Yes, “Design” is a personal issue

In my decade plus of designing a range of interfaces, products, and services for consumer and enterprise companies, I’ve been often accused of “taking things too personally”, when it comes to design. Perhaps this is a career-limiting move to even state this publicly ;-) But while I wholly regret any offense to others in my […]

CodeCamp interview videos

After presenting my double-header at the Silicon Valley CodeCamp in Los Altos, CA (at Foothill College), I was happily interviewed briefly by Dice.com. These were done after my marathon talks, so I was rather tired (and dehydrated! LOL ;-) But hopefully still sufficiently articulate to answer some good questions about design fundamentals and design partnership. […]

Spreading the word about design

One of the good challenges I face as a Principal Designer is helping non-designers across the company become aware of design, appreciate its power, and recognize their own potential to contribute to design in their own way. It’s not easy! How do you convince Terry The Finance Analyst or Sarah The HR Director that design […]

From concept to reality: Lessons learned

It’s the ambitious fantasy of perhaps every designer, to be summoned by a super high-level authority person (like a company GM, SVP, or R&D Labs Head) to work on a “next gen” project: draft up some cool ideas, pitch them at the next staff review, deliver something exciting! And yes, while this part is quite […]

Good design takes time

This has become somewhat of a mantra internally amongst the Citrix Product Design Team. It’s a fun phrase, but also a serious statement of the need for an increasingly scarce resource amid multiple project release cycles– Time! Yes, everyone and their neighbor begs for more time to get something done. But why exactly does good […]