2 min
Being named on Forbes Magazine’s Best Small Companies in America list is truly amazing. It’s a great honor for Blink UX to represent not only Seattle on the list but the entire West Coast!
7 min
We set design objectives for creating engaging products that will keep a user’s attention, encourage task completion, and be enjoyable to use. However, of those objectives, we find “enjoyable to use” the hardest to design for and measure. This is in large part because humans perceive experiences differently – what one person thinks is clever and clear, someone else may see as complex and opaque.
7 min
At Blink UX we perform qualitative research to inform the design of digital products. Focus groups are a familiar form of qualitative consumer research. But while the focus group has a place in our research methods toolkit, we rarely pull it out. Why is that?
5 min
Now that the benefits have been covered, let’s talk about the nuts and bolts of running an effective research debrief meeting with your clients. A little smart prep work can save a lot of time and effort when analyzing/reporting research results, especially when your time and budget is limited.
3 min
One of the important aspects of customer research is talking about the observations with clients afterwards—what worked well, what didn’t, as well as “ah-ha” moments that generate lively discussions and ultimately innovation.
4 min
Many leaders in tech industries are now investing multiple billions of dollars into bringing consumer-level VR to market. Facebook bought Oculus, a forerunner for consumer-level head mounted display (HMD) hardware. Samsung, HTC, Microsoft, and Google are also investing heavily.
6 min
Farmers and those involved in agribusiness have historically been early adopters of technology to help increase yield, reduce time, and save costs. Going all the way back to 1793 and Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin we see farmers using design thinking for new solutions to wide and common problems.
3 min
Last week, Jeff Alpen, Blink’s Client Engagement guru, asked me if I could quickly pull together some existing research for one of our clients.
4 min
Usability studies are great for identifying issues that prevent users from getting things done, however our goals for user research often encompass trying to gain insight into what users understand about the overall structure and layout of a system. Recently I used mind mapping in a body of work around mobile navigation and found it was an effective and helpful research tool.
9 min
I spoke with six active digital music listeners about how they typically consume music. These six participants were then asked to look into Apple Music and provide feedback on their overall impressions of the service and its features after using it in the session.
3 min
It’s highly probable that I’m part of the last generation that remembers walking into a music store and purchasing a physical thing that plays music. Whether that’s vinyl, cassette tapes, or CDs, these tangible relationships we had with music are quickly fading away.
3 min
Recently, I did something I hadn’t tried before: I was “reading” a book in two separate formats on two different devices.
10 min
At Blink we practice evidence-driven design. That means that the design recommendations and decisions we make are grounded in solid data and sound reasoning. But what counts as good evidence? What are the data and reasoning that stand behind a well-motivated design decision?
7 min
This week I had the honor of giving the commencement address for the 2015 University of Washington’s Human-Centered Design and Engineering Department graduation ceremony.
5 min
How do you provide value quickly to your client or to your product team? How do you confidently argue for findings and steer designs when you are new to that industry’s domain? Below I share a few tips from Sarah Barrett, a few colleagues, and myself.
6 min
The onboarding process is a critical step in setting your users up for success with your product, but there are a number of considerations and hard decisions to be made when you are designing your onboarding to define how best to get your users familiar with your product and its value.
5 min
We’re extremely proud and excited to announce that Karen Clark Cole is a finalist for this year’s Pacific Northwest Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year award.
3 min
Over the past five years I’ve supported users with their technology questions, either as an IT professional or “that techie friend,” and one constant that remains is the usefulness of a universal user experience. Maintaining a consistent design, feel, and set of interactions across devices is at the heart of universal user experience.
5 min
3 min
Not that there is anything wrong with making a dashboard visually appealing—it’s a key part of the user experience. But I’d suggest an approach to designing dashboards that begins with the what before getting into the specifics of how to present the display.
3 min
Recently at Blink we made an online purchase without understanding all of the terms and conditions. We bought 200 attractive, customized mugs for our office, however, there was one unrecognized flaw: After putting them in the dishwasher, some of the imprinted ink came off.
5 min
Communication: It’s how we talk to each other. How we talk to clients. It can be nebulous and squishy, yet it’s important and impactful. Communication is directly related to the quality of the projects we deliver, how well we meet our clients’ needs, and the satisfaction we have with our work.
7 min
3 min
The person hovered over OmniFocus at the start of each day? Yes, that would be me. Rewind 20 years and there I am again, but this time lugging about a three-ring Franklin Planner. Suffice it to say that planning and I go WAY back.
