“A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.” ~ Steve Jobs [Wired, February 1996]
How to Conduct Yourself While Conducting Interviews
I spend most of my time these days coaching senior leaders and product teams on how to build empathy for their customers and colleagues. This is what my consulting business has evolved into over time. One of the tools we use are one-on-one interviews with stakeholders and customers. The goal is to discover the behaviors, [Keep Reading…]
The Enduring Misconceptions of User Experience Design
A couple weeks ago I suddenly saw a resurgence of interest in an article I wrote for Mashable in January 2009 titled, 10 Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design. Later that year I turned it into a presentation and had a pretty good run with it, until I felt that my message was widely [Keep Reading…]
Speaking Up
Two days ago, a prominent designer named Sarah Parmenter published a post titled Speaking Up, in which she revealed the horrific harassment she has endured as a public woman in technology. Sarah and I have spoken at the same conferences and share a lot of the same friends, and I have admired her ability to [Keep Reading…]
My 2012 Year in Review
2012 has been a big year for me, one of tremendous evolution and many new experiences. At the start of the year, I expanded my vision of user experience beyond product design and shifted my focus to organizational empathy. Designing the product is all for naught if you don’t first take the time to design [Keep Reading…]
Hostess treats their customers as badly as they treat their employees
If you haven’t heard, Hostess is filing for bankruptcy. Hostess Brands, known for making iconic snacks such as Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Ho Hos, is closing its plants, letting go of 18,000 workers, and totally liquidating its assets. A massive union strike and tremendous debt brought them here. But underneath it all, the real reason [Keep Reading…]
Being Good
There’s a very interesting post in NY Times Bits Blog today, comparing Monday’s departure of Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows division, with Apple’s firing of Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iOS Software, two weeks ago. In the post, the author asks, “When do the costs of keeping brilliant leaders who cannot seem [Keep Reading…]
How Empathy Won the Election
Congratulations to President Barack Obama on winning his second term. I am deeply proud to have helped re-elect him to be our leader. I do not agree with all of his policies. I have been disappointed with some of his decisions. But I am able to see past that, because when I look into his [Keep Reading…]
When Empathy Looks Like Apathy: Baby Boomers and Millennials at Work
Don’t be so quick to judge someone else’s ability to empathize, or you may just demonstrate a lack of empathy yourself. There’s a lot of talk these days about the rift between Baby Boomers and Millennials in the workplace, a squabble between parents and their children. Boomers says their young colleagues are self-entitled and aloof. [Keep Reading…]
We Think We See It All
When we look through our eyes, we think we see things just as they are, see all there is to see. “The sky is blue” is the objective fact we most often fall back on when trying to diffuse an argument. It’s our baseline, our common ground, that one thing we can agree on so [Keep Reading…]
