January 3, 2017

The Healthcare Service Design Rollercoaster

Since 2011 I’ve wanted to take on a healthcare service design project and last year I finally made it happen. We’re nearly at the end of a year long pro bono project to redesign a holistic health center in Manhattan. It’s been the most challenging project of my life. It all started with trying to find a client. We spoke to a number of clients including hospitals and addiction centers, but we ran into issues with HIPPA and finding the right fit for our vision. We wanted to have full purvey over all aspects of the design from the physical space to technology to the way the staff interacts with…

January 26, 2015

Ease of Use vs. Wanting

“Still the wanting comes in waves” – The Decemberists I’m at a place at my organization where usability testing has become the norm, we have our own in-house lab, and the demand for the services is extremely high. I should be sitting on my perch celebrating right now, so why do I still have nagging doubts? What’s missing in this ideal scenario (that many User Experience practitioners are not blessed with)? Usability testing is great at uncovering areas where users get stuck or confused, and we’ve made wonderful incremental improvements to many of our products this way. I’d hate to think what would have been released without it. But usability…

September 1, 2014

UX: Intuition and Science

Often I’m asked what I look for in UX talent, and of course everyone wants a unicorn who has delved into every aspect of digital development, but there are two core traits I look for above everything else. The first is a real passion for the scientific method, which translates into any number of tools in our field such as interviewing users or usability testing. It doesn’t matter which one you choose, but an excitement as well as patience for the method will take you far. A great deal of insight and strategic direction is revealed when you set up an experiment, conduct it, synthesize the learnings, and report back…

May 25, 2014

Make Art (Don’t fear the Flubber)

Today my family and I traveled to Governor’s Island for a Family Festival, that was supposed to include bands and face painting, but that part was cancelled by the threat of rain. Instead we all received free bike helmets from the NYC Department of Transportation which was thrilling, saw a civil war re-enactment, and walked around the beautiful yet imposing brick buildings of the island on old cobble-stone steps. Then we happened upon the Children’s Museum of Art’s tent. They had a big plastic tub (the kind used for photography) filled with what they called Flubber. I believe they said it was Elmer’s glue with water and some other substance…