The superpowers of great product designers

And the tale of the five magic skills.Product designers, like super-heroes, are always faced with unprecedented villains. These maleficent beings come in all types, sizes, and shapes, sometimes with powers of their own, and for the most part, they all try to make someone’s life miserable. They come ..

Is Apple capable of designing a usable mouse?

Remembering Jobs’ relentless approach to product design, and how a sufficient mouse design never came to be Continue reading on UX Collective »

How to build tech that does things differently

Data ethics principles and processes are useful, but they are often of limited use when it comes to addressing the social and environmental harms of the data economy. This post is about using creative R&D to build data technologies that embed a different set of values from the ground up, balancing e..

How to use product norm to assist design decisions

Previously, we discussed what the product norm is and why it’s important to design. In a nutshell, the product norm is the product mission executed in UX. It’s the product concept that’s engineered in the users’ minds and behaviour patterns through experience design. It aligns with the brand’s perso..

Designers: mind your language

I sometimes wonder how the design community — a group of people who pride themselves on their empathy and ability to communicate clearly — have been able to create such an unapproachable profession. For outsiders, the litany of buzzwords, methodologies, and rules can at best confuse newcomers, and a..

The evolution of usability in chess

Modern chess design has stood the test of time, but that wasn’t always the case. Sometimes less is more.Chess has a long history, it dates back to the 7th century in India, where it was created as a war game. In some ways, a lot of the game has remained unchanged since the creation, but there have b..

Designers won’t save the world — but hopefully won’t ruin it either

Designers won’t save the world — but hopefully won’t ruin it eitherA reflection on the challenges, issues, possibilities, and dangers related to ethics while designing tomorrow’s products and services.Photo by NASA on UnsplashFor the past two weeks, I have been diving into the ethical dilemmas of ou..

Rethinking specialization: The return of the generalist

Breaking Down Siloes and Becoming Cross-Functional Enablers is the Future of UX Continue reading on UX Collective »

Design is not design is not design

Design is not a homogenous field and applying the right methods to the problem space is important to getting things right. Continue reading on UX Collective »

Reclaiming your focus, anatomy of design trends, accessibility resources

Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers.Over the course of several months, Nir Eyal has experimented with changing elements of his smartphone so he could have the best of the technology — and avoid the worst. Those experiments paid off, and the steps he took are measures any and..