Why a section on software development process in an introduction to user experience? Because you will need to know and integrate with such processes as part of your job as a UX professional, that’s why. You will need to know…
Category: UX 101
UX 101, UX Articles
#UX101: On working with developers and project managers
No man is an island – to be an effective UX professional you need to work and partner with people with different backgrounds, skills, and priorities. If you don’t build solid relationships with the many people responsible for executing the…
UX 101, UX Articles
#UX101: A few words on Content Strategy and Service Design
User experience design is a pretty broad discipline, with many different areas of focus you can align your career to. There’s information architecture, user research, usability testing, requirements modeling, wireframing, prototyping… each with a different focus, approach and outcome. I…
UX 101, UX Articles
#UX101: The User Centered Design Process
One of the things I get asked a lot by people interested in user experience design is “How do you do what you do?” The sometimes want specifics, but often the question is broad… what is your process? So, let’s…
UX 101, UX Articles
Best Practices in UI Form Design
I looked back over some of my older writing and realized that I had written about form design in three separate posts. These posts, while similar, contained different ideas and recommendations. Thus, I have decided to combine them here. Keep…
UX 101, UX Articles
#UX101: A (brief) history of user experience
What we now call “user experience design” began a lot longer ago than many people realize. In fact, you can trace UX design WAY, WAY back… all the way to when humans created the first tools. A tool in its…
UX 101, UX Articles
#UX101: What is UX, anyway?
I am writing my new book UX 101 the same way that two of my literary idols, Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens, did: in serial, one chapter at a time. I hope to post a new segment every week…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
When creating web and mobile application UIs, what is better: "Flat Design" or "Skeuomorphic Design"?
It depends. Yes, I know, that's a cop-out, but not really… There are benefits and drawbacks to both, and what your are designing and who you are designing for is just as important as the design "style" ("Flat" or "skeuomorphic")…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
Should companies with in-house UX teams evaluate their own work or engage external UX consultants to do so?
Bringing in an external consultant to evaluate a team's work is a BAD idea, for several reasons. First off, the consultant can be the best UX professional in the world who makes the most cogent points possible… but he or…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
What are best practices for participatory design sessions?
Participatory design is a great way to have an engaging conversation with users about a particular task or situation. The main thing to remember about participatory design is this obvious point: Users aren't designers. During the design session they are…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
What user experience means to me, and how I approach the design process
I may sound like Pollyanna, but to me user experience design is a way to make the world a better place. OK, so it's not like we UX folk are curing cancer, or finding new sources of energy, or stopping…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
What does a lead UX designer do?
Hate to pull this old chestnut out, again, but I must…. it depends. There is no one definitive definition of "lead UX designer." In some companies he or she may "own" the entire design of a product or a domain,…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
What is the daily work of a UX designer like?
It depends on several factors, primarily the stage of the project(s) being worked on and the type and size of company. I have found that the typical design process traditionally has four stages: Analysis and Research, Conceptual Design, Design Testing…
UX 101, UX Articles
Lessons in UX: Embrace criticism
I’ve had my fair share of uncomfortable situations in design meetings, moments where the person presenting their work took any criticism of what they were showing as a personal assault, an attack on who they were and what they had…