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.
How To Move From Imitation To Innovation
Podcast: My interview with This Is Product Management
Product Management is a critical component to creating a great product. Product management teams help ensure that a product is headed in the right direction – the direction that meets the market needs.
Product management works with all teams involved in the product development process to understand requirements, resources, opportunities, obstacles and how together we can all create the best product possible.
My Podcast Debut: An Interview About UX With Talking Code
A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of being interviewed for the Talking Code podcast. If you’re not familiar with Talking Code, it’s really awesome. Created by Josh Smith and Venkat Dinavahi of Coderly, Talking Code aims to help decode and demystify product and technical development.
When they asked me to be on the podcast, I was thrilled because I’m a huge fan of making big topics approachable and trying to talk about things in plain English so people can really understand and learn.Continue reading
The Danger of Habituation in UX & 3 Tips For Avoiding It
For product designers, success is all about seeing the details. Every detail is an opportunity to shape the experience that someone will have when they engage in your product. But before you can design the details, you first have to see the details.
With the rise in our use of technology, our brains are simply overwhelmed with information, and though I don’t have data on this, my guess is that it makes our brains really tired. And as a result, we easily fail to see the details that actually matter.Continue reading
Product Evaluations: A Tool to Help You Get Out of the Weeds
Ever feel like you’re stuck in the weeds and can’t see what’s right in front of you?
When I look back at my time working as a full time employee at a start up, one thing that rings loud and true is that we all suffered from what I call tunnel vision.
Tunnel vision is the inability to see the obvious because you are so focused on the scenario in front of you. You’re so deep in the weeds of your idea, product, or company that you can’t see from an unbiased perspective.Continue reading
Innovation, Ideas, & How To Go From Zero to One
A lot of people ask my when I’m going to create my own product. I haven’t for two reasons.
First, it scares me. In 10 seconds I’ve talked myself out of it by overthinking hiring, insurance, money, etc. But second, and more importantly, I haven’t had an idea that I’m passionate about to go down the path of actually bringing it to life. I wrote more about this in an article over on Medium called The Product Of You.
This week I listened to a great interview on NPR that Peter Theil (@peterthiel) gave. Incase you aren’t familiar with Theil, he was the first outside investor in Facebook, founder of PayPal, and a partner at the investment firm FoundersFund.Continue reading
What is Microfeedback and Why it Matters to Your User Experience
What is microfeedback? More importantly, why does it matter to your user experience? Well, to understand microfeedback, you first have to know a little bit more about user experience and how experiences are measured.
In user experience, we talk a lot about the importance of talking to users and customers in the beginning of the product development process. This helps us with market research and customer discovery where we begin to develop a deep understanding of who the user or customer will be.
Without this knowledge, it is impossible to create a successful product. You must understand your target market’s problem and how your product will provide a solution.
So let’s say you’ve done that, you’ve gone through the whole product development process, and then you’ve launched. Now what?
Click here to get my free guide: Introduction To Microfeedback
What Science Says About The Effect of Stories On Our Brains
Storytelling is quite the buzz word right now, and to me, it’s almost reached the level of being cliché. It seems most chatter about storytelling focuses on how to talk about your product to consumers … but I want to go a step further and focus on how storytelling can be applied to our process of creating products.
I know that if a lot of people were to approach their colleagues or bosses about applying tactics from storytelling to the product development process, they wouldn’t get a lot of support. Many people dismiss the idea of storytelling. But the truth is, there is real science that supports the power of stories.
Think about a time when someone told you a story that you just couldn’t stop thinking about — a movie or a book. Continue reading
I’ve Changed My Mind About The Friends & Family Launch Strategy
When you’re launching a product, a common step is to invite your friends and family into the beta. Often times, it’s not just an invite. It requires multiple emails, Facebook messages, and invitations to “like” your product or company’s page on Facebook.
I recently stumbled across some old messages I’d sent to friends and family for products I’ve previously worked on. Frankly, I was embarrassed at how desperate the messages sounded. What in the world was I thinking when I hit send on those messages? It sounded like a telemarketer trying to fill a quota.
I’ve changed my mind about the friends and family launch strategy. Continue reading