David Kelley is the founder and chairman of IDEO, probably the world’s best-known design innovation consultancy. Though not quite a household name, Kelley has arguably made as much of an impact on the field of design as the late Steve Jobs — in fact, it was under Kelley’s leadership that IDEO designed the first mouse [Keep Reading…]
More Empathy, Better Design
“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]
Bill Moggridge, pioneer of empathic design, dies at 69
I was deeply saddened to learn that Bill Moggridge died of cancer yesterday at the age of 69. I will always regret that I never got to shake his hand. Those hands probably sketched hundreds of thousands if not millions of iterations of interaction design ideas throughout his career. In fact, it was Moggridge who [Keep Reading…]
Designing Time
I recently wrote about how I’ve become much better at designing my own time. Recognizing the infinite options with which to spend it, having a clearer sense of what makes me happy and fulfilled has allowed me to make the right choices to meet my greater goals. This skill is not only crucial as it [Keep Reading…]
The Purpose of a Business is to Create a Customer
A customer is defined as a person who pays a business for goods and services. If a person does not pay, they are not a customer. The nebulous term of “user” is assigned when a person is accessing goods and services without directly paying for them. Call them a visitor, a prospect, a constituent, whatever you want. Until they pay you, they’re no customer of yours — and you have not fulfilled upon your purpose as a business.
Interaction-design.org’s Encyclopedia is live!
Interaction-design.org is a Denmark-based foundation that explores research on all human-centered aspects of technology. In an effort to create world-class educational materials for free, they have just launched an open-access, peer-reviewed encyclopedia. The first seven chapters were released today, with many more to be published in the coming months. I was invited by editor-in-chief Mads [Keep Reading…]
A Book Apart: Empowering Fuzzy Teams in 100 Pages or Less
On Sunday, I reread Jeremy Keith‘s HTML5 for Web Designers, from cover to cover, on the plane to An Event Apart San Diego. I first read it when it arrived on my doorstep in July, but I am in a different mindset now — beginning a new product adventure — and I wanted to refresh [Keep Reading…]
Watch me on The Big Web Show
Last Thursday I had the absolute pleasure of joining the lovely Jeffrey Zeldman and Dan Benjamin on the eighth episode of The Big Web Show (read my previous post). If you weren’t able to catch the live broadcast, be sure to check out the video and podcast. We talked about how I’ve used Twitter to [Keep Reading…]
Old Guard Versus New Guard: An Interview by Tom Johnson
While at STC Summit in Dallas a month ago, Tom Johnson, a technical writer for the LDS Church in Salt Lake City, asked if he could interview me for his blog I’d Rather Be Writing. From Tom’s blog post: In this videocast, I talk with Whitney Hess at the STC Summit in Dallas about her [Keep Reading…]
I admit it: I’m always five minutes late. And it stops now.
I was just smacked in the face by a recent blog post by my dear friend Jeffrey Zeldman, Free advice: show up early, about the consequences of being late to client meetings. Why? Because it forced me to finally fess up to one of my major flaws: I’m always five minutes late. Sure, five minutes [Keep Reading…]
