I’ve grown weary of building digital products that capture people’s attention. The word “engagement” gets tossed around lightly. It’s assumed to be a positive goal; an engaging digital product is something teams should strive to build. Coworkers have shared the book Hooked by Nir Eyal with me and we’ve discussed…

While issues abound with archiving digital information, I find the future of handling information to be even more frightening. …

Happy 2019, designers! Here is some tech-inspired advice for you based on your astrological design sign. Aries: Spinning Wheel of Death There’s literally not enough RAM to keep you running at 100, Aries. You’re the rainbow spinning wheel of death. When you start to hear the motor purring, take a break. …

There are times when a designer or researcher is tasked with evaluating an interface but not given access to actual people. If you find yourself backed into a user-less corner, an inspection method is a great way for you to assess the usability of a design. …

A cognitive walkthrough is one effective method for user experience professionals to evaluate a design. This inspection method allows a single designer or researcher to make suggestions on how to improve an interface without contacting primary users. The focus of a cognitive walkthrough is on an interface’s learnability for novice…

Don Norman advises against developing software that is beyond the grasps of human nature and warns of “ever-increasing difficulty in learning the technology, and an ever-increasing error rate.” And yet for nearly 10 years, blockchain technology has been shrouded in mystery for the general population. Blockchain offers designers and developers…

Leadership is easy to recognize but hard to define. The shape of leadership, as it develops in the design industry, is at once familiar and fresh. Given that “design is way less mature than other corporate functions, and its practice and impact suffer because of its lack of sophistication,” it…

I interviewed Osi Imeokparia, an entrepreneur at heart and expert collaborator, for an assignment at Pratt in the spring of 2017. I met her through my husband who worked on the Hillary Clinton campaign. From what I could see and from what I heard from her coworkers, she led the…

In the final chapter of his book The Design of Everyday Things, Don Norman says, “Fundamental needs will also stay the same, even if they get satisfied in radically different ways.” A dictionary has been a staple reference tool for learning in the modern age and its use today is…