Getting Started In UX: On Becoming Technically Literate

A few years ago I developed and taught General Assembly’s first 12 week user experience course along with Dan Maccarone. One of the classes focused on development and in that class, I spoke about the need to become technically literate.

I started my career learning HTML, CSS, and Cold Fusion. In hindsight, I am so very thankful and thrilled that my career path involved getting technical. Through the process of learning to code, I realized some very important lessons and skills that I use every single day. Here are some of the things I learned as a result of becoming (and staying) technically literate. 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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Getting Started In UX: What’s your one thing?

Jason Goldberg, founder of Fab.com, wrote a great blog post about the only question your startup needs to answer, “what’s your one thing” (sorry, the blog post is no longer available) t online anymore). The premise of the post is that throughout his career as a serial entrepreneur, he’s realized that to be successful, you need to have a laser focus on one thing.

So why is it important to identify this one thing?

Without that focus, that thesis if you will, you risk not having some type of guiding principle or compass helping you navigate the twists and turns that come with product and business development. That one thing will help keep your team focused on that over-arching theme or goal and hopefully minimize the time that you can so easily spend being stuck in the weeds of features, pixels, and process.Continue reading

A Lesson From Shark Tank: What happens when you don’t have a great product story

I’m a huge fan of Shark Tank (and the Canadian version called Dragon’s Den). Apart from the interesting product and business ideas, what I find more fascinating is the quality of the pitches. It’s clear that some people really have a clear vision of why their product exists — the promise to their customers — and how it delivers on that promise.

But, every now and then, there’s a entrepreneur who simply cannot articulate their business or idea. I find this truly amazing!!! I’m sure part of it has to do with casting, and for entertainment value they need to have a few entrepreneurs who the sharks might just attack! But, there’s a lot that can be learned from these ill prepared individuals.Continue reading

Getting Started In User Experience: It Will Never Be Perfect

One of the biggest mistakes that we made at my first company was that we tried to get it perfect on the first try. Countless months were spent trying to make every single interaction, page, and pixel just p-e-r-f-e-c-t. If we’d only known! This was before MVP became a term people used on a daily basis. I’ll never forget a moment when I was talking with a former team member and they said “I wish we’d just started this as an iPhone app and then built a full product.”

The hard truth is that when you have an idea, it’s easy for it to just build and build and build in your mind. It’s just like when you are telling a story and you keep adding to the story with “and then, and then, and then”.

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Getting Started In User Experience: Change up your routine

In this week’s post on Getting Started In User Experience, I’m writing to you from lovely California. Give me the ocean or a mountain and I’m a happy girl!! I love to travel and one of the benefits of working for myself is that I can travel much more because I can work from anywhere.

Travel is great because it makes you break your current routine. It helps you slow time down and see things in a different lens. This is particularly true if you live in New York City. My grandmother used to ask me how life in the “the bubble” was. It’s true. NYC is a bubble … and I love it. But, it’s important to get away and remember what life is like for most people.Continue reading

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.

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7 Must Read Non-UX Books For UX Designers

When I first started my career, I didn’t even know there was a field called user experience. Once I discovered it, I did read a lot of books on user experience. However, there are already tons of reading lists for user experience professionals. So instead of creating another one of those lists, I wanted to create a reading list of my top non user experience books for user experience designers.

As I’ve said before, I think it’s really important to draw insight, inspiration, and ideas from other disciplines. If you are going to design solutions holistically, your mind must be curious and able to connect the dots between seemingly unrelated things.Continue reading

Commerce, Content, Community, and Context

I love to shop. For me, the best part about shopping is the hunt. I love that feeling when you find something that you know is just p-e-r-f-e-c-t.  One of my favorite things to do when I travel is to wander boutiques in new cities, finding treasures, and chatting with the owners.

Over the past few years, I’ve developed a love for online shopping because of the convenience and the breadth of options. I love discovering online shopping sites I’ve not yet heard about. I have a bookmark folder of over 200 shopping sites (and counting).

Online shopping is great for directed and comparison shopping — when you know exactly what you want. For example, if you’re looking for an espresso maker, you can probably find one in 3 minutes (and if you’re like me, send another 45 comparing them!). But, if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for and more in a browsing mood, it’s hard to duplicate that experience online.Continue reading