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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?