Jan 11, 2020A human approach to brand design in healthcareEvery day in the emergency department is different. For many patients, the emergency department is a place of pain, worry, confusion, and fear. For care teams, time is scarce and unpredictable. They may be resuscitating a major car accident victim in one room, then seeing a patient with the common cold next. In this environment, good design means…Healthcare6 min read
Published in WE BUILD VEND·Dec 6, 2018Fostering a Culture of Vulnerability and OpennessEveryone deserves feedback on their work. Ruinous empathy happens in teams who hold back on feedback for fear of being impolite, while teams who are harsh in their criticisms verge on obnoxious aggression. As design leaders, we want to plough a middle ground where the seeds of radical candor can…Team Culture6 min read
Published in UX Collective·May 19, 2018“So, how long will this take?” — Answering the Question All Designers DreadIt’s hard to estimate design effort. Especially in a meeting full of expectant faces, waiting for you to drop a number. We designers get it wrong so many times, we end up adding big buffers just to be safe. It sucks to get it wrong, but it also sucks to mislead. We often hear, “Don’t sweat…UX3 min read
Published in WE BUILD VEND·Sep 26, 2017Building Our Design Principles & ValuesAt Vend, we have the opportunity to create change right at the heart of one of the biggest industries in the world: retail. The products that we design and build change the lives of many retailers: from the mom-and-pop shops that were built from the ground up with sweat and tears, to multi-mega chains who employ hundreds of people and create jobs for our brothers and sisters. In our design team, we know…Product Design6 min read
Published in WE BUILD VEND·Sep 26, 2017A Shared Mission: Uniting Our Teams in a Design OffsiteA year ago, our design team had a one-day design offsite at the beautiful island of Waiheke. We were a team of 6 designers split across 2 departments: Product Design, and Marketing Design. We were a slow-forming team in a fast-paced, engineering-led company, where Design was just starting to find its place. We were multi-talented as individual designers, but truth be told, pretty terrible as a design…Product Design8 min read
Published in WE BUILD VEND·Jul 23, 2015Inside the Toolbox of a Product DesignerYou had a lightbulb moment in your garage for a great app idea. It’s going to solve these bunch of problems and so much more. You have spoken to friends about it, maybe even pitched your idea in to some very important people with some very big dollars. Now you…Product Design5 min read
