11 minutes
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.
13 minutes
12 minutes
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.
12 minutes
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.
14 minutes
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.
15 minutes
12 minutes
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.
17 minutes
In an effort to do my part and help increase the world’s number of well-designed presentations, I’m starting a series called “Design Tips For Non-Designers.” These tips aren’t intended to make designers out of non-designers. They are simply to help folks who don’t have design training become better at visual communications. This is for all the project managers, researchers, and marketing folks out there who want to improve their deliverables. You know who you are.
10 minutes
It’s my goal to build a company that people love. Employees love working for us and clients love working with us. It all boils down to building relationships — myself building meaningful relationships with each employee, and everyone in our company building those same kinds of relationships with each other and our clients.
10 minutes
A friend told me he usually goes into work late because he’s busy playing Legos with his son instead of racing out the door to work. I thought to myself, “I bet he’s a great employee and gets a lot done.”
11 minutes
It sounded absurd to me, but apparently no one at Blink had any idea what gets him or her fired. “Oh dear,” I thought. “That’s a problem.”
16 minutes
We user researchers often find ourselves in unusual places doing unusual things: in homes watching strangers set up media equipment, in passenger seats noting how drivers use in-car technology, in manufacturing settings observing CAD/CAM fabrication, in hospitals interviewing medical staff, just to name a few.
11 minutes
In the projects we work on here at Blink, our clients have specific actions that they would like their users to take on their website or app. For example, one goal might be for a user to download software from a website, while another might be to complete a registration form.
10 minutes
Close to 250 people from around the world gathered together for the third-annual ConveyUX conference. Visitors arrived from Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Korea, Mexico, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the USA. More than 30 presenters shared their knowledge and ideas in over 40 sessions throughout the three days
13 minutes
I’m so proud of so many things that it’s hard to know where to start. Mostly I am proud of every single Blink employee for really taking ownership of our company this year. Below are some of the fruits of our labor…
11 minutes
To achieve joy in the hearts of children, Santa must have an amazing process and an excellent grasp of the user experience of gift giving. While others have suggested an alternative solution for Santa’s approach, we here at Blink take a more analytical approach.
10 minutes
I was recently asked how I cope as a busy person in a world that is becoming increasingly complex. I had to think about this. I’m not sure the actual world has become more complex, but how we communicate certainly has.
11 minutes
Designers know that using contrast is an effective way to direct attention to a specific design element. But what makes it so effective?
13 minutes
How do people find their way through applications? Generally, words and images carry much of the weight when it comes to path-finding in software. It doesn’t matter whether it is an enterprise-level desktop application, a consumer web site, or a mobile app — text and graphics play an important role in directing the user in performing tasks.
14 minutes
Crafting a useful, usable, and beautiful app takes a lot of work and a willingness to throw your designs out the window again and again until you get things right. Even if you get that far, there are usually at least five other apps out there that already do what yours does. Why is yours better? What sets it apart?
13 minutes
“How can we design systems to use the sophistication of human thinking and decision making, AND the complex computation power of machines to strike a healthy balance of automation?”
12 minutes
A recent NPR campaign asked Millennials to define themselves using single words — words like adventurer, optimist, eco-conscious, and activist were among the most popular ways we describe ourselves. These really resonate with me, and I can say without a doubt there is one thing Millennials care a lot about: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
13 minutes
A friend of mine recently called me up and asked if she should go to ConveyUX. She’s a Project Manager, but she does just enough user experience (UX) work to be dangerous. She feels she should hone her UX sword rather than chopping with it like a machete.
19 minutes
A few of us here at Blink are big fans of Car2Go, the point-to-point carsharing service that operates the iconic blue and white SmartCars in several cities worldwide, including here in Seattle (you can typically find three or four outside our office on any given morning).
