Strategy

17 Aug 2008 0850H

Effective design problem solving

By way of Noise Between Stations, there’s a line in this work, my emphasis added, by Nigel Cross’s Expertise in Design:
Expert designers appear to be ‘ill-behaved’ problem solvers, especially in terms of the time and attention they spend on defining the problem. However, this seems to be appropriate behaviour, since some studies have suggested that [...]

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17 Aug 2008 0647H

Biting the hand that feeds you

Seems a recent post at grokdotcom has inflamed the information architecture community: hardly worth mentioning really but for the strident responses drawn to that flame. I don’t think it’s wrong to say that interaction design or information architecture is faulty or point out how they are incomplete, and most mature disciplines at some point in [...]

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10 Aug 2008 0826H

Gap goes back to basics

From BusinessWeek:
“For several years, Gap, under former Disney (DIS) executive Paul Pressler, relied heavily on focus groups and spent little time in the stores. Early on, Gap North American President Marka Hansen encouraged Robinson to have breakfast with store managers at Gap’s flagship on 34th Street in New York City. As he scribbled furiously in [...]

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07 Aug 2008 1216H

Research driving UX projects

We’re in the production stream of a project now, and I’m looking back on an affinity diagram I put together after we’d had a group of about four or five users tell us their loves and hates (such strong words, I know) about a particular online service we offer. Hadn’t looked at it in a [...]

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31 Jul 2008 0822H

Personas for shopping malls?

Why yes. In what is being scored as a landmark event by the NYT (rather late post) at the beginning of July, real estate developers have consulted their targeted users in planning commercial real estate:
Terry Montesi, the company’s chief executive, first hired two female retail consultants: Claudia A. Sagan and J’Amy Owens. But Trademark also [...]

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30 Jul 2008 0641H

Brulant + Rosetta: crazy delicious?

Well, not quite. Since the dotcom days, I have always been somewhat suspicious of firms that have grown by merger and acquisition. In those days, rolling up firms for their assets and clients seemed to be the predominant exit strategy, and all the equity built up by the talent within went for naught as they [...]

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16 Jul 2008 0814H

Design Can Change; Interaction Design Supporting Sustainability

Maybe you all have seen this site, Design Can Change, from SmashLab in Vancouver, but I just tripped over it the other day. It’s a good read, and I think we’re all looking at ways to make changes as we can in the work we do.
A new society will require all kinds of people, [...]

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04 Jun 2008 2214H

Do you make things? Real things?

So I get this email from this guy today. I usually don’t help out grad students generally. As a former academic I try not to get involved now. But the ghost of Victor Papanek won’t let me ignore this one. He said once, “There are professions that are more harmful than industrial design, but only [...]

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21 May 2008 2137H

Online satisfaction

So I’m reading the numbers for the May 15th Spring 2008 report from ForeSee Results on the top 100 e-tailers out there. Netflix, QVC and Amazon lead the e-tailing pack and have done so for nearly four years now, rather remarkable in that manner. But then come the next few and these do surprise me: [...]

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21 May 2008 2126H

Shop four sites at once?

Yep. That’s exactly what the Gap brands would have you do. You can indeed if you so choose buy that bikini to go with your work outfit and don’t forget the flip flops. But, then, where does that leave the Gap? Is it just a slightly more pricey Old Navy? That just seems to expose [...]

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