The Value of UX Certification

UX Matters posted an interesting article last month about the value of UX certification. This is a popular topic among user experience designers, with some veterans expressing disdain and many newbies expressing skeptical interest.

Designing Office Furnishings for Place

With NeoCon finishing up in Chicago this week (and attendees crowding me out of my Starbucks with their super-tight pants), I am reminded of a terrific talk I attended at last year’s Midwest UX in Grand Rapids.

It was a panel introduced by Mutually Human’s Samuel Bowles, moderated by Christina Wodtke and featuring Chris Hoyt from Herman Miller, Jeff Reuschel from Haworth and Ritu Bajaj from Steelcase. Each design lead brought their favorite chair to sit in for 45 minutes or so and discussed the meaning of “place” in their design efforts. Coincidentally, the theme of NeoCon 2014 was Place Matters.

Samuel Bowles introducing Christina Wodtke, Jeff Reuschel, Chris Hoyt & Ritu Bajaj.

Whoops, Your UX Is Showing

Back in my days as an advertising copywriter, one of the rote insults—and we had a bunch—was “Whoops, your strategy is showing.” It was generally reserved for an ad deemed too obvious in its creative execution.

I was reminded of this recently after coming across three different, highly transactional sites that  trumpeted changes to either interface or interaction design based on user research.

I Am (an urban) Legend

Have you heard the one about the guy who dropped his iPhone in the toilet? And then dried it out with rice?

We Are Not User Experience Designers if We Are Not Talking to Users

So says Whitney Hess and Huang Qinghong:

"You guys sitting on couches in air-conditioned offices, sipping tea, smoking cigarettes and coming up with buying tickets online, have you ever considered our lives? Have you experienced the agony of buying tickets?"

Read more about the Not-So-Happy New Year: Rail Website Woes In China.

Blue Collar IA

My unique take on User Experience Design. Coming soon...

On UXD: Tom Wolfe