New to design? I never want to see you start a design without these two elements in place
If you’re new to design – maybe you’ve gone through a UX / Design bootcamp, maybe you’re coming from a illustration or fine arts background, here’s the …read more
Letter to a mid-level UX designer who’s looking to move into a leadership position
Here’s my high-level rollup that you could talk about in the interview – As an individual contributor who is leadership potential: Design is the what …read more
5 mistakes I see students make on UX portfolios
I hope this article helps people new to the design profession create better portfolios (and book more interviews). As a design professional, I’ve seen hundreds of student …read more
Changing organizations isn’t easy – to effect change, make sure you have a strong base and a good plan
The ability to change is a skill that every business needs ingrained. Business is constantly in flux. The organization needs to constantly adapt in size and skill …read more
‘Influencers’ Book review part 1
Influencers is a great book, one I think that everyone should read. Most business books have 10% of useful advice. And while Influencers has some great stories …read more
Increase recall and understanding by taking organized and hand-written notes
It’s important to take meeting notes. For engineers and designers especially, decisions find expression in our work – so it’s important to record and catalog conversation, decisions …read more
Why it’s so critical to have realistic data in your mockups
Here’s a real conversation that I had with a developer recently: As a designer, it’s easy enough to put together a mockup with data that isn’t real …read more
User personas are useless and wasteful, just have everyone talk to real customers instead
Here’s a truth we need to accept: designers for the most part love personas – but they are not helpful. Not in the least. I’ve never found …read more
Want to learn everything about your co-worker’s motivations in 5 minutes? Ask how they are measured
It can be easy to misunderstand people, leading to all sorts of missed opportunities. Oftentimes it can be a simple mis-read of the circumstance’s of a given …read more
Influence at scale, part 3: Investigate, Articulate, Engage
This is part 3 of my review of Samantha Soma’s workshop at the June 2016 Enterprise UX (no affiliation) conference in San Antonio, TX. See part 1 …read more
Influence at scale, part 2: Designing healthy habits for the design organization
“Design is a behavior, not a department” – David Milne This is part 2 of my article series about Samantha Soma’s workshop at the 2016 Enterprise UX …read more
Influence at scale, part 1: behaviors that help teams work together, trust each other and rack up big wins
In June of 2016 I attended a workshop by Samatha Soma. Samantha is a UX professional within GE, helping them to cement the influence of their design …read more
How checklists can help product teams become less tribal and more scalable
“Our great struggle in medicine these days is not just with ignorance and uncertainty,” Gawande says. “It’s also with complexity: how much you have to make sure …read more
4 ways to make meetings less of a time-wasting hellscape
Articles about making better meetings won’t win many clicks. For high-performing teams, it’s a small but critical piece of the overall puzzle. Follow these easy steps to …read more
108 billion business emails per day – we can’t end this insanity but we can make it (slightly) better
I’ve got bad news for everyone: email isn’t going away. In 2014 businesses sent 108.7 billion emails per day, according to a study published by Radicati. That’s …read more
Let’s be comfortable with uncertainty, says IxD founder Greg Petroff
This is a summary of a talk by Greg Petroff, founder of IxD and CXO (Chief Experience Officer) at GE Digital. He spoke as the Keynote at …read more
How to find success when you’re new to a company, project or team
Many projects don’t start with a UX designer or researcher as part of the team – they’re often brought in after a few weeks (or months) into …read more
How to effectively present research findings so people give a damn
How we structure a presentation might seem like small potatoes. And it might not seem appropriate content for a website on enterprise UX design. With 10 years …read more
How to build quantitative, data-driven user personas for less than $30
Today I was lucky enough to watch a presentation by Eric Taylor Ph.D., one of Rackspace’s data scientists. He gave a presentation on building fast and rigorous …read more
Critical skills new UX designers need to have in order to be successful
Last night I was lucky enough to be invited to General Assembly’s Austin January 2016 portfolio review – 10 up-and-coming UX designers spent the last 10 weeks …read more