Conceptual debt accrues when we take shortcuts in developing the foundational concepts behind our products.
Tag: design
What is UX Writing?
UX writing is less “writing, but apps” and more “design, but words”. What I mean by that is that UX writing is primarily a UX design specialization. UX writers typically focus on interface copy and language while working collaboratively as part of a design team on a specific product or feature, rather than working solo…
Should UX Writers use Lorem Ipsum?
Using placeholer text like Lorem Ipsum can help you visualize and consider what impression the form your content will have on your reader. It’s a pencil sketch before laying down ink, a hummed melody before writing the score.
Weaponized
A bit jarring to see one of the tools of my trade — customer journey maps — pop up in this article about the 737 Max and Boeing’s efforts to manage customer “anxiety” about their totally safe airplane that’s killed 346 men, women, and children. (So far.) I’ve been trying to imagine how it will…
Sometimes the box is more fun
One of the first times I presented on ecosystem mapping, an attendee shared an image of their own map they’d been inspired to create. It was interesting, colorful, and information-rich. But also? It wasn’t what I’d call an ecosystem map. At first I worried about the quality and clarity of my presentation. But others shared…
A smaller toolkit
The more you know, the less you carry. Mors Kochanski, wilderness survival expert. Writing and sketching. Card-sorting. Diagrams. Interviews. Spreadsheets. Workshops (structured ideation and synthesis). That’s my toolkit, more or less, for most design problems. The further I get into my career the more affinity I have for simple and sturdy intellectual tools that can…
A Year of Writing for Designers
My first book, Writing for Designers, was released by A Book Apart one year ago today. Personally, much of the past year has been a blur. I experienced a profound loss in December in the death of my mother, a scant 68 days after the book was first released. Reflecting on a year since the…
The map in your head
I’ve written four articles now about content ecosystem mapping. I’ve coached clients through producing them, I’ve led workshops on them, and I’ve given many talks about them (and their big brother, concept models). A point I stress over and over, but is hard to make stick, is that the activity of making the map is…
Scout rush
I find that I have less interest in (and time for) video games as I get older, which is too bad in a way as they are a great source of inspiration for design patterns and UX writing. Lately, I’ve been playing lots of Ape Out on Nintendo Switch. You control a great ape escaping…
Unambiguously mine
My book is in print now. Available in print, anyway. Print on demand. I have a printed copy. (I don’t want to get “you wrote a text”-ed about my book and its relationship to paper. But I digress.) I did not know this was going to happen when I agreed to write for the Briefs…