2012: Year of “emotionally resonant” simplicity

Below is an excerpt from a recent piece I’d published for an IT industry journal, offering “predictions” for 2012 around design matters. It was a fun piece to write, in cooperation with our Citrix PR team. I usually avoid publicizing any kind of  “predictions” (you almost always get in trouble, either for inaccuracy or overhyping) […]

Diagrams for business thinking

I remarked the other day to one of our design directors how often it seems my “throwaway” diagrams of an overall workflow (objects / people / actions / outcomes) spark some very critical (yet unaired) business discussions: what are we really making, which market does this serve, what’s the monetizing scheme, and overall profit model? […]

Design leadership at multiple levels

While it’s understandable in this era of cool, beautiful designs marketed on app stores that a start-up (or any company for that matter) desperately wants “someone to make the UI pretty”, it’s vital to understand that a designer provides significant value beyond “pretty pixels”, or “easy usability”. A designer of digital products & online services […]

Me design pretty one day

I just love how Devs and PMs often ask me (or my talented peers) to make “it” pretty. Usually the “it” being something that’s a total riot of buttons, icons, menus, tables, and randomly thrown stuff, already “pre-designed” by the esteemed stakeholders like aforesaid PM or Devs. Understandably it’s all borne out of good intentions […]

SxSW 2012 recap & notes

This year I was fortunate to be selected as a speaker presenting at the SxSW Interactive Festival on behalf of the Citrix Product Design team. An awesome honor, I took the opportunity to its fullest to experience SxSW This was actually my second visit, having previously attended about 5+ years ago when it was a […]