“Make Design Great Again!” —Donald Trump (probably)
Title: Discrimination by Design Context: Design is pretty fly…if you’re a white guy. Synopsis: Women? People of color? Disabled? Poor? Sorry, I don’t seem to have a persona for any of you. But I’m sure you’ll all be fine with … Continued
“Remain calm” said almost no technology ever.
Title: Calm Technology Context: Rather than doing more, better, faster perhaps technology should instead take a chill pill once in a while. Synopsis: We all know what technology is about: speed, ubiquity, efficiency, choice, distractions, confusion, panic! Hold on. Seem … Continued
The UX designer’s Hippocratic Oath should be: Primum non impediat.
Title: Computer-Assisted Embarrassment Context: The only things that regularly embarrass my kids more than I do are their “smart” devices. Synopsis: We’ve all surely been embarrassed by technology at one time in our life whether it be an overly creative … Continued
I could design that for you. But then I’d have to kill you.
Title: Looks Can Kill: The Deadly Results of Flawed Design Context: Sometimes the end-user impact of a poor design is a lot higher than “I don’t like how this works.” Synopsis: No designer sets out to intentionally kill his or … Continued
We need to have a serious conversation about dashboards.
Title: Die Dashboards Die! Why Conversations Will Reinvent Software Context: You can either show your customers a bunch of data or you can talk to them about what it means. Which do you think they would rather do? Synopsis: Big … Continued
Default settings are a designer’s way of telling you “Just do it this way dummy.”
Title: Set It and Forget It: How Default Settings Rule the World Context: Don’t like your current user experience? You could change it. Or continue to suffer. Totally your call. Synopsis: Nobody changes their default settings. On anything. Ever. Software, … Continued
Humans are the longest running #UX design project in history. And one day we may even get out of beta.
Title: The irreverent (and slightly bloody) history of UX design Context: The user experience of human development could use some process refinements. Synopsis: Humanity is a product. Leaving aside the divine nature of the “intelligent designer” argument (after all, would … Continued
#ux iota: Just because you design does not make you a “UX” designer. Correct your LinkedIn accordingly.
Title: Don Norman: The term “UX” Synopsis: The guy who helped to create the term “user experience” wants you to know that most of you are using it all wrong. Best Bit: “…today that term [user experience] has been horribly … Continued
That design is bad! (Not “bad” meaning “bad” but “bad” meaning “good”!)
Title: Unpleasant Design & Hostile Urban Architecture Context: When bad experience equals good design. Synopsis: Most design should be devoted to making people’s lives intentionally better. No, that’s not a misprint. I purposefully did not use the opening phrase “All … Continued
Does technology stifle or enable creativity? The answer is: “Yes”
Title: The Filter Bubble Context: What is creativity when everyone is enabled to be creative? Synopsis: Everyone is a photographer. I know because Instagram tells me so. According to Medium (and, apparently, WordPress), we are all writers deserving to be … Continued
IoT is the future! (If you don’t want it to be dystopian, might let the designers pitch in)
Title: The Internet of Things Needs Design, Not Just Technology Context: We’ve finally hit the point where we all agree that technology without design is bad, right? RIGHT?!?! Synopsis: A fully networked world is coming. Your toaster will talk to … Continued
You can lead a stakeholder to change, but you can’t make him drink, but you can probably make him change.
Title: How IDEO Designers Persuade Companies to Accept Change Context: Having trouble designing for someone? Try designing with them instead. Synopsis: The job of a designer is hardly limited to the act of designing. Especially when working for — and … Continued
#ux iota: Just when you though reality couldn’t get any worse, along comes hyper-reality.
Title: HYPER-REALITY Context: Virtual. Augmented. Hyper. Whatever happened to good old “real” reality? Oh, that’s right…not enough ad space. Best Bit: In a digitally saturated future, religion might just become a better Google than Google. via vimeo.com
Creative generalist? More like “Creative Full-of-crap-alist”.
Title: Domain Specificity of Creativity: Theory, Research, and Practice Context: Creativity does not succeed without expertise. It’s just science. Synopsis: From the time we are young, individuals are categorized. He’s a good athlete. She’s smart. Those guys over there eating … Continued
Don’t lets design the world. Lets instead participate in its betterment.
Title: Design as Participation Context: Who should we be designing for? Nothing like a dense academic treatise to answer an otherwise straightforward question. Synopsis: Designers design for users. This is dogma. Fact. Law even. That’s basically our job description. Users … Continued