Posts archive

  • Create a Simple, Early-Stage Product Roadmap in One Workshop

    Create a Simple, Early-Stage Product Roadmap in One Workshop

    When working on a product, who doesn’t want to know where the whole thing is going? Where the North Star is? Products that fail to articulate where they’re going and what needs to be done to get there are doomed. It’ll be slow, a trickle of disillusioned staff leaving, and a general sense of decline.…

  • 5 Lessons for UX and ML to work together – a DDD Talk

    5 Lessons for UX and ML to work together – a DDD Talk

    In 2018 at Developer, Developer, Developer in Sydney, my talk 5 Lessons for UX and ML was selected. It was a feat of extreme love for this subject matter, and a synthesis of everything I had learned at CSIRO’s Data61 at that point. I find the content still has relevance, as we still are not…

  • Content Migration!

    Dear reader/visitor, the blog content from this site will soon be moving to a new CMS. Please expect a change over the week coming Sun 28 April 2024 – 3rd May 2024. All content will be available at a new domain. An exciting new chapter!

  • 3 Principles to Turn a User Interview into a Comfortable Conversation

    3 Principles to Turn a User Interview into a Comfortable Conversation

    The best compliment I have ever got about my user interview style is that it didn’t feel like an interview at all. The questions flew naturally, people felt comfortable, and there was a friendly atmosphere. Of course, this was my cunning plan all along! Various times, people have asked me how I do this. To…

  • Consider Blogging

    Consider Blogging

    Dedicated to PhD Students everywhere, may you find the right path either inside or outside the academy. And with thanks to Maia Sauren for listening to my post academic angst and feedback on this talk. This started as a Why You Should’ve Started Blogging Yesterday talk for VisMatters21. It has been just over six months…

  • 3 Recipes for Remote Workshops

    3 Recipes for Remote Workshops

    *Or any other thing that involves post it notes and hand waving Note: this is features heavy use of the online whiteboard tool Miro. I’m not affiliated with them in anyway nor are they being endorsed by me. Use whatever you like/whatever is not blocked by your organisation’s firewall. Other suggestions have included Google’s Jamboard?…

  • Agile UX Assumptions Busting

    Agile UX Assumptions Busting

    In my many years as a UX designer I’ve also become a keen facilitator of trying to get clients’ thoughts from their heads onto post it notes. However, everyone knows what the clients sees, thinks and expects can be very different to what a team of developers may perceive as the big issues with the…

  • Agile Accessibility for MVPs – A11y Camp Talk

    Agile Accessibility for MVPs – A11y Camp Talk

    So you want to do accessibility in an agile way? But not a lot of time or expertise? Well this is the right place to start! This was my talk at the 2018 A11y camp in Melbourne, and I will endeavour to get you motivated to start on your own accessibility problems. This is a…

  • Scenario Driven User Testing for Early Adopters

    Scenario Driven User Testing for Early Adopters

    What is it?  Scenario-driven user testing uses context to examine the ability of a user (or potential user) of a system to use what we have designed. This is particularly useful for Research and Development contexts when the target user may not exist yet. In fact, the market for the product may not exist yet either. Scenario Driven User Testing requires breaking the rules…

  • In Defence of the Survey

    In Defence of the Survey

    Surveys have become a research method that is often avoided or mocked in UX circles. This is often with just cause. Surveys cannot offer the breadth and depth of an interview. Nor can surveys generally reveal much about the behaviours of a user. Even a focus group (a research method I could also defend) can…

  • Business Models for New Products with Potential Automation

    Business Models for New Products with Potential Automation

    Oftentimes when a new product that wants to take advantage of the AI/ML/Automation boom comes along, UX can be the last thing to be considered. This is short sighted. Automation based new products often don’t take into account a  In encouraging customers and early adopters to products, the UX of how the data is collected…