Koan #26 — It’s easier to copy than innovate. It’s easier to take something apart than put it back together. It’s easier to critique than create. It’s easier to create than refine. It’s easier to consume than produce. It’s easier to tell a lie than refute one with the truth. It’s easier to over-simplify…

Koan #25 — I have always found it puzzling that we spend so much of our hiring efforts seeking out “qualified” design candidates. “Why would you want to hire someone who is qualified?” I always ask. That same question can be flipped when we are the job seeker. Why would you ever want…

Koan #24 — Think about the last designer your team interviewed. Maybe you hired them. Maybe you didn’t. What was their experience like throughout the interview process? What was their experience across each touchpoint? We are designers of experiences and isn’t the interview process something we can design an experience around? Was the…

The Folly of UX Interviews — I’ve got a funny story for you — funny in an ironic sort of way. In speaking with several colleagues over the past year, the topic of moving positions has come up more than once. Perhaps it’s restlessness as a result of the pandemic. But more and more designers I…

Koan #23 — Something to think about. How much of what you consume each day is speculative or predictive? How little of it is based in fact or supported by some level of evidence? Consider television or cable news, for example. Whether you follow a conservative, liberal or independent station, the format is…

Koan #22 — The prediction engine is gaining momentum and will undoubtedly be running at full speed by the end of the year (and through the beginning of next year). There will be big headlines and articles stuffed with subheadings listing out the trends you can expect to see in the new year…

Koan #21 — A designer tells her product manager that the feature requested by the client will take 7 working days to complete. It will require some thought and possibly some research, she states. The product manager asks if it isn’t possible to get it done in 3 days, instead. He explains there…

Koan #20 — A few years ago, a friend of mine, Nancy, lost her job. To put it more bluntly, she was fired. It was her first job out of school and she had the misfortune of hiring into an extremely bad culture. The company had put Nancy in a number of difficult…

Koan #19 — “It’s just going to be a lot more work.” It came out as almost a whine. The developer who said it had spent the past 4 minutes, by my watch, proposing an easier method of building a feature. I empathized and sympathized. We were pushing up against a deadline. The…