Importance of face-to-face communication

We started to organize by-monthly UX meetups a year ago. In that time, we tried many channels of communication. I learned that keeping it remote for way too long can backfire horribly.

Facilitating UX workshop

A group of four people facing an extremely sped up process of ideation based on a research document – that was the setting I found myself in. I did my best to take charge and lead us towards a common goal.

Organising UX meet-up

Attending meet-ups, workshops and conferences is a brilliant way to absorb new knowledge and gain different perspective. There are times though, when you feel the community is lacking these kinds of events. This is a story about how my friends and I started to organise a series of meet-ups – the obstacles we faced and how we overcame them.

Having absolute control over the User Experience

Once your perfect software is published, you can finally take a break from checking all the details needed to provide flawless experience for your users. Well, at least up to the moment any change needs to be made and you do not want them to cause any imperfections.

Looking for problems, finding solutions

Do you know the feeling when you have a new idea and you start thinking about how it could look, what features it could have, what kind of impact on the market it could leave? I think it is common mindset to be eager to get all the answers before we start asking the questions.

There is nothing wrong with losing

So many people expect specific outcomes before conducting research. And then they feel as if they lost when the results of their tests do not match the expectations they had. While it might be tough to handle, disproving your own idea can be part of successful research.

Problems and regrets of my survey project

Even the best looking projects that succeed on the outside, might suffer from internal problems and struggles. Sometimes these are hard to spot, sometimes somebody else will take care of it. Either way it is always important to address them.

Masking flaws of AI as benefits

AI is turning into a big boom that will soon become the next thing. Before that happens it is important to help it and hold its hand to hide the obvious imperfections that are yet to be solved.

Letting non-designers and amateurs create features

It is dangerous to give control over an idea or already existing product to non-designers or amateurs. Despite their disbelief and even with best intentions in mind, they lack the skill and knowledge to design features and changes.

Project management in waterfall environment

With the current hype to use agile methodology in software development it is easy to forget that it is not always possible. Let's look at those moments and the experience of being a project manager in waterfall environment.

Workshops for students of primary school

I find presenting UX and Design Thinking to adult audience quite challenging and rewarding experience. Having audience made of teenagers can be even more of a challenge. Last week my audience were 5th graders and 7th graders from primary school – children. What were the obstacles, the approach and the result?

Tech experts and users

The more specialized a person is at one thing, the less she can see into other fields. Experts opinion must be valued but it tends to happen that it is hard to get them to value other opinions as well.

Multiple stakeholders

Dealing with multiple stakeholders can bring unexpected problems. Their opinion about solution might not be unified, their very views on the problem could be different and dealing with all of them at the same time can be a rather messy situation.

Research interviews – Reality and practicing

One thing is to have the theoretical knowledge, the other is to have the practical experience. This time we dive into the reality of Research interviews: how it looks, what can go wrong, how to react in unpredictable situations.

What is not Agile

The newest old buzzword floating around businesses, making huge impact on either success of a business or sanity of its employers – Agile. Instead of explaining what Agile is, lets show some examples of what it is not.

Minimal Viable Product

"You don't deliver features, you deliver solutions to problems." Very truthful quote when it comes to successful design. Since the real world is not always filled with successful environments, lets analyze potential pain points and reasons why delivering pointless features is still a common pattern.

Prejudice and judging people before you meet them

It is easy to make first impression. It takes only couple of seconds for people to box others into groups and make uninformed decisions. It gets even worse when people unconsciously change their attitude based on these first impressions. It is hard to control because it is encoded deep in who we are and yet it can do so much harm.

A day in life – Experience over shadowing

Our department held day in life for the teams inside so that everyone could get to know each other. We spend some time thinking about how we want to describe our team but we could not come up with any solid description that would summarize all that we do in a way we would like to. Eventually we decided that being able to experience something gives you more than just hearing about it.

My UX fall – The day I lost all hope

Combination of stress, prejudice and brooding is evil. Being firm believer of hope and speaker for patience to deal with clients does not make me immune to reality. And the day when it hit me hard has came. I succumbed and I have lost all hope.

Research interviews – Questions and technicalities

Research interview can be bigger beast than people expect. Let's delve into the subject once more. How do you get the most truthful answers, what can you expect from your interviewees and what are the most common mistakes beginning interviewers make?

Research interviews – Leading a discussion

Understanding the true problem is necessary step towards fixing it. Often you are trying to improve experience of your users to increase company revenue in case of external products or employee efficiency if internal products are in question. Let's look at one method to further this understanding - Research Interviews.

Things we take for granted

Have you ever thought about people who had enough misfortune in their life and never had the chance to learn something that comes so natural to the rest of us like shopping for clothes or basic social skills? How about people who have never found their role models who would motivate them into following their dreams or even having any dreams?

It's all your fault

In today's world, people are mainly interested in being right. In their faith, in their beliefs, in their views, in their opinions. And also in workplace. Imagine you have two people defending opposing views, not being able to accept any form of defeat. Just locked in infinite battle of who is right, never discovering the real truth.

Art is not design

I feel like many people view art and design as the same thing or blur the differences to make them feel more of the same. Meanwhile those two things are quite different in its nature. Art plays a role in design. Art as whole is not design though. There is difference there. Art is an expression of the artist while design is an expression of the users.

I want it to be good, cheap and fast

Negotiating with clients is topic of its own. Most likely there are whole books written on that subject. And even though there are multiple levels of understanding client perspective and discussing it, there is one I want to discuss today. The triangle of quality, speed and price.

Selling by lying

Creating a presentation can be a bummer. There are times when you are asked to say something but you have nothing to say. Potentially even worse are times when you are asked to promote product you know is not good. In those situations you need to be mindful of one thing - pretending you are someone you are not. It can get you into lots of trouble. Preaching water and drinking wine will get noticed by your audience.

My take on presentations

During my vacation I realized that I rather watch useless YouTube videos filled with somewhat irrelevant informations than archives of presentations, lectures and conferences on subjects I care about. I tried to figure out why this is the case. I came to conclusion that the reason for it is the way presentations and lectures start.

Saving money by neglecting

It is simple, can we do it cheaper? Can we skip these steps to save money? My friend can do this in a day, your company should be able to do it in a day aswell. These are the 101 must say sentences for majority of the clients you will meet. How to fight it?

Step back and say "No"

From time to time, everyone is asked to work on horrible project with no organization, management and strategy. These projects tend to be frustrating, stressful and an absolute nightmare.

Ask questions

It is not the method of development, process of solving an issue, or having the potentially best idea that matters. It is the questions you ask. For the right questions can make or break the best of ideas for a product.

Workshops for students of secondary school

Some time ago I had the opportunity to organize workshop for students of secondary school. Topic was open, so I decided to talk about UX and design. Challenge was that non of these students came to that school to do design, they were studying networking (internet, routers, switches...) So I had to ask myself, what should I do to reach them and what knowledge would they benefit from in their roles?

Hackaton – Agile vs "Freestyle"

My thoughts on the pros and the cons of using Agile methodology during hackatons as opposed to just improvising and pretending you are in control. All of this based on 24 hour long hackaton experience.

My UX fall – Hackaton I was not prepared for

UX issues our team faced in 24 hour long hackaton from the beginning to the end. The research preceding hackaton, brainstorming sessions during the hackaton and the inevitable fall by the end of the hackaton.

My UX fall – No research and potential problems

When building software or even hardware of any kind for people, it is important to make sure you create something that is wanted, needed and have potential. Otherwise you just wasted your resources and made something, nobody will use. So how do you make sure you know what you should create?

My UX fall – Beginners mistakes

Beginning in new field of study is always somewhat difficult. It was no other for me. I made lots of mistakes and all of them came back to haunt me. So what are those and what can you do to prevent falling into the same hole?

Starting with Usability and User Experience

There is a vast number of different web pages, tools and IT solutions for almost every problem. Beside the speed of those tools, performance, efficiency and other characteristics, there is one very important: Usability. If your users cannot use your IT solution, it is worthless to them.

Cheating and plagiarism in schools

Cheating, deceiving, plagiarism. Why are these present in nowadays students? In some countries more, in some less. Today I want to discuss my opinion on how to fight cheating and what are some major reasons for it.

I know because I am...

Have you ever argued with the person who refused to accept your opinion? Have you ever had a friend whose opinions were always strange and you simply couldn't agree with them? Well there is a reason behind both of these questions and that is what I want to discuss today.