Yesterday the wonderful Johnny Holland Magazine published my essay, See For Yourself: About the Power of Observing.
The article, or more accurately, rant, is all about how imperative it is for user experience designers to actively observe the world around us on a regular basis. Re-reading it now, it feels quite different than most of my other writing for publications. It’s much more prescriptive than normal — I’m always emphatic, but this is borderline demanding. It just sort of flowed out of me, without me ever previously realizing how passionate I am about the subject.
In a few recent occurrences with clients, I have come to realize that one of the most valuable things I bring to the table is being a sort of anthropologist, a student of humankind. And I really want to encourage other UXers to view themselves the same way. Hopefully I’ve planned a seed.
Read the full article
Johnny Holland is an online magazine on interaction design run by Jeroen van Geel, Steve Baty, and Vicky Teinaki, with contributors from around the globe. I feel very fortunate to now be among them.
Thank you to Jeroen for helping me shape this piece, and for encouraging me to making it something that people will remember.
Please let me know your thoughts in the comments.
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Hi Whitney,
Interesting article as always! Keep up the great work :-)