I solve problems.
Articles by UX Crank, a.k.a. Dan Willis, a seasoned and quite grouchy UX consultant. Topics include all areas under the UX umbrella: Design, information architecture, content strategy, user research and usability.
Every product owner should have the skills to create and evolve product strategy. A particularly talented one combines a deep understanding of their customers with a solid grasp of technology. Even with all that, I have my own list of things I need the product owner to be good at.
Read MoreFor any project, a quality UXer should be able to define the problem that design needs to solve, identify the skills required and the tasks involved, estimate the time it will take to accomplish those tasks and commit to a project schedule. But even with all that, we still need a project manager to do these five things well.
Read MoreIt has been my experience that striving to do these five things well can transform an organization’s approach to design without the tedium and frustration of ideological debate.
Read MoreAs soon as we wedge the phrase “user experience” into a conversation, we make it sound like what we do is somehow exclusive
Read More"When a user puts the elements together in a certain way, they get the experience we had in mind. But when they choose only some of the elements and then they combine them in ways we hadn’t intended, they can still have a satisfying (and in some cases exceptional) experience."
Read More"We like to think that although we may be influenced by emotions and other factors, decision-making is a conscious activity. Our new brains get downright snotty about it, practically ignoring the contribution from the meat deeper inside our skulls."
Read More"How we organize things isn’t just philosophical: Most of us are born either as Lumpers or Splitters and we won’t change over the course of our lives."
Read More"Traditional publishing and content management systems bind content to display and delivery mechanisms, which forces a recycling approach for multi-platform publishing."
Read More"There’s something to be said for putting thoughtful, solid, but potentially flawed solutions out there and improving them in reaction to the ways users break them."
Read More"To me, design is a wildly creative activity, but one that is judged stringently on its ability to satisfy well-reasoned criteria."
Read More"People get distracted by ideal button placement or color choices or “turning up the volume” on content, but significant UX issues start at the very beginning of a challenge and continue long past the implementation of any initial solutions."
Read More"...Under deadline, revenue and political pressures, pretty words can lose their weight and float away. Repression tends to be quiet, insidious and subtle."
Read More"Content and design are partners in the effort to satisfy the specific goals of specific types of users. That makes just as much sense to me now as it did back in 1995."
Read More"It’s not that I don’t care, I always care about my work. And it’s not that my work isn’t engaging, I always find interesting aspects to concentrate on. Professional Life, you and I just aren’t the pair we used to be."
Read Moredan [at] dswillis [dotcom]
