Sarah Doody
* I originally wrote this post for Medium.
I recently spent a few days visiting family in Florida. Inevitably, a few days into the trip, I had a list of tech-related things that people needed help with. In fact, I became the family appointed Apple Genius…but I’m sure none of you can relate to that (wink, wink)!
As a user experience designer, you haven’t lived until you’ve trouble-shooted tech problems for your family or tried to teach them easier ways to do things.Continue reading
There’s a lot of discussion around whether or not UX designers need portfolios. That’s a topic for another day. But I do have opinions about what’s wrong with a lot of UX portfolios.
One observation I have is that thanks to sites like Dribbble, we’re seeing designers post designs perhaps as a way to showcase their skills to other designers … fetching likes and comments on their “artwork”. But, this type of thinking is dangerous because it puts too much emphasis on the interface, on what it looks like, on the end result.
Recently I was browsing some blogs and design sites and came across someone who said they had just spent 20 hours designing a login modal.
At first, I was really frustrated with this, and then I was a bit sad. Today there is huge misunderstanding of what “design” means when it comes to creating a website or product. Why can’t we put function over form and avoid the temptation to do the opposite?Continue reading
As a user experience designer, it’s hard not to look at products through a design and experience lens. One key problem that I’ve identified has to do with calendars and to-do applications. I don’t understand why they can’t exist in the same spot. Continue reading
Recently I’ve been spending a lot of time on Medium, the new writing and publishing platform created by people including Ev Williams, among others. I love it because the simplicity of the interface helps me focus on the actual process of writing and not get distracted with playing with fonts, styles, sizes, and such.
One of my goals for 2013 is to write more. Continue reading
I look at my Google Analytics every single day. I find it so fascinating to see all the data, figure out what it means, and try to find interesting patterns. The other day, I did a comparison of site visitors versus bounce rate, and I had a moment of celebration because my bounce rates went from 46.5% to 1.90%Continue reading
If I were working at a start up right now, I would take a little time out and have my entire team watch this talk that Dan McKinley (@mcfunley) the Principal Engineer at Etsy gave about continuous experimentation. It reinforces a key lesson that is so simple, but so easily forgotten.
Hillman Curtis used to say that you have to “Eat your audience”. In saying that, I think he was trying to get people to really try hard to intimately know their user. I don’t know if he was trying to figuratively say that we should Continue reading
This week I was fortunate to attend a talk that Jason Goldberg (@betashop) gave about the story of Fab.com. It’s a story of ideas, failing, and doing what you love. Here’s what I learned.Continue reading
Constant connectivity. It’s a luxury that our culture is the first to have, yet our understanding of it’s impact is still so young. I’ve been thinking a lot about our tethered minds. Yes, we have access to more information than any society ever before. Yet, is our ability to consume that information declining? Continue reading