10 years ago, I was a sophomore in college. I had an assignment in my poetry class to imitate another poet’s style. How I felt then is no different than how I feel now. Elegy for Capitalism By Whitney Hess Imitating Larry Levis Written 11/01/2001 It’s a new love outside A love you’ll never see. [Keep Reading…]
Archives for 2011
Catching Up on Pleasure and Pain
Welcome! If it’s your first time here, you probably arrived via a link to a single post and may not have a full picture of the things I write about. If you’re interested in learning more about me, here’s a selection of posts that can speak to my broader vision about user experience and my [Keep Reading…]
Follow-up to “You’re not a user experience designer if…”
The blog post I wrote about six weeks ago titled, You’re not a user experience designer if…, got way more attention than I ever could have predicted — in fact, I think it got the most traffic of any post I’ve ever written. Sure, it’s an antagonistic title and that always gets people riled up. [Keep Reading…]
Silver Winner of the Inaugural User Experience Awards
I am incredibly honored to have won an award at last night’s User Experience Awards at the Parsons School of Design. I was awarded one of four Silver prizes for my work on the Boxee beta application, and was given the distinction of Best User Centered Design Process. Wow! Thank you so much to the [Keep Reading…]
My mug is on the new Skitch homepage
It’s no secret that I’m completely obsessed with Skitch — the handy screenshot, annotation and image sharing tool for Mac — since I tell pretty much anyone who’ll listen. I’ve probably stood over 100 shoulders waiting for folks to download and install it, then watch their eyes open wide when they realize what they now [Keep Reading…]
Design Principles: The Philosophy of UX
On Monday, I had the honor and privilege of presenting a new talk at An Event Apart Boston 2011, titled Design Principles: The Philosophy of UX. This is my third year speaking at AEA and it never gets less exhilarating — and terrifying! Design Principles: The Philosophy of UX View more presentations from Whitney Hess. [Keep Reading…]
Lifework — A philosophy, a lifestyle, a revolution
Around this time three years ago, I started considering the possibilities of being independently-employed for the first time. Quite honestly it had never even really occurred to me before I met people who were doing it — and were happy, successful and encouraging. It wasn’t until August of that year that I actually took the [Keep Reading…]
You’re not a user experience designer if…
The UX field is booming. It seems like the number of user experience practitioners has doubled in the last year — from newbies who’ve just entered the workforce, to mid-career changes, to folks who’ve been doing this all along but finally found out what to call themselves. It’s incredibly reassuring to finally see a long [Keep Reading…]
TechStars Shines a Light on NY Tech
Thursday was a pivotal moment in the NY startup scene: the inaugural TechStars NYC Demo Day. It was an honor to be in attendance and get to see 11 fantastic startups strut their stuff on the stage of legendary Webster Hall to room full of 750 investors and community. I’ve been following the TechStars NYC [Keep Reading…]
I’m speaking at Interlink Conference 2011 in Vancouver, and you should come
I have the distinct pleasure of speaking at the first ever Interlink Conference in Vancouver, Canada on June 2-4, along with a stellar lineup of people I can’t even believe I’m included with: Samantha Warren, Steve Fisher, Gavin Elliott, Jonathan Snook, Brian Hoff, Ethan Dunham, Frank Chimero, Patrick Lauke, Meagan Fisher, Simon Collison, Sarah Parmenter, [Keep Reading…]