Sarah Doody
This photo is from my trip to Stockholm. It’s an underground tunnel. I don’t know the history of it, but as I was walking through I wondered if the person who designed it intended for it to be a moment of respite for people during the dark and cold Swedish winters. Made sense to me at least!
This week I had a great conversation with a friend from elementary school. We’re both named Sarah. Both of our careers have led us down creative and design related paths. Not surprising given that we were the creators and editors of our elementary school newsletter – which also got us out of going to recess in the winter!
Last week I challenged you to choose one idea that you were going to commit to experiment with. What did you learn? Did you uncover anything new that you hadn’t thought of? Did the experiment create the momentum needed to keep going with your idea?
This week I read a great article in Wired about the concept of simplicity and how in design, simplicity is overrated. I loved this part of the article:
“ … a major factor in screaming matches between people is the lack of a shared definition of a key term. ‘Clean’ for example, can be measured in degrees. Then there’s the word ‘simple’. Two people can have very different definitions of a word like that.”
When I start a new project, I immediately go into research mode. I spend hours looking at other sites, products, and apps to see if the purpose of the product is clear.
The start of any year is a great time to think about the direction UX might be going. UX is an ever changing area and one that can be different one week to the next. Here I share some of my thoughts on where I think UX might be steering towards in the coming year.
One of the reasons why I love user experience so much is because it involves solving a lot of problems. One thing I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is:
It doesn’t matter how you get to the conclusion – you just need to get there.
When we’re trying to solve a problem, there isn’t one way to approach it. In the end, the most important thing is that we solve it.
Last week I told you about how I’m not really into resolutions and how I much prefer setting a focus or theme for each month (read more in this blog post). My January theme is “productivity” and so far it’s going really well.
Welcome to 2016! This isn’t going to be a blog post about resolutions. The truth is, I don’t like resolutions. Most people make resolutions that are too big to achieve. Then they get discouraged and quit all together.
Picasso famously said, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” In product design, we’re always drawing inspiration from others. If I see something I like that another product is doing, I file it in the back of my head as inspiration for later.
But as helpful as inspiration is, there’s danger associated with it.