Today is my last day of full-time employment. I have resigned from my role of Design Communicator at Liquidnet, and as of tomorrow will officially be an independent user experience design consultant. The notion of working for myself has always been there, lurking in the dark recesses of my mind. My parents are entrepreneurs and [Keep Reading…]
Leaving for Israel
Pleasure and Pain is going on vacation If you follow me on Twitter, you probably already know that I leave tonight for Birthright, a free 10-day trip to Israel for Jews between the ages of 18 and 26. I will be traveling with 40 or so other people through URJ KESHER, one of Taglit-Birthright‘s 30 [Keep Reading…]
The outpouring of love for Randy Pausch
When I found out yesterday morning that Randy Pausch had passed away the night before, I felt a wave of regret pour over me. For the things I never said. Like: “Thank you for showing me that my purpose in life is to make other people’s lives better.” That would have been a good start. [Keep Reading…]
Randy Pausch loses battle with pancreatic cancer at 47
For those of you who have never heard of Randy Pausch, he was a much admired professor at Carnegie Mellon (my alma mater), and became world-renowned for his “Last Lecture” delivered last September in which he emphatically discussed how to really achieve all of your childhood dreams (he did!). Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer [Keep Reading…]
Pacific Northwest Roadtrip 2008
I’ve been absent from the blog for a while because I’ve been on vacation (one of many this summer). First I spent the weekend in San Francisco visiting friends from college, wandering around the city and hanging with my “community of practice” peeps (thanks to Josh Williams for organizing brunch and Lorri Nault for putting [Keep Reading…]
The user experience of a staircase
As I was going over the Triboro Bridge on the way to JFK on Friday, I saw a metal staircase high above the traffic that construction workers use to access the top of the bridge tower. Seeing it from a distance made me appreciate for the first time that a staircase is great design. It’s [Keep Reading…]
The Experience of Being a Woman
I have always wanted to be the woman who doesn’t feel the need to talk about women’s issues. I have always wanted to be the woman in business whom people describe as an astute leader and force to be reckoned with without ever being called a “woman in business.” I have always wanted to be [Keep Reading…]
Finding Myself in You
Sometime this weekend I hit 10,000 unique visitors on this measly little blog. (Well, unique cookies at least.) I have been writing here since January 10 of this year. I never expected to attract much of a following, let alone in just four months. Pleasure and Pain is now averaging 920 unique visitors weekly, and [Keep Reading…]
List of Firsts: Saturday, April 19, 2008
Saturday was a perfect day in Manhattan. It was the first real day of Spring that I could actually enjoy — so naturally I took my bike out of storage, pumped up the tires and went for a joy ride. Every time I go bike riding I try to explore something new. Saturday was certainly [Keep Reading…]
No, that’s not me
If you Google “whitney hess” and find this: You’ll get this: Close-up: But sorry, boys. That’s not me.