplicity

  Designers love to make things simple — but simple isn’t always better.

• The Informed Life with Erin Malone

  A summary of my conversation with design leader and educator Erin Malone about her work in pattern libraries.

• How to Work With Design Constraints

  Some designers see constraints as lemons; others make lemonade. Apple’s Dynamic Island feature is an example of the latter.

• The Informed Life with Steve Portigal

  Join me for a conversation with one of the world's leading UX research experts on how to conduct better user interviews.

• The Informed Life with Daniel Stillman

  Overview of a first for my podcast: an in-person conversation about conversation.

• The Informed Life with Dorian Taylor

  Overview of a conversation about the influence of the late architect and design theorist Christopher Alexander.

• The Informed Life with Laura Yarrow

  My conversation with the HM Land Registry head of design on how designers can be more effective in organizations.

• The Informed Life with Indi Young

  Overview of my conversation with the renowned design researcher and author about her new book.

• The Informed Life with Peter Bogaards

  Overview of my conversation with the renowned design evangelist about his proposed UX canon.

• Changing Behavior Through Structural Constraints

  System constraints can be long-lived. Handle them with care.

• The Informed Life with Nathan Shedroff

  Notes on my interview with Nathan Shedroff about Foodicons, his massively crowdsourced design project.

• Sketches as an Extension of Your Mind

  Sketches aren't deliverables — they're a means for thinking on paper, where you can work things loosely and quickly.

• Surfacing Podcast, Ep. 15

  How people shaping digital experiences can keep our online world safe.

• “A Lens A Day” Interview

  A video interview about “inverse implication” in information architecture.

• Why You're Having Trouble with That Twitter Redesign

  A minor UI change that is causing confusion.

• Meeting the User

  What I learned about mental models from a support incident.

• The Informed Life with Jim Kalbach

  Summary of my conversation with Jim Kalbach about his book, The Jobs to Be Done Playbook.

• Tweaking Users' Mental Models

  A 37-year old example of intentionally changing user mental models.

• Back to the Bad Old Days of the Web

  A short rant about the current state of web standards.

• Celebratory Settings

  Examining a surprising new setting in Microsoft's Office apps.

• Design as an Effective Agent of Change

  Effective change requires that designers think of ourselves as strategic partners.

• The Object-Oriented UX Podcast, Ep. 15

  A conversation with Sophia Prater about my book, ""Living in Information,"" and why UFOs matter.

• How to Work with Tension in Design

  Three approaches to dealing with opposing directions in design.

• The Informed Life with Sophia Prater

  Notes from my conversation with object oriented UX evangelist Sophia Prater.

• Changes to Sketch's Conceptual Model

  On the challenges of enabling better collaboration in Sketch.

• Flexibility vs. Ease-of-use

  A new Android tablet feature illustrates the tension between flexibility and ease of use.

• The Informed Life with Matt LeMay

  An overview of my conversation with Matt LeMay on The Informed Life podcast.

• Overcoming Objections to Modeling

  Three suggestions for working with conceptual models in contexts that resist them.

• Internal Design Teams and Thought Leadership

  A review of challenges inherent in public thought leadership in in-house design teams.

• Don't Subscribe; Follow

  An example of a research-driven change to a key system label.

• The Informed Life with Margot Bloomstein

  How brands can build trust in a world where trust in institutions is waning.

• Worth Your Attention

  Links for the week.

• Citibank's $500m ‘UI’ Problem

  How a design failure led to an expensive blunder.

• The Informed Life with Hà Phan

  A conversation about a leader's transition from UX design to product.

• Worth Your Attention

  Links for the week.

• The Informed Life with Jason Ulaszek

  How Jason Ulaszek used design to heal Rwanda's deep social rifts.

• Finding Our Way Podcast, Ep. 24

  Exploring the contentious topic of certifying designers and the potential pitfalls of standardization.

• Worth Your Attention

  Links for the week.

• The Informed Life with Cheryl Platz

  A conversation about the power of multimodality and why designers must embrace it.

• Openness ↔ Control

  How to navigate the tradeoffs between collaboration and control in design projects.

• Making a Scene

  How the environment of your team can make the difference between success and failure.

• The Informed Life with Phillip Hunter

  How to make digital systems talk like people.

• Thinking Contextually

  Whatever you’re working on isn’t an end in itself; it’s always part of something bigger.

• The Siri

  How our HomePod started driving me crazy.

• The Informed Life With Jeff Johnson

  How designing for older adults can help us all.

• Worth Your Attention

  Links for the week.

• The Informed Life With Tanya Rabourn

  My conversation with Tanya Rabourn about the power and pitfalls of design research across cultures

• Worth Your Attention

  Links for the week.

• On Rules and Barbarism

  How to stop fretting about rules and get on doing good work.

• Don't Make Me Think, Xbox Edition

  How a confusing product name led to accidental purchases of the wrong Xbox.

• Consider the Frame

  How a product’s frame can be just as influential as its content — a trick I used to lose weight.

• The Informed Life With Alexis Lloyd

  My chat with the VP of Product Design at Medium about how media’s granularity affects storytelling.

• Worth Your Attention

  Links for the week.

• The Expertise Trap in UX Critiques

  LinkedIn's ""add hashtag"" button reveals the danger of assuming too much expertise from users.

• Sync to Furthest Page Read

  Structural inconsistencies within a family of products can frustrate users.

• Ministry of Supply

  A small visual detail makes a retailer's navigation system more memorable.

• Caring as a Core Design Principle

  How caring for people and their contexts can power design that serves life itself.

• Seeing The Big Picture

  To what degree does your project serve its intended goals?

• More Effective Remote Brainstorming

  How to run more effective remote brainstorming sessions.

• Worth Your Attention

  Links for the week.

• Worth Your Attention

  Links for the week.

• Tour of an F-15 Jet Fighter User Interface

  How the F-15’s cockpit helps pilots fly faster than their brains can think.

• Making Apple's Ecosystem More Coherent

  Apple’s blurring of iOS and macOS boundaries will change your workflow

• The Informed Life With Audrey Crane

  A conversation about why executives struggle to grasp design's value.

• Worth Your Attention

  Links for the week.

• Design in the Post-pandemic World

  A presentation about how designers can help organizations and societies work towards greater resilience.

• The Informed Life With Louis Rosenfeld

  My conversation with Lou on how his team pulled off a successful virtual conference in just weeks.

• Worth Your Attention

  Links for the week.

• Book Notes: “The Jobs To Be Done Playbook”

  How to put the Jobs to be Done framework to work in your organization — and why.

• Worth Your Attention

  Links for the week.

• Making the Company's Vision Tangible

  How design can make your company's vision concrete and testable.

• Nostalgia for the Future

  NASA’s retro logo hints at our longing for the future we lost.

• The Informed Life With Aynne Valencia

  How working in government can help designers avoid the consequences of moving fast and breaking things.

• Banning Targeted Advertising?

  How a single change to our online business models could shift digital spaces.

• Honing Our Remote Collaboration Abilities

  How my team and I are learning to collaborate remotely and getting better at it.

• The Dynamics of Remote All-hands Meetings

  How the shift to virtual meetings is changing team dynamics and hierarchies for the better.

• The Informed Life With Christian Crumlish

  On the balance between bottom-up and top-down approaches in product management.

• Label-less Buttons

  How Spotify's icon-based UI for iOS makes global access easier but may confuse users.

• Apple’s Services Pivot and Persuasion

  Apple’s services push is changing my relationship with the company.

• The Informed Life With Maria Giudice

  My conversation with a design legend on how she found her purpose and is helping others do the same.

• Designers as Team Players

  How design can boost your business’s bottom line, and why it’s crucial to think like a team player.

• The Informed Life With Peter Merholz

  Design leadership can bring humanistic balance to organizations.

• The Informed Life With Cyd Harrell

  How designing for respect can make interactions with government systems more dignified and humane.

• Worth Your Attention

  Links for the week.

• Seeing Wide and Deep

  How teams can gain fresh perspectives by embracing an outsider role, like a music producer.

• The Informed Life With Michael J. Metts

  On the importance of treating words as part of the design process.

• No More Customer Reviews on Apple.com

  How Apple removed customer reviews from its website, and why they're not returning.

• The Kranz Dictum

  How a NASA leader's call to action transformed a team after a tragedy.

• Abstraction and Implementation

  The implementation of a system can be as crucial as its user interface.

• The Informed Life With Andrea Mignolo

  A conversation about the power of design thinking to shape culture and behavior.

• Design Requires Trust

  How trusting designers can drive better design decisions.

• Design for the Relationship

  How Amazon's early obsession with customer relationships shaped its success

• Changes to iOS 13’s Mail Toolbar

  How a simple UI change can frustrate users — and how to avoid it.

• Shanghai Disneyland

  Blending Disney magic with Chinese culture to create a unique experience.

• Paola Antonelli on the Role of Designers

  How the MoMA Senior Curator of Design sees designers and their role in shaping society.

• The Informed Life With Chris Chandler

  How to avoid becoming the next Facebook when building software in agile environments

• Understanding Customer Mental Models

  How your customers think about your business changes how they interact with it.

• Ethics and Patience in Design

  Jessica Helfand on the need for patience in ethical design.

• Touchscreens and the Loss of Nuanced Control

  Why touchscreens can’t always replace physical controls.

• How Designers Can Help Bust Silos

  How to collaborate better in large organizations.

• Designing the Right Things

  How aligning design with strategic goals can yield more effective results.

• The Value of Design Consulting

  What the exorbitant cost of a vintage Atari video game taught me about design consulting.

• Chuck Jones and the Power of Discipline

  How Chuck Jones’ discipline and constraints made his Looney Tunes cartoons so funny and enduring.

• JFK’s Apollo Vision Statement

  How a speech by JFK illustrates the power of a clear, compelling vision.

• Designing for Density and Sequence

  Design lessons from a book about the moon landing.

• Drive-by Redesigns

  How I learned to look beyond superficial redesigns and dig into the why of things.

• Experience Design Podcast Episode 27: “Design for the Infinite Game”

  A conversation about my career, book, and the power of designing for the infinite game.

• The Optimism of Design

  Design as a practice that shapes a better future.

• Book Notes: Strategic Design

  My take on a must-read book on how designers can level up their game to tackle strategic challenges.

• Hardware Notes: AirPods

  Exploring my journey with AirPods' fit, sound, and convenience after trying BeatsX.

• A Key to the Design Problem

  How Charles Eames’ approach to constraints unlocks design’s power

• Karl Popper on Definitions

  How Karl Popper's insights on definitions challenge our obsession with semantic precision.

• The Logic of Conjecture

  Design as an effective way to address ill-defined problems by using abductive reasoning.

• Proudshamed

  On the power and pitfalls of tech, and why we should embrace the messy process.

• The Informed Life With Jessica Ivins

  How to wear many hats as a UX educator without burning out.

• Adaptive Path 2001-2019

  The end of Adaptive Path leaves a void in the UX design community.

• Design as an Antidote to VUCA

  Design can provide clarity and strategic insights in a chaotic world.

• The Strategic Value of Design

  How design thinking helps us learn from the future and avoid risk.

• Persistence

  How sticking with something makes you better at it and boosts your self-confidence.

• Panel: The Rhythms and Habits of Successful UX Practitioners

  Exploring rhythms and habits that align your values with your UX career path.

• Daniel Kahneman on Framing and Incentives

  How designers can reframe problems to enable better decisions and outcomes.

• Designers as Advocates of Respect

  Why designers must understand incentives and values.

• Back to the Browser Monoculture?

  A nostalgia-fueled reflection on the dangers of another browser monoculture era.

• A Space for Collaboration

  How my friend and I struggled to collaborate with our current tech and what I wish we could do.

• Environment-Centered Design

  How our focus on users blind us to the environmental impact of tech at city scale.

• Twitter as a Public Square

  How must Twitter balance free expression with the safety of its public square?

• The “Right” Way

  Navigating design’s ambiguity with “thinking-through-making” over seeking elusive right answers.

• The Client-Designer Relationship

  Unpacking the vital dynamics of the client-designer partnership for successful outcomes.

• A Data Primer for Designers

  Learn the language of data to design more effective digital experiences.

• The Illusion of Explanatory Depth

  How designers must confront their limited understanding to create better systems.

• The Limits of the Ethical Designer

  How designers can rethink their role beyond interfaces to tackle ethical challenges.

• Three Lessons From the Work of Charles & Ray Eames

  How playful rigor can lead to better design.

• UX Podcast Episode 202: "Digital Places"

  Balancing personal identity with group coherence in digital spaces poses unique challenges for designers.

• Elegant Simplicity

  Discover why true design simplicity is about elegance, knowing what to keep and what to let go.

• The Urgent Design Questions of Our Time

  How can designers navigate the ethical and control challenges in evolving systems?

• Framing the Problem

  Defining design problems requires framing through iterative cycles.

• Four Types of Prototypes

  How understanding different prototype types can enhance your design process and clarity.

• Goldilocks Workshop Spaces

  The right workshop space can boost creativity and productivity. Size matters!

• SF Architecture Walking Tour

  Learning about design by walking the city.

• Tackling New Challenges

  Navigating new projects can spark breakthroughs by leveraging cross-disciplinary frameworks.

• Prototypes and the Used Universe

  How Star Wars' ""used universe"" approach can enhance the realism and depth of your prototypes.

• The Eponymous Laws of Tech

  Intriguing ""laws"" that shape tech and impact user experiences.

• Book Notes: “Creative Selection”

  How Apple's untold design culture and leadership fostered innovation during its iPhone revolution.

• High and Low Fidelity Prototypes

  Communicate accurately by choosing the right level of fidelity.

• Does USB-C Turn iPad Pros Into "Real" Computers?

  A tech change brings the iPad closer to becoming a true computer alternative.

• Top-down/Bottom-up

  Balancing top-down and bottom-up design fosters responsive, human-centered architecture.

• How to Compromise a Product Vision

  How Disney’s Carousel of Progress reveals pitfalls in preserving product vision over time.

• Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview

  An interview that reveals insights on turning tech into great products.

• Book Notes: “Make It New”

  On the evolution of design in Silicon Valley and its impact on today's tech-driven world.

• A Human Queue

  Exploring how human interaction in queues offers insights for designing more empathetic systems.

• Aurelius Podcast Episode 29: "Design Ethics"

  How UX design can gain insights from architecture and adapt to change.

• UX Week 2018 Presentation

  Insights from my UX Week talk on how information shapes our environment.

• Where Are the People?

  How can we make beautiful, static websites feel as alive and human as social media?

• Twitter and Third-party Apps

  Recent changes to Twitter's API are making me question my engagement with the platform.

• Recognizing the Need

  How designers identify and prioritize real client needs beyond mere business goals.

• Not an Optimist

  Can ""possibilism"" trump mere optimism in shaping effective design perspectives?

• Screens, Screens Everywhere

  How airport screens bombard us with stimulation, neglecting our quest for quiet moments.

• Working With Ambiguity

  How design thrives in ambiguity: essential traits and context for making sense.

• Book Notes: “Orchestrating Experiences”

  Navigating the complex world of design through collaboration and strategic coherence.

• The End of Engagement

  Pivoting design metrics from engagement to alignment.

• Controlling Screen Time

  A new software feature invites us to reconsider how we engage with our devices.

• If These Walls Had Ears

  The unseen impact of tech on our homes echoes early cinema's influence.

• I Fight for the Balance

  Why designers must balance user needs with business goals.

• Designers and Makers

  The Eames LCW chair exemplifies how deep material understanding fuels design innovation.

• Selling Design

  Navigating the balance between ethical design and salesmanship.

• What I Look for in Collaborators

  Four vital traits to look for in collaborators.

• When the User is not the Customer

  Navigating design when users and customers aren’t the same group.

• The Power of Co-creation

  Bringing users into the design process can create better results.

• It’s Not Just About Users

  Balancing user needs with organizational goals is key to impactful design.

• Dealing With Organizational Politics

  Understanding and navigating organizational politics is crucial for impactful design change.

• Taking Business Seriously

  Designers need to embrace business objectives to truly wield influence within organizations.

• The Role of Design in Strategic Decision-making

  How design helps leaders make strategic decisions with greater clarity and insight.

• Design Strategy Inside Out

  How design has evolved from mere aesthetics to a core strategic driver in business.

• Extraordinary Evidence

  How extraordinary claims in design, like UFO sightings, require extraordinary evidence.

• Fielding Ambiguity

  How embracing ambiguity can lead to professional growth and creative clarity.

• Team Moods

  How team moods can shape productivity and decision-making in challenging times.

• Know Your Materials

  Understanding your materials elevates design.

• Growing Your Area of Concern

  How expanding your perspective can lead to more principled and impactful design.

• Agency

  How embracing agency empowers designers to influence systems and create positive change.

• When Algorithms Don’t Know

  A near-missed flight teaches me a lesson about the gap between reality and data.

• The Smooth Handle

  How to tackle challenges with grace using Jefferson’s “smooth handle” strategy.

• How Do You Know It’s Good?

  Understanding ""good"" in projects means balancing diverse success criteria.

• Theory and Practice

  Theory informs design practice, fueling insights and heuristics.

• Three Lessons From Oil Painting Class

  Learning about design from a different medium.

• Re-connecting With the Big Idea

  Re-discover the project's big idea by explaining it to fresh eyes, finding clarity.

• Framing the Design of Digital Things

  How the frames we use to describe digital things shape their design and our interactions.

• The Power of Constraints

  There is great power in exploring the constraints of a design project.

• Synchronizing the Pace of Communications

  Understanding and aligning with different communication paces boosts team synergy.

• What's the Purpose of Design Artifacts?

  Design artifacts are communication tools, not the design itself.

• Vision Before Refinement

  Clarifying a project's vision upfront ensures meaningful refinement and a unique market position.

• Thinking and Feeling

  Unlike digital spaces, physical architecture can move us beyond thoughts.

• Tools of the UX Trade

  How the right tools shaped Gehry's architecture and could revolutionize UX.

• Discoverability in the Age of Touchscreens

  Exploring the new challenges of discoverability as touchscreens redefine user interfaces.

• Design is Not About Making Things

  How design transcends mere object creation.

• Worldview and Design

  How do our designs reflect and perpetuate the worldviews that created them?

• Screen Thinking

  How design tools shape our thinking.

• Design is a Verb

  Design is an action, not an attribute or a noun.

• Chasing Engagement

  Engagement isn't a primary goal; true value comes when user needs lead design.

• Alignment

  How design bridges organizational gaps, aligning diverse teams towards shared goals.

• Principles

  Clarifying principles can guide difficult design choices and anchor them in reality.

• 140 Characters Are Enough for a Clear Vision

  How Twitter's lack of a clear vision hinders its potential as a vital civic tool.

• Platforms and Environments

  Why viewing digital spaces as ""environments"" changes design from tech-focused to people-focused.

• The Object of Experience Design

  Unveiling the essence of UX design by contrasting it with other disciplines.

• Design as a Way of Knowing

  Design as a tangible way to explore possible futures.

• A Tale of Two Computers

  Two beloved computers: the SE/30 and iPad Pro evolve from toys to game-changers.

• People, Not Users

  The language we use frames our understanding. Be careful with how you label the beneficiaries.

• Aspire to Ever-Fatter Markers

  How to track the evolution of your design career.

• The Only Important Thing About Design

  Design's value lies in its connection to human experience and needs.

• Leading Effective Co-Creation Sessions

  A workshop on how to lead more effective collaborative workshops.

• Why Workshops Don't Work (and What You Can Do About It)

  How the Value Creation Cycle can transform workshops into lasting change.

• 3 Placemaking Lessons From the Magic Kingdom

  UX designers need to know about placemaking, and Disneyland is a great example to learn from.

• Dejando Huellas

  How can we design digital products that stand the test of time?

• Dangerous Simulations?

  How do seamless virtual realities challenge our psyche and ethics?

• Squirrel!

  Why the allure of shiny new tech shouldn’t blind you to the joys of familiar tools.

• A Unicycle for the Mind

  What's the role of the Apple Watch in your life?

• Stateside

  My family’s move to the U.S. marks a new chapter in growth.

• Book Notes: "The Magic Kingdom"

  Explore Walt Disney’s visionary impact on experience design and cultural synergy.

• UX Total

  A deep dive into information architecture and its impact on urban environments.

• UX Design and Architecture

  Architecture informs UX design beyond web aesthetics.

• The Opposite of User Experience Design

  Chaos in a Panamanian office underscores UX’s vital role in structuring interactions.

• Q: Why Does Good Design Matter? A: Trust

  Good design helps build trust with users.

• UX: La Experiencia del Usuario

  Descubre los principios esenciales de la UX.

• The iPhone

  A new product promises a shift in mobile technology, UX, and how we interact.

• Skip Intro

  Why flashy web intros can cost you business in the modern user-centric digital landscape.

• Thoughts on the Office 12 UI

  Office 12's new UI has implications for web design and application consistency.

• BootStudio: The First 10 Years

  Navigating challenges and accomplishments during my agency's first decade.