Every single UX and Product Design portfolio I’ve ever seen says they care deeply about the end user. The portfolio has a prominently featured tagline like “user-obsessed” or “passionate about the user” or something along these lines, usually as lead in to a portfolio that presumably demonstrates this point. But in reviewing the portfolio, it’s… Continue reading
Post Category → Writing
Powerpoint, product quality, and the power of distribution
Powerpoint is proof that product distribution can be just as important as product quality, maybe more so. Powerpoint is a wildly inferior product – its fucking maddening and I hate using it. It’s worst in its class. Literally every one of these presentation products is better than Powerpoint: But I still use it, regularly. I… Continue reading
JIRA Tickets as a Checklist
Recently, as a function of rapid growth, we were encountering problems with newly released features and functionality due to missing critical considerations in the ticketing process. In other words, we would release functionality and then realize it had product impacts we didn’t foresee. Inspired by the Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, I created a new… Continue reading
Saving your design work in an enterprise Figma world
Designers should regularly export their work from their company’s’ Figma and save it down to a non-company location in case they lose access to the platform. Recently, I’ve noticed many portfolios lacking many actual design artifacts. This issue stems from the shift to cloud-based design tools: you create work but risk losing access once you… Continue reading
Contacts is a missed opportunity for Apple
My phone recently updated to iOS 17, which includes the new “contact posters” feature. You can create and share your name and a customized poster with your contacts. On its own, they are kind of fun and a bit whimsical, but they aren’t actually useful in any real way. It offers you some personalization. It… Continue reading
This site is now part of the Fediverse!
Using the ActivityPub plugin for WordPress, I am (in theory) connected to the Fediverse. All posts should now appear if you follow @[email protected] from your Fediverse (Mastadon, etc) instance! If you’re new to the Fediverse, here’s a quick synopsis from ChatGPT: “The Fediverse is a network of decentralized social media platforms that operate on a… Continue reading
Bring Back Web Rings
It’s hard to waste time on the internet if you aren’t on the social platforms. Not to get all Andy Rooney here, but I miss web rings. It was such a compelling way to dive down a rabbit hole on some random topic. It was always super exciting to seeing those shared navigation bars with… Continue reading
From IA to AI: The evolution of User Experience Design – Conference Talk
I had the occasion to give this talk at 2 conferences – the first in Seattle in March 2020, right before COVID got serious, and again virtually to UXPA Cleveland later that year.
Advertising doesn’t have to be evil
Yet today it is. Hyper-targeted ads have become an eye-poppingly lucrative business. Unbeknownst to most users, companies suck up our personal data from a growing and often surprising list of sources in order to better target ads in the hopes they can coerce us into buying something.
Continue readingThe competing use cases of Enterprise UX
In Enterprise UX, your customers are often different than your users. You are effectively selling a machine, aka your product. The customers have a need for the output of this machine. They are buying a better/faster/cheaper way to get that output, but will not be using this machine themselves. The end users of the machine… Continue reading