Getting Started In UX: Changing The Mindset Of UX Ownership

Almost two years ago I wrote a post called Why Everyone Can’t Be A User Experience Designer. The post came at a time when I was working internal at a company and was faced with a massive amount of input on how the product. Of course, input is always great — it’s much better than silence. The main problem was that the input was very, very specific and I was often asked to implement this input literally rather than drill down into the true ask behind the input. As a result, it felt like everyone was trying to be the user experience designer. The changing UX ownership made it challenging for me to do great work.

I recently read a post called User Experience Belongs To Everybody by Cap Watkins (@cap) who is a design lead at Etsy. In the post Cap writes, “lately, it has occurred to me that the user experience of a product actually doesn’t and shouldn’t belong solely to the designer.”

I have to agree with Cap. The user experience is not just about someone’s interaction with your website or app. The user experience goes beyond the screen. The user experience encapsulates every single interaction someone has with your brand. Given that today brands have many different touch-points (email, social media, customer service, printed material, etc) it’s seemingly impossible for one person to own the entire user experience.Continue reading

The Value Of Investing In Design

As companies become more aware of the value of design and the expectation that consumers have for a good experience, a key question lies in the value of design. How much time should you invest in design? How much money do you have to invest in design to see a return? At what point in your product’s lifecycle should you focus on design versus simply features?

These are all great questions that are hard to answer because it’s very dependent on the context of the specific product — its resources, team, stage of development, and audience.

Justifying the value of investing in design is always a challenge (in my experience). There’s constant pressure to get to market because of competitor concerns or simply because a company has tied themselves to a launch date (which I really don’t recommend).Continue reading

The Product Of You: Why I Haven’t Launched My Own Product Yet

I’ve been working for myself for a little over a year two. A lot of my friends and family tend to ask one of two questions.

First, they ask if I’m going to stay in New York City. Given that I’m not tied to an office or an employer, many people assume that I’d choose to live somewhere more economical. The answer to that is a post for another day … but after being in New York City for nearly 7 years, it’s home for now.

The second  and more common question people ask is concerning why I haven’t launched my own product yet. Most people think that I have an idea in the back of my mind that I’m working on. The truth is, I have a lot of ideas. But, none that I want to dedicate myself to right now. Continue reading

Everyday UX: The User Experience Of CitiBike

As a user experience designer, in the back of my mind I am always critiquing and improving experiences that happen to me in my life. Here are some insights I had while trying out CitiBike.

On Sunday, my cousin was visiting from London and we wanted to make a full day in New York City. So we met at 7:45 am and got CitiBikes near Wall Street.

Overall, it was a fantastic experience. We rode the CitiBikes from Wall Street to 84th Street where we discovered the beautiful world of Riverside Park and found out where the Boat Basin Cafe is. We then headed back down the 59th Street where we thought we’d get a mimosa at the Plaza Hotel, because what else do you do at 10:30am on a Sunday morning in Midtown? As we learned, there’s a law in New York City that you can’t serve alcohol on a Sunday before 12pm. Who knew?!Continue reading

Everyday UX: Google’s Gmail Interface

As a user experience designer, it is your job to be in constant observation of the world around you. Sometimes, you’re too close to something to see the problem. Sometimes, you need other people to help you see the world through their eyes.

A few days ago, a friend of mine borrowed my computer to send an email. She had cut and pasted some text into the message body and asked me how to change the formatting of the text. Quite easy, or so I thought.

Looking over her shoulder, we spent about two minutes trying to figure out how to change the formatting of the text in the body of the email. Continue reading

Slides from my talk at Asbury Agile 2013

I had the pleasure of being a speaker at Asbury Agile 2013 in Asbury Park last week.

My talk focused on storytelling in product development. Now, I know storytelling is a bit of a buzzword and has reached cliché status. But, I wanted to dig a little bit deeper and see how we can use elements of storytelling not just as a way to talk to consumers about out product, but as a way to help the teams who create the products function more efficiently and create better products.Continue reading

Content, Commerce, & The User Experience of domino.com

I’ve been keeping a a secret for the last 5 months or so. But, I’m happy to say I can finally fill you in!!!!

Earlier this year I was approached by a group of entrepreneurs who wanted to re-imagine the future of content and commerce and then use those learnings to re-launch the Condé Nast title domino. The vision was that the new domino would still be a printed magazine, but also would be a website that elegantly integrated the beautiful editorial from the print magazine and made the products from the editorial shoppable –right from domino.com.

For the last 5 months I have been working with the domino team to figure out how to maintain the integrity of the editorial while weaving in opportunities for readers to actually purchase products they might be interested in. It has by far been one of the most exciting projects I’ve worked on!!

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Emotion & Experience

Earlier in 2013, Apple launched a new advertising campaign called Designed In California. I’ll be the first to admit that although I love Apple, there are things about their products that I find confusing and completely drive me nuts. Putting all that aside, I think that what Apple does brilliantly is create a brand … an experience.

Apple has nailed the art of starting at the end and working backwards to create a great product.

Their dedication to purpose, people, and product helps them ultimately craft experiences that after experiencing once, we cannot live without. Can you imagine life without your iPhone or MacBook?

These are not just products, they are now integral parts of your every day life.

This is the ultimate user experience.

Continue reading