Loss of a True Thought Leader: RIP Marc Gobé

Yesterday I was sad to learn that Marc Gobé passed away due to a brain tumor. I didn’t know Marc personally, but his work greatly influenced me early in my career.

I think I was only in my first year of college when I read his book Emotional Branding. At that time, I was just learning about web design and was pursuing a degree in Business & Marketing. Something about the book just made sense to me. I think it showed me the power of design. Design isn’t just about making beautiful things. Design should be purposeful. Design should be personal. And above all, design should provoke a connection between corporations (or products) and consumers.

Marc was a leader in brand building and founded Desgrippes Gobé in 1985 which he grew to be one of the top 10 global branding firms. Perhaps his most influential work was the creation of the concept “Emotional Branding”. From his website:Continue reading

User Experience: Systems Before Screens

The field of user experience is still fairly new and it’s exciting time be in the industry. But, with all the growing awareness and interest in the field, we need to do a better job at educating people on what user experience is.

Most people who aren’t in the industry would likely lean more towards defining user experience as how it looks and a few more knowledgeable people might also include function in their definition.

Why is this so important?

The truth is, a user experience designer can help set the course for a product, app, or service. But, there are many individual contributors who add and influence pieces of the user experience. There are copywriters, graphic designers, interface designers, front end developers, engineers, marketers, the list goes on.Continue reading

Get Started In User Experience: The Case For Research

Anytime you get an idea, it’s easy to get married to that idea very quickly. This is definitely true of anyone who creates or designs. You like your clever solutions and you really want to see them make it into your product.

The problem is that a lot of times, people get married to these ideas before they’re ever considered in the context of the user. It’s easy to let excitement for a design or new bit of technology to drive the feature rather than the other way around.

I think a lot of people do this because they base the design on assumptions. And yes, when I first started out, I’m sure I made a lot of assumptions and justified a lot of things without talking to actual users (so bad, I know!!!).Continue reading

Ask Me Anything: User Experience Q&A

There are a lot of people who email me really great questions, a few topics people ask me about are: how to get started in ux, how they can get their company to take ux more seriously, and with questions about their product.

I try to answer everyone, even if it takes me a while. It’s always really interesting for me to learn more about the topics that are important to all of you who are reading my blog.

In the spirit of learning more about my audience, I’m starting a new series called Ask My Anything.  Maybe it will even turn into a Twitter chat someday, we’ll see how interested you guys are.

For now, here’s where I need your help … Continue reading

A UX Review of the BART Ticket Machines in San Francisco

Last week I was in San Francisco for some business meetings. On the weekend, after returning my rental car at the airport, I had to make my way to the Ferry Building to catch a ferry to Sausalito.

After returning my rental car, I hopped on the AirTrain and made my way to the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station. As soon as I stepped off the AirTrain there was a huge line of people in front of the ticket machines and one unlucky woman whose job it was to help people with the machines.Continue reading

Getting Started In User Experience: A Usability Research Example

For people who are just getting started in user experience, I think one area that can seem daunting is usability research. To put it simply, usability research is the process of evaluating how people perceive and use a product — drawing insights from observing them interact with it.

It doesn’t have to be a overly complicated, time consuming, or expensive process. However, I don’t advocate the “coffee shop” method that some people talk about. Sitting in a Starbucks and asking random people what they think of your product is not taking into account the most important factor of all — who that person is and whether or not they are the intended type of person for your product.

Sure, if you want a quick gut reaction or a set of fresh eyes, I suppose the coffee shop method is good. But please, please, please consider the context of that feedback! I’ve seen a few bad ideas be validated or good ideas be ruined by this exercise!Continue reading

Product I’m Loving: Poshmark

People often ask me what products I’m really loving. The truth is, I try out a lot of products but I have only have a handful that I really engage with on a regular basis.

My new favorite product of the moment is something called Poshmark.

Poshmark is a way for me to sell clothes that I don’t want anymore and buy clothing from other people. What I love most about Poshmark is that they took a very analog experience and applied technology to enhance it.

Prior to Poshmark, if I was trying to declutter my closet I had a few options. I could give the clothing to friends, donate the clothing, or throw it out. Donating the clothing is the ideal option, especially because of the tax receipt. But, the process of donating clothing is very full of friction — especially if you don’t have a car. When I purge my closet, I end up with large bags of clothing, shoes and accessories to donate. Then, I have to carry all those bags to a donation center and more than once had to make two trips or hire a taxi because I couldn’t take it all on the subway. Continue reading

Moving From Perfection To Purpose

A very important lesson I’ve learned throughout my career is this:  it will never be perfect. 

Yes, it’s hard for me to admit that! But, over time I’ve learned this is best for the business and user.

Earlier in my career, I remember the temptation to hold a design or feature launch until it was perfect. I remember sitting with a founder and reviewing designs in Photoshop with him pointing out every little pixel to perfect. The truth is, many of the changes were so subtle that they wouldn’t even matter once the design got to the browser. Many of the designs were purely form and had nothing to do with function.

I can’t believe I just typed that because I believe in beautiful design. But it’s not enough to look nice. Design must perform. Design must inform. Design must transform someone from being an acquaintance to an actual user and ideally an ambassador.

Purposeful design trumps beautiful design.Continue reading

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

Get Started In UX & Some Plans For 2014

As we approach the end of the year (and yes, like you I’m thinking where exactly did the year go?), I’ve been doing a lot of planning for next year. One thing I know is that a lot of people want to know how to get started in UX.

One thing that I’m quite passionate about is teaching. In fact, my first teaching gig was teaching piano lessons to children when I was in high school.

A few years ago, I co-developed the curriculum for and taught the first 12 week course on user experience design for General Assembly. General Assembly’s had a lot of success with the long form courses and there are many more topics offered around the world. My experiencing the General Assembly course on user experience design was fantastic and I really loved interacting with the students and seeing them develop their own product ideas.

Shortly after that, I decided to go out on my own and work independently. Unsurprisingly, the hustle of working for myself didn’t leave much time to devote to teaching. But the good news is that in the last few months, I’ve been getting back into teaching!!

Continue reading