East vs. West Design: A conversation with Sydney Anh Mai

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In this Human Tech podcast episode we talk with Sydney Anh Mai from Kickstarter about differences in design between the East and the West. 

Sydney grew up in Vietnam, but then came to school and to work in the US. A Product Designer for Kickstarter, we talk about product design, interaction design, and cultural differences.

 


2nd Edition of 100 Things Book

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When I wrote 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People I, of course, hoped people would like it (every author wants to be a “best seller”!). It has turned out to be even more popular than I had thought and hoped, and I am very grateful to all the readers who have read it and who have reached out to me about it since it was first published.

Over the last few months I’ve been working on a 2nd edition. I wanted to update some of the research and include some new ideas. So I’m happy to say that I’ve finished the 2nd edition and sent it off to the publisher for printing. The official date it will be available is June 30 (2020) but it is available for pre-order now at Amazon.

My publisher has also given me a promo code for 35% off if you pre-order it through their outlet. (good through June 30). The code is 100THINGS.

If your copy is dog-eared and you want a new one, or if you want to buy one for a friend or recommend it to others, try the 2nd edition.

A Rant About User Research: The Latest Episode Of The HumanTech Podcast


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For this episode of the Human Tech podcast, Susan Weinschenk goes solo at the microphone to talk about user research:

What it is
Why you can’t skip it
What kind of user research to do
Making the ROI case for user research


If you want to learn more about user research by the way, we have an online video course on the topic.

 

 

Bringing Emotional Intelligence To Machines: An Interview With Pamela Pavliscak


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Do we know enough about human emotions to start building them into our technology? Isn’t human emotion the one thing that differentiates us from machines? What does it mean to build emotional artificial intelligence? These are some of the questions we discuss with Pamela in this episode of the Human Tech podcast.


Pamela’s upcoming book is Emotionally Intelligent Design, and is available for pre-order on Amazon.

The best ways to reach Pamela are:

Twitter: @paminthelab or https://twitter.com/paminthelab
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamelapavliscak/
https://www.changesciences.com/
https://soundingbox.com/

Change Your Organization By Changing Your Meetings


Cover of the book Meeting DesignMeetings are everywhere. Whether it’s a team meeting at work, or a committee meeting of the local music society you volunteer for, a lot of us spend a lot of time in meetings. How many of those meetings are actually enjoyable, productive, and satisfying?

Forget about the usual meeting hacks you’ve read about (start and stop on time, have a clear agenda and action steps after the meeting, and so on). Kevin M. Hoffman, in his book Meeting Design, goes much further. He approaches the design of meetings as he would approach the design of a user experience, or a product interface.

In this episode of Human Tech we explore how designing meetings can change the team, and perhaps change the organization.

 

 

The best way to reach Kevin is to contact him via twitter:

@Kevinmhoffman

AND Kevin is looking to hire designers and researchers at Capital One in Washington DC area, Chicago, New York, Richmond VA, San Francisco, or Plano TX, so contact him if you are interested.

And check out his book: Meeting Design published by Rosenfeld Media.

Design In Sweden


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In this podcast episode we talk with Johan Berndtsson about design and business in Sweden. Johan invites listeners to submit suggestions for speakers for his next “From Business To Buttons Conference” and also invites people to come do design work in Sweden.

Throughout the podcast we refer to videos, give web addesses and so on. Here is the list of links and recommendations from Johan:

Check out Europe’s greatest Business, Service, and UX-design conference, From Business to Buttons at https://frombusinesstobuttons.com/, and the videos from past conferences at  https://frombusinesstobuttons.com/archive . All of them are excellent, but be sure to watch:

  • Jared Spool
  • Mike Monteiro (both talks)
  • Kim Goodwin (both talks)
  • Eric Meyer
  • Golden Krishna
  • Patricia Moore, and of course
  • Susan Weinschenk

Also, if you want to learn more about inUse check us out at http://www.inuseexperience.com, and e-mail johan.berndtsson@inuse.se if you have questions or if you’re interested in joining.

Further reading:

The story behind the conference: http://www.inuseexperience.com/blog/story-behind-business-buttons/

Thoughts behind UX and Service Design moving out into the physical world: http://www.inuseexperience.com/blog/experiences-services-and-space/

A template for the Impact Map, our perhaps best tool to connect business goals to user behavior and design: http://www.inuseexperience.com/blog/template-impact-maps-here/

The history behind the Impact Map (http://www.inuseexperience.com/blog/evolution-impact-mapping/) and how it has evolved over the years (http://www.inuseexperience.com/blog/evolution-impact-mapping/).

And… The invitation for designers to come to Sweden: http://www.inuseexperience.com/blog/dear-us-designers-welcome-sweden/

Human Tech is a podcast at the intersection of humans, brain science, and technology. Your hosts Guthrie and Dr. Susan Weinschenk explore how behavioral and brain science affects our technologies and how technologies affect our brains.

You can subscribe to the HumanTech podcast through iTunes, Stitcher, or where ever you listen to podcasts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A New Course On Color And Design

I’m so excited to be adding courses on color and design to our online training curriculum.

Katie Stern, who has multiple degrees, books, and lots of experience designing with color and teaching others how to do the same, has put together the first course in what will be a whole curriculum on Color and User Experience (UX) Design.

The first course is Color Terms, Tools And More. I took it myself and learned so much from it. I highly recommend it.

Here’s a short introduction to the course:

If you use the promo code

colornews

when you register you will receive 35% off the regular price. This special price is for two weeks, March 1 to 15, 2018.

Here’s some more info about the course:

You will learn color terminology, the basics of color theory, and how to communicate color information with your team.

If you are analyzing or designing a product or website, then you are working with color. Making color choices can be unconscious or intentional, depending on how much thought you put into them. Identifying colors that will create a great user experience can be a daunting task, especially if you don’t have the vocabulary to communicate about color with your UX team members. When you learn color terminology you will be better able to communicate your color design intentions.

You will learn:

The challenges involved with naming colors
The difference between the additive and subtractive color systems
How pigment color is different than digital color
How monochromatic color schemes are built
The definition of tints, tones, and shades and how to create them
How the Adobe Color Picker and Paletton help build color schemes

and much, much more!

So check out the course and let us know if you have any questions.

Steve Fleming-Prot: The Experience Of Designing An Experience

In this episode of the Human Tech podcast we talk with Steve Fleming-Prot. Steve has been designing complex user interfaces and experiences for decades and now is a Senior UX Research Consultant at User Testing.  In this episode we talk about the details of what happens when you are designing a user experience, and we also talk about his “conversion” from a moderated user tester to an unmoderated test planner.


Human Tech is a podcast at the intersection of humans, brain science, and technology. Your hosts Guthrie and Dr. Susan Weinschenk explore how behavioral and brain science affects our technologies and how technologies affect our brains.

You can subscribe to the HumanTech podcast through iTunes, Stitcher, or where ever you listen to podcasts.

Mistakes People Make With Personas, And Why You Should Care

Logo for HumanTech podcastCreating personas before you design a product seems quaint and old-fashioned these days. In this Human Tech podcast episode we get UX-nerdy and talk about why we still think personas can be useful, how they help you design, and the mistakes that people make when they create personas.


Human Tech is a podcast at the intersection of humans, brain science, and technology. Your hosts Guthrie and Dr. Susan Weinschenk explore how behavioral and brain science affects our technologies and how technologies affect our brains.

You can subscribe to the HumanTech podcast through iTunes, Stitcher, or where ever you listen to podcasts.

A Conversation With Damien Borba from Adobe XD

Logo for HumanTech podcastI think that AI and robots will be writing all the code and doing all the design of digital products before too long. But until then, we need good design tools. My favorite is Adobe XD. Have you tried it?

We met Demian Borba, Stategic Development Manager for the product when we were out in San Francisco earlier this year, and in this podcast episode we talk with Demian about Adobe XD, about design tools, and about his background.

Here are some links we mention in the podcast:

xd.adobe.com for information on the product in general

https://adobexd.uservoice.com/  if you want to leave a message or ask a question for the Adobe team

https://www.facebook.com/AdobeExperienceDesign for the Adobe XD facebook page and the place to go to watch Demian’s livestream events that happen every Wednesday at 10 Pacific time.


HumanTech is a podcast at the intersection of humans, brain science, and technology. Your hosts Guthrie and Dr. Susan Weinschenk explore how behavioral and brain science affects our technologies and how technologies affect our brains.

You can subscribe to the HumanTech podcast through iTunes, Stitcher, or where ever you listen to podcasts.