Well, I've managed a few teams in my time (cue crogety old man music), and so I have some insights that can help your design team run (semi) smoothly. Some of these recommendations are applicable to ALL types of teams,…
Tag: design
Disney, UX Articles
#UX best practices, Disney style: Lessons from Mickey’s “10 Commandments”
I recently had the privilege of speaking at the Internet Summit technology conference in Raleigh, North Carolina about Walt Disney and how his processes and ideas could be applied in user experience design. In pulling together the presentation deck for…
Technology, UX Articles
How a lack of #UX design may have cost Romney the White House
A very interesting behind-the-scenes story about the recently completed US presidential election cropped up late this week. As we all know, President Obama was reelected, beating Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Looking at the election totals, it showed that while Obama…
UX Articles
Lessons in UX: Create rituals, not designs
I was privileged to be able to speak at WebVisions Chicago last month, and had a great time talking to a packed audience about future interaction models (And I didn’t embarrass myself, so that was a good thing). I was…
UX Articles
Why I’m writing UX 101: A Primer on User Experience Design
I wrote this article on my Kickstarter project for TechJournal, and thought visitors to my site might like it as well: If you walk down the street of any city in the world and ask people what User Experience Design…
Featured Articles, UX Articles
UX’s Greatest Mysteries, revealed!
I’m a big fan of Penn and Teller, and have been for many years. I saw them live for the first time last month and was blown away at their performance. They were, and are, incredibly entertaining, and if you…
Featured Articles, UX Articles
Tips on how NOT to do a UX design project
I’ve worked on a lot of different projects in my career, and I’ve learned quite a bit. I’ve always said I’d rather learn from someone else’s mistakes instead of my own, but I’ve had ample opportunity to learn from my…
My Quora answers, UX Articles
What are best practices for mobile UX?
I think you should always include and consider general best practices in user experience design when designing for mobile, as they are foundational. Know your user, test your designs, refine based on user testing… all these should be applied when…
Apple, Disney, Technology, UX Articles
Walt Disney, the world’s first user experience designer
I’m a huge fan of the Walt Disney Park experience, and my family has traveled several times to Walt Disney World and Disneyland. The service we receive is unparalleled to any other vacation spot, and I always return from every…
Apple, Technology, UX Articles
Lessons in UX: How to design a great voice interface system
One of my first jobs in user experience was designing an interactive voice response system for my company’s customer support line. it was more challenging that you might think… we had to understand the mental model of users who would…
My Quora answers, UX Articles
How can you make FAQ pages/sections better?
Have a "smart" FAQ. Make the primary section be the most frequently "asked" questions, based on analytics. Show only the top 10, with an options o view more. Have an obvious link to view all and an obvious text field…
My Quora answers, UX Articles
Is confidence good for UX research and design?
Confidence is good. Arrogance is not. The key is to be confident but also open to other people's ideas and to the possibility that you may be mistaken and/or your design could be improved. Let's use Sherlock Holmes as an…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
What are the foundations that need to be laid out before designing an interface?
I have used multiple techniques to do this, depending upon the amount of time available on the design project. At the very least, you need to have focus as to what you are designing, and know the target audience for…
My Quora answers, UX Articles
What is the reason for multi-column layout in magazines and newspapers?
Before I became a semi-well-known user experience guy, I did magazine layouts and typography. I also studied/majored in journalism, so I read of the early days of newspapers and how they began. So, I think I’m semi-qualified to provide an…
Apple, My Quora answers, Technology, UX Articles
Why are our "smart devices" so dumb?
There are some practical reasons, and some pragmatic ones. A "thinking" device is a device that is consuming power to think (to run the processor), and hardware and software designers have to keep a core user need in mind: battery…
My Quora answers, UX Articles
When should you disable a feature rather than hide it?
Disabling a feature is best applied when it shows the user that they can do something, just not right now. Two examples are menu options that aren't available, or a data entry field that they can't edit. This could confuse…