PinnedNon-design advice for designers4 ways to be a better designer by becoming a better person — Not a resolution I don’t do new year’s resolutions. However, when the year comes to a close—and what a year 2020 was—I like to reflect on past events and the things I learned. From social unrest, to pervasive misinformation, to a global pandemic, there was plenty to reflect on. First, I want to…UX Design6 min readUX Design6 min read
Published inUX Collective·Dec 20, 2019Member-onlyRemain a force of influence throughout your (design) careerFoster your value, voice and vision to create impact anywhere. — Ch-Ch-Changes After four awesome years at IBM, I recently transitioned to an opportunity at Google. After leading design teams on my previous job, I became the only UX designer on my new product team. Throughout this process I looked into past failures and contributions and pondered how (or if) I could…Design6 min readDesign6 min read
May 17, 2019Member-only3 things about Design I’d tell myself 4 years ago.As I was getting ready to embark on a new professional journey, after four incredible years at IBM Design, a colleague prompted me to: Share 3 artifacts that you think will be most helpful to us, or maybe 3 tips. So I decided to put some thoughts in writing and…Design6 min readDesign6 min read
Published inUX Collective·Mar 6, 2019Member-onlyAll that feedback is making us staleHow our feedback-heavy culture is watering down your design point of view. Feedback galore Ongoing feedback plays a crucial role in today’s transparent working culture, especially in product design. In the past decades, the design industry has made strides on cultivating great feedback givers and coaching all of us to become better…Feedback6 min readFeedback6 min read
Published inIBM Design·Jan 15, 2019Stop selling a product. Start evoking feelings.How shifting away from a feature mindset and focusing on evoking feelings brings you closer to success. The trigger Last weekend my wife and I went out for happy hour. As we indulged in discounted appetizers and beverages I started to think — and not for the first time — how…Emotional Design5 min readEmotional Design5 min read
Published inIBM Design·Jul 17, 2018Designers & developers: what we want each other to know.Are we beyond repair? In the software world, developers ask: “How do designers spend their time? Do they care about feasibility? Why do 10 pixels matter?” On the design side we hear: “We need to solve user needs, not to build features haphazardly!” Blame gets tossed around and consequently we deliver inferior products to…Design Thinking7 min readDesign Thinking7 min read
Jun 23, 2018Adopt Design Thinking now, and the six words to help convince you.Not with Design Thinking again! Let me be clear, Design Thinking (DT) is not about design nor about thinking and I’m not going to preach about it’s history or methodologies. Design Thinking is about caring about the people who have entrusted us with a problem, our users, and promising that you’ll do something about their…Design Thinking9 min readDesign Thinking9 min read
Mar 9, 2018IBM Hybrid Cloud Design goes to Seattle: insights from the 2018 ConveyUX conferenceby Andrew Whited, Troy Bjerke and Esteban Pérez-Hemminger What’s this about? Design is a small world. In late February, designers from IBM Hybrid Cloud Andrew Whited, Troy Bjerke and Esteban Pérez Hemminger found ourselves presenting in the same design conference in Seattle, Washington. Here, at ConveyUX Troy and I presented a talk called…UX14 min readUX14 min read
Jan 31, 2018Fear (of design failure) is the new blackEmbrace the fear of failure as your design process’ differentiator You’ve heard this before. As the UX Design practice becomes more prevalent in our daily interactions with technology and products, our shared skills as designers have become readily available. The ability to perform ongoing user research, create design concepts and code…UX6 min readUX6 min read
Dec 19, 2017Do less design to become a better design leaderWhy making less and thinking more is the future of your design role As the year-end gets close I take time to examine the state of my professional and personal experiences. For fear of writing about puns and dad jokes, I will keep the personal stuff out of this. This…Design5 min readDesign5 min read
