This week is the 40th anniversary of the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I never saw it in theaters, but I do remember playing the HECK out of that movie on an RCA Videodisc when the family bought…
Writer Dorothy (D.C.) Fontana passed away this week at the age of 80. Fontana was a pioneering female screenwriter in the (then) male-dominated field of television. She started writing scripts for Star Trek, but then crafted great narratives for dozens…
Recently received some feedback that gave me pause. The feedback was that I was not fully engaging and partnering with product management. This prompted me to review what I was doing and change my approach and behavior. Reflecting on the…
On a recent project, I had the opportunity to formalize design standards for a web application. The application was designed “organically”… Which basically means it was designed by committee by multiple developers with very little user testing and UX forethought.…
I was recently tasked with creating an Action Plan on how UX can best support a product that needed a lot of TLC. While I had done planning activities like this in the past, this was the first time I…
Anyone who knows me know one thing: I LOVE the work of Harry Nilsson. LOVE it. I trace that love all the way back to a very odd start. It was Popeye. Yup, the Robert Altman Popeye movie. 10-year-old me…
Thank goodness Tom Selleck wasn’t Indiana Jones. That’s right: Selleck was the original choice to play Henry Jones Jr., but he couldn’t get out of his commitment (and contract) to star in TV’s Magnum PI. Instead, the part went to…
Happy to announce that I have completed a major revision of my book UX 101. I have added more content on Service Design, Design Thinking, and Agile, as well as deprecated some older content. Links to buy the Kindle and…
Last month I was reminded of something I did a long time ago – 1989, to be precise. Thirty years ago, i found out that the independent station in Birmingham, WTTO Channel 21, was putting together plans to promote Star…
I was quite fortunate to chat with the great Bjo Trimble last month. Trimble, if you don’t know, worked with her husband John to save Star Trek in 1968. The letter writing campaign they spearheaded convinced NBC and Paramount to…
Something that’s top of mind for me, when it comes to establishing a mature UX team, is traceability: How is the team doing? Who is doing what? Is the team’s output’s at the quality it needs to be? The challenge…
Planning and executing effective user research is sometimes a challenge. The value of research is obviously to UX people, but less so to those decisionmakers and stakeholders – who usually control the budget for such things. I’ve had to build…
Recently Gartner revealed their predictions regarding the top 10 technology trends for 2020. I welcome the opportunity such predictions give me to think around how UX practitioners will have to adapt to such change, and what new types of project…
While I am not a fan of “explainer” videos (where a so-called-expert produces a Youtube clip that details the true “meaning” behind a piece of pop culture) I recently discovered a video on Twin Peaks that gave me pause. It’s…
I’ve been rewatching Star Trek lately – not Deep Space Nine, not The Next Generation, not even Voyager or Enterprise. I’m old school, so when I say I’m watching Star Trek, that’s what I’m doing. Paramount and CBS would like…
I’m a passionate advocate of user research, not just as a practical matter but also from a strategic viewpoint – The more you know about the people that engage with the solution or product you produce the better you can…