The Twelve Dictums of User Experience (UX) Design

Once upon a time, while strolling through the Japanese Gardens in Portland, Oregon, I made an incredible discovery. And all of a sudden around a bend in the path I discovered a stone tablet containing the lost “Twelve Dictums of … Read more

Try a Google Survey to Resolve Taxonomy Questions

In UX, using the right words to label things means the difference between success and failure. The wrong label can create user frustration that can hurt a business. Words matter — and sometimes the simplest words are the hardest. Recently, … Read more

Without prototyping, agile Is Much Less efficient

I’ve been involved in an agile development process for a new web application for the past several months. The agile process has been “by the book.” A scrum master conducts weekly sprints to review the tasks accomplished, get feedback and … Read more

Keep it stupid simple (SIC)

So the other day in a meeting, a client said he wanted things to be simple. That’s music to my UX ears of course, because simple is almost always best. When the client said this, he used the well-known euphemism … Read more

Ten of my favorite UX quotes

I hope you enjoy this short collection of user experience design quotations. These words of wisdom from sages and experts say more in a few words than I can say in a 500-word post! “Design is not just what it … Read more

To succeed, don’t overpromise and underdeliver

A few years from now, how many of us will remember Mike Bloomberg’s run for the Democratic presidential nomination? I’m guessing it’s something Mike would like us to forget. But like all failures, we can use Mike’s story to learn … Read more

Checklist for creating a great website

If you’re building a website from scratch – or revamping an existing site – where do you begin? This post will help with the many questions that will need to be answered to create a great website. I believe the … Read more

Let’s all get past the “4D” web dev process

When we first started building websites, we used what we called the “4D web design process.” I’ve seen 4D expressed a couple different ways as either Discovery, Definition, Design, Development; or, Discovery, Design, Development, Deployment. Amazingly, despite my chagrin, the … Read more

Why agencies and developers struggle with UX

I have a thesis that agency people have a strong bias that is antithetical to good UX (user experience) design. And, like all biases, it must be overcome to achieve the best outcomes possible. I’ve worked in the agency business … Read more