Halftank Fuel - Product Inspiration

As designers, we are told constantly by experts that observational research yields better results than basing design on assumptions. Many of those experts, and many designers, often have data and/or anecdotal evidence to back this up. In practice, however, observational research is often minimized if not eliminated in companies as being “too expensive” or “too time-consuming”. Is there anything that designers can do to show their teams that observational research is worth the investment? It...

As a facilitator, I know that the best way to get diverse groups of people to talk is to provide a space that is considered safe enough to talk freely. I also know that in practice, if a senior executive or CEO is in that room, those freeform conversations do not happen. People want to either impress or placate the highest paid person in the room, even if the highest paid people in the room want to encourage speaking freely. This all ends up stifling creativity in the long run. This is why...

For full disclosure, I have a design background and I am certified in design thinking techniques. This doesn’t mean that I can’t be critical of those techniques when I see flaws. And there are many flaws! When I have hosted or participated in workshops, most of the time I see the same pattern: Workshops are full of senior executives and often the CEO Everyone else in the workshop is low key concerned about what those executives will think of them and their ideas The workshop results in going...

When I worked at a certain software startup as a UX designer, several of the other designers there would often pull all-nighters to get something done. Every single time, when they would show their work after an all-nighter, it would be a hot mess. Navigation items left out, typos everywhere, incorrect shades of brand colors, all kinds of small things. During these presentations, people in the room would latch onto typos and the other mistakes shown on screen and would not leave them alone. A...

A large part of creativity requires buying yourself the right tools to do what you want to do. In other words, you need good supplies to create things. In the past, there was easy access to art supply stores in most towns in the USA. Nowadays, online shopping has caused many types of physical shops to disappear, and unfortunately this includes art supply stores. There has been consolidation in the art supply shop industry - looking at you Blick and Utrecht. Recently Michael’s - technically an...

I live with regret every time I go to the dentist, but not for the reasons you would think. About ten years ago, I was driving home from work. It was a sunny day, nothing too out of the ordinary was going on. That said, I was working at a particularly dysfunctional startup. Sprint planning sessions would break out into constant fights, and physical threats between team members very very common. They were not only very common, but the office was just redesigned so that all cubicle walls were...

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” ― Dr. Seuss, The Lorax If you work in digital products or in UX, it can be easy to forget that this is a relatively new profession. This means that it is still being defined. Unfortunately this also means that there is no agreement in what roles in this profession mean. It also means that authority is also often undefined. I entered this profession in part because of its promise to help people, which...