Designing for a community always makes for an enriching experience. Inviting the community in and facilitating conversations, helped create not only an effective design, but one that reflected the diverse community. This created a sense ownership and a welcoming monument for visitors to this natural urban treasures for ages to come. Lewis Park has finally been restored to it neighboring community.
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Hack the design system!
Looking for insights into championing design? Want to amplify and accelerate digital transformation? Well, I get a book for you. Get your copy of Hack the design system — a new e-book from Adobe and Idean. Great overview on the value of design systems on organizations, products, and business. Oh, and I’m proud to say that I was one of the many contributors.
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The Key to Building an Effective Design System? Stay Small & Focused
The massive scale of an enterprise fosters its own design challenges, but design systems can create consistent user experiences, says David Kendall, principal for UX design, digital design, and user experience at AT&T. He’s working on the second iteration of a design system initially launched a few years ago. Here, Kendall discusses the advantages of a design system in a large enterprise.
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Panel Replay: Erase Friction to Increase Revenue
What causes friction in a Digital Experience? How can I erase friction to increase revenue and improve our Customer Experience? I recently participated in a panel discussion with three other User Experience (UX) experts – Leigh Allen-Arredondo, Head of UX at Spruce Up, Podcast Host of UX Cake, Casey Goddard, Head of Product Management at Yotta Digital Ventures, and Michael Woo, Director of UX at UpTop to answer these five big questions:
How do we identify the problems causing friction?
Once we identify problem causing friction, how do we prioritize what to fix?
What should we do to: Improve conversion, increase engagement, improve usability? Reduce support escalations? Work within technical constraints, technical debt, platform issues?
How do I do all of this with little budget, little time, and lack of understanding from leadership?
How to get internal alignment and stakeholder buy-in?
To watch video replay, please go here.
2005-07-30_img_5303.jpg by gyst is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
UX Friction: where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Friction occurs when two things come in contact with one another. In UX, it occurs when the customer interacts with the interface. Ideally, this experience is smooth and effortless. The reality, as we know, is that unnecessary friction occurs smoking, heating up and even burning the customer. Sometimes, so much heat it drives customers away. They bounce. They don’t buy. They abandon. The expectation is a smooth, seamless, and effortless experience. Experience that create positive emotional connections and the happy endorphins that go with them. And, unfortunately, customers are quick to move on if the heat is too much. That is why we need to be hyper focused on eliminating friction and improving the entire experience.
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Image source: Adobe Stock / NicoElNino
A few thoughts on AR / VR technologies....
In a recent interview with Adobe, several creative leaders shared their thoughts on the potentially disruptive technologies that are emerging — especially how we create and use AR & VR. My thought is that we still don’t know, but the technology is getting more and more accessible and engaging. Adobe’s Project Aero has really brought these technologies to the designer’s desktop. In the interview, I state, ““We’re just beginning to understand how these immersive experiences could better serve customers. That’s why Adobe’s Project Aero is exciting — having tools available to create AR and VR experiences can help us visualize and experiment with the technology.”
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Illustration: Justin Cheong
Article Interview: How Global Brands and Agencies are Shaping the Future of Experience Design
I’ve been fortunate to attend several of the recent Adobe MAX creative conferences. Each one seems better than the one before. They are inspiring, informative, and filled with an incredible variety of speakers and experiences. At the most recent event held in Los Angeles, I was able to share my views on the future of experience design.
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CASE STUDY: Creating a brand through flexibility, creative partnership, and fun
I’ve been quite lucky. I’ve never sought freelance design gigs. They seem to come my way. But, I only accept them with a few conditions – be flexible, be a partner in the process, and have fun. These are simple conditions, but important ones. Flexibility, because I can’t devote all my time to creative projects. I have a career, a family, and many other things grabbing for my time. Instead, I have to fit it in as I can. I also need a creative partner to bounce ideas around with; to share ideas; and to help deal with the many details of a creative project. Finally, it has to be be fun. I love to design. It’s fun creating new experiences and new ways of engaging. The Bla Bla Foods project was all of that and more. A sweet, creative project that we created together while dealing with our busy, daily lives. And, we had a lot of fun.
Read MoreNext Steps: from classroom to competency
Several weeks after one of my design classes, I got together with one of the students. Over beers, he expressed frustration with the gap between his desire to be a skilled designer and his current abilities.
In class, he was eager, attentive, and dedicated. His design skills and thinking impressed me. Yet, here he was, unsure about his next steps and how to bridge that gap. I was also disappointed in myself and my own apparent gap in teaching. My hope is that students leave class with a proficiency in design. But, more importantly, the creative confidence to continue developing their craft. Obviously, this wasn’t happening. So, how can students confidently move from the classroom to a capable, competent creative?
Read MoreWhat’s Your Design Story? Tell it through a Memorable Design Portfolio
As a design instructor, the one thing that I hear from my students time and time again is how frustrated they are with their portfolios. Recently, one of my former students was walking me through his work. It was obvious that he was suffering from the same problems as other students: He had talent, but it was buried. His portfolio was a mishmash of isolated work and random design studies. It lacked focus and clarity. Worse, it was missing his story.
One way to avoid this is to think of your portfolio as your personal design story. It’s an opportunity to not only unify your design work, but also introduce and engage us into your approach, thinking, and inspiration. A solid design portfolio should show tangible design and execution skills. It should also give us a glimpse into what’s unique and interesting about you. We hire people, not portfolios. A good design portfolio showcases both with style and with personality.
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