Collaborate with others in Google Docs and Draw.io — I teach at General Assembly in Seattle as a Part Time UX Instructor. One task that pained me early on was watching students scour the Internet for templates they could use to do user research, create site maps, and record usability tests — especially documents that were free using collaborative…

Think framework, not process. Start with Empathize and Define every single time. — We can talk about Design Thinking: Stanford’s DSchool’s Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test for the uninformed. The reality is that design is more framework and less process. It’s guideposts, so you have a pretty good idea of where you are going, and adjust when it happens in asynchronous order. How…

You’ve heard all the nightmares: it rains all the time, the traffic is bad, Microsoft and Amazon dominate the job market, the male to female ratio is so bad the dating scene isn’t, yadda yadda. …

So much goes into building a website, but why are designers always to blame? — This was originally posted at Usability Counts. It’s easy to criticize the user experience of an application or website, because we’re all end users. But sometimes we use it once, while many have to use it day after day as a part of their job. …

What you need to know before you make the move. — This was originally posted at Usability Counts on January 16, 2012. If you’re in User Experience, there’s no other place like the Bay Area. There are thousands and thousands of jobs and, seemingly, that many job openings. All the great product stuff gets done here — which means you won’t…

The only magic bullet to getting started in the field: hard work. — This was originally posted at Usability Counts on October 28, 2011. Some User Experience designers think they are entitled to great jobs out of the gate. They think that just going to college and getting the degree is enough. That presenting the wireframes from a college project represents a portfolio…

Use the process to turn a job interview into an opportunity to demonstrate your skills as a designer. — This was originally posted at Usability Counts on January 29, 2014. When you’ve reached the phone screen or the in-person interview step, you’ve gotten past the hard part: you have demonstrated that you have the qualifications to work at the company. …

Understanding your audience is essential to building great products. Sometimes you don’t have to interview them to do it. — “So who are we designing for?” That should be the first question of every single project. It should be followed by, “What are their motivations?” or “What are their goals?” If you don’t know who you’re designing for, wireframing is a waste of time. I was once at fault: I…

Buy their stuff, show appreciation, and remember they’re people too. — When I speak at events, I’m always surprised what I get asked after the presentation. I put the deck online (that’s usually the first request), but much of the information I disseminate is of the spoken variety. I’m kind of like Michael Stipe, who is famous for forgetting lyrics. …