Category Archives: Project Management
Beware of UX Charlatans
The television faith healers of the digital era. The Rise of the Charlatans A lot of companies are becoming more familiar with the terms “UX”, “User Experience”, and “Usability”, and this is great! There’s a growing community of people who are beginning to see this as an essential part of the design process. However, as… Read more
Everyone is talking UX
And if they are not then they should! Why? Because the creation and/or delivery of a customer/user experience is team work. Just think of all the skills that are involved to develop an experience that fits your end-user as a glove. Just to name a few: business analysis, coding, user research, market analysis, graphic… Read more
Collaboration is a team sport
If there is one topic that stands out in my mind in the last few months, it would be the topic of collaboration. We have been asked to help others collaborate and we ourselves also desire greater collaboration in our work. Why is collaboration so needed in our workplace? Why do talent searchers look for… Read more
How to Create a Space for Design Thinkers, Part II
In my last blog post, I talked about creating an interior space through the lens of User Experience Design (UXD). This perspective introduced the concepts of budget, circulation, and communication that would affect Akendi Ottawa’s exciting move to a new office space. At this point in time, we have secured a physical space, and are… Read more
Menus, Navigation, Pages, Content Structure: Which one of these things doesn’t “belong”?
I think information architecture, (IA), is a fascinating topic and an IA is a very fulfilling thing to construct. So why is it that, during the design process, so many conversations about IA quickly turn into conversations about menus, navigation, interaction design, or worse, what the pages will look like with all those labels on… Read more
Four Different UX Client Types: Recognize Them?
I’m going to talk about our clients; the clients who pay for our work, for whom we love to go out of our way to make happy. I’d like to talk about how these clients behave towards us before, during and after our work is complete and how their behaviour can greatly enhance, or just as… Read more
It’s True: Users Don’t Know What They Want
Users don’t know what they want; this is a fact of user research. Of course, it would be great to be able to ask users “How would you design this?” or “Where would you place this call to action?” or “What do you want to see in this design?” and get beautifully articulated answers that… Read more
Project Management Through A Design Lens
You’re An Experience Architect Developing Wireframes For A New Website. Where Do You Begin? First, you review the project plan and take note of some key scope points: 30 wireframes Three rounds of revisions Visual design (to follow wireframes) Next, you work on your assigned tasks over the next 3 weeks. In this time period,… Read more
Project Management as Project Leadership
If you had to think about the best leader that you’ve ever known, what are some of the traits that you would use to describe them? Some top-of-mind characteristics are: Passionate Confident Empathetic Inspiring Purposeful Collaborative Committed I believe that true leaders aren’t identified by their credentials. They are identified by how they portray themselves… Read more
The Ludicrously Missed Opportunities
Working in UX has taught me one thing: Never underestimate a user’s will to take shortcuts then question why something doesn’t work. So, what makes sense and how can we avoid this? It makes sense to talk to and, most importantly, listen to a user to find out their needs (and wants, wishes and desires.) It… Read more