Fundamental design truths (part 2)

A few days ago I published a few initial design truths as I see them, per my professional insights across a variety of contexts and projects. As promised, here is part 2 featuring a few additional thoughts…Enjoy! All design is political : I don’t mean in the “conspiratorial backstabbing” sense, but that all design necessarily […]

Fundamental design truths (part 1)

Now don’t get too excited :-) This isn’t meant to be a roundup of all the grand universal “rules of good design”–whatever those are! No cookbooks or recipes for some “quick & easy” design fixes (like taking a pill in The Matrix). Instead, these are some of my collected insights into the major commonalities that comprise […]

Stanford d.school bootcamp experience

Last week for 3 full, intense days I participated in the Stanford d.school “design thinking” bootcamp (along with 13 others from Citrix, including designers, managers, execs, from around the company). Just wanted to share a few initial thoughts as I reflect upon the activities we performed. As everyone has acknowledged–and i concur– it was certainly […]

Opportunity-driven design

The standard UCD-based design canon operates from the basic premise that there is a user problem to identify and solve. User can’t do X so we design an interface/product/service to help said user achieve X or alternatively Y. As I become more involved in “next gen” or “concept” design work, I’m sensing that the real […]

Being a design catalyst

I always find it amusing to see elaborate, trumped up job titles amongst UX folks like “ideation igniter”,  “strategic experientalist” or “interface pathfinder”. You could almost start a short career out of extravagant naming a la Dilbert “mission statement generator” :-) One title in particular that I’ve heard a few times is “design catalyst”, whether […]