by Darren Hood

Introduction

With the masses rushing to get into UX, in the midst of all the skills being taught and discussed, there is a lack of soberness that’s left out of the zeal and/or the accompanying insights are omitted from the “career sales pitches.” Truth is, while UX is indeed valuable and valid as a discipline, it presents many challenges to practitioners. Sometimes, we refer to these as “nightmares,” but I’ve decided to put a spin on that mindset. …

by Darren Hood

Introduction

Some people are wondering why I would write such an article and what it has to do with user experience. Well, this article shares insights about giving and reading reviews, helping US to have and provide better user experiences in an arena we don’t seem to consider.

We read and give reviews about companies, products, books, and services, all without understanding the associated dynamics. Then, people act upon what’s provided. When reviews are not engaged with properly, it sets several destructive elements in motion (e.g., …

by Darren Hood

There are lots of folks out there today who spend time trying to convince people about what they call “the best way to learn.” One of the most interesting things about the vast majority (if not all) of these folks is that they’re not educators. They don’t have any training in learning cognition. They don’t know anything about instructional design. Yet, they present themselves as experts.

Someone might say, “Darren, you’re just a UX professional yourself. What do you know about the subject? Who are you to say anything about it?” Well, I’m glad you asked the…

by Darren Hood

How do you define UX? I’ll explain why I’m asking in just a bit. Before we talk about what UX is, let’s consider what it is not:

• Thought of by many to focus only on aesthetics.
  It’s not the job of UX professionals to “make things look good.” Our focus is on things like usability, optimal cognition, and ease of use — not “pretty.” And “pretty” can evaporate quickly if the usability, cognitive load, and ease of use are all painful.
• UX is not UI.
  UX consists of a minimum of 120 methods, methodologies, principles, techniques, deliverables, and…

by Darren Hood

Time for another book recommendation list (and this one’s overdue). As mentioned in a recent post, information architecture (IA) has been a forgotten and/or overlooked part of user experience for several years now. This is grossly inappropriate for several reasons. Most notably, in addition to serving as a core foundational discipline to what we now know as UX, its application is the only way to ensure optimization of findability and proper implementation of information design.

While there are some who still understand, embrace, and practice IA in their UX roles, this is still a new concept to…

by Darren Hood

I spend time talking to and/or hearing concerns from up-and-coming UX professionals all over the world. The most common story involves the challenges and frustrations associated with finding their first UX job.

First things first…. I get it. Many of the aforementioned folks don’t think that senior UXers understand, but we used to be them/you. In addition to having been there once before, having come through the ranks and (for some of us) being current or former hiring managers, we have insights that can prove useful in the current push. …

by Darren Hood

There are over 100 cognitive biases at work in the digital world. Confirmation bias is when someone only gravitates and listens to things that are aligned with what they already believe or want to hear. With hindsight bias, after something takes place, a person behaves as if they knew what was going to happen all along when they really had no idea. When a person operates under the false consensus bias, they falsely assume others share their sentiments, resulting in overestimating the value and accuracy of said sentiments.

They all carry consequences, but one of extreme importance…

by Darren Hood

Do you love smoothies? So do I. Whether they’re made at home or are from the Smoothie Kings, Tropical Smoothie Cafes, or Jamba Juices of the world, I love them immensely. I’m going to use smoothies as a metaphor to help make somewhat of a fun and interesting point in this post.