Twenty years ago, my first career path after college was as a technical recruiter, but that was a short-lived detour that quickly transitioned into web and software design. During the last half of my career, I’ve been privileged to work as the UX leader for a lot of really amazing practitioners, many of whom I personally hired.
In short: I’ve seen a lot of resumes. I’ve written a lot of resumes, too.
Based on that experience, I’d like to share my top tips for creating a great UX resume. …
“Don’t worry, this guy can tell you everything you need to know.” — Every Enterprise, Everywhere
How many times has this happened to you as an enterprise designer? You start a new project and you’re excited to begin user research. So, you ask someone to provide a list of users, and you get… one measly name. Or maybe you even get three names, but they’re all from the same team (when you know this workflow affects several different roles or teams).
You’ve been relegated to designing for one user, one business stakeholder, or one persona — and you’re in the…
Co-Written by Patrick Deuley.
Spacious. Minimalist. Clean. Bountiful white space has become the de facto design aesthetic in consumer apps.
And I’m not here to hate on the trend. Used effectively, white space is attractive and can greatly improve the usability of a simple interface. Long live bountiful white space!
But what about complex interfaces? Enterprise software designers know the ones I mean: technology-enabling control panels, data-intensive logistics systems, and number-heavy accounting systems. The tools our business users rely on to get their jobs done every day.
Let me tell you a sad story.
The protagonist is a well-intentioned UX Designer at a large high-tech company who was given a new…
Often enterprise software completely dismisses the importance of good microcontent, while it’s absolutely critical to a system’s success.
In this article, we’ll explore why microcontent is so important and how to make yours really good. But first, let’s agree on what it is.
What is microcontent?
Microcontent is the small (that part is so critical, it’s in the name!) snippets of text that give context to your user interface. As a baseline, that includes:
- Navigation Text
- Page Titles
- Section Headers
- Contextual Help
- Field Labels
- Calls to Action (CTAs)
- Confirmation Messages
- Error Messages
Why is it so important?
Microcontent is what gives your system context. It’s what tells your users:
- Where am I?
- Why am I here?
- What can I do?
- How can I do it?
Without…
Maybe you’re a lone-wolf designer in a small company, and you’ve finally gotten approval to expand your team by a few heads. Or maybe you’re part of a larger company that’s starting to embrace the value that good user experience (UX) brings to the table.
Either way, you’re the lucky duck who gets to build a UX team in an organization that’s never had one before. That’s exciting… and overwhelming. Having done it myself a couple of times now, here’s what I’ve learned.
You’ve got enthusiasm on your side.
It’s fun to introduce experience design into an existing product team. When an organization has never had…
Christie Lenneville
Back in the late 90s, I fell in love with building digital experiences. Now, I’m a UX Director who gets to build awesome products and teams.
