As a UX Director, my time “in the trenches” is declining. I’m spending more time handling digital and UX strategy than I had in previous roles. But, like many in design leadership, I have a thirst for design that is now going unquenched.
I decided to tackle the problem of time management, as much of my time now is compromised. The little time that I do have to get into deep work or a state of flow needs to be handled pretty strictly. I had used the Pomodoro Technique in the past with great results. I even use it at…
If you haven’t seen Jurassic Park, I feel sorry for you. But to put it succinctly and in a design context: Jurassic Park is about product validation. Spoiler alert: in the film, John Hammond brings a team of scientists to evaluate his prototype dinosaur park and then everyone gets murdered by velociraptors.
I decided to write this article after departing from a now-defunct startup that struggled to adopt Design Thinking and Sprints in a productive way. Our founder was there for the birth of every T-Rex of a feature we designed. Ultimately, we should have been asking:
“Is creating another…
I usually don’t care for design retrospectives during the holidays as they highlight things that are usually passé, but this year’s pervasive trend really stuck with me. 2017 is the year the Blob was born.
What is the Blob?
The Blob is an amorphous, pseudo-organic shape that’s commonly used to anchor landing pages visually. It usually serves as a mask or backdrop for an illustration. About 90% of the time the Blob is filled with a gradient and sits on the lowest layer of a design. …
In the last month, I have dedicated a portion of my free time to volunteering with high school entrepreneurs who are interested in receiving mentorship and assistance from professionals in their area. This was all in preparation for the FedEx Junior Business Challenge, to be held in Atlanta in late September of 2017.
On September 21, the winners were announced. The $75,000 donation from FedEx was awarded to a group of high-school-aged, aspiring women entrepreneurs from New England with a product called LO-K8 (pronounced “locate”).
Yes, that means my students lost. Was I surprised? Not particularly. My team had decided…
Ian Latchmansingh
Design Technologist for AWS, R&D Innovation
