‘Tool soup’ is a term I first heard while designing for developer experience. It describes the extensive toolset that developers today rely on to get their work done. The implication of the phrase is this: no matter how central you think your application is to a user’s life, they likely spend only minutes in it before dealing with something else. The phrase came to mind recently as I...
Four years ago to the day, after a significant portion of my career working in agencies and consultancies, I made a shift into enterprise products. To be specific, I now work in the complex world of infrastructure automation. It was a jarring transition, not only from UX project work in an agency to product – but to an enterprise product. Like many designers, I used to sit...
Several years ago, I was given a yoghurt maker as a Christmas gift. A (nameless) relative had been quite astute, having heard me remark on at least a couple of occasions “yeah, we take yoghurt on our breakfast now…” Maybe they had heard it too much. Having identified what appeared to be a need, they presented us with a shiny, new yoghurt maker. Sadly the gift went unused. The...
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” — Thomas A. Edison One of the most effective ways to kick off a new initiative is to identify how it might go wrong. Similarly, when planning research goals and methodologies, awareness of potential weaknesses can help to establish immediate learning goals. The Pre-Mortem is a well-established facilitation tool for...
I’ve written a piece for the Puppet blog on the thinking behind an alerts & notifications system for a new product. I’ve had great feedback on the article, which serves to remind me that I should lift the lid a little more often on the work we’re doing. Covey’s prioritisation matrix is referenced as part of the piece. This is, of course, a commonly known and commonly...