The thing that makes user research unique

There’s one thing that always takes businesses a while to understand about user research – a faulty way of thinking that needs to be overcome for them to deliver good design. In traditional businesses, reports and documentation are expected to

Getting Hired in UX

I’ve been helping some of my clients with hiring UX designers lately. Here are some tips you might find helpful if you’re looking for a role. Beware miscommunications from recruiters If you’ve been lined up the role by a recruiter,

UX Brighton 2014: 10% off!

Good news everyone – I’ve secured a 10% off discount code for UX Brighton 2014. Enter “90percent” at the checkout. This code works for all ticket types – if you use it now you’ll get an early bird ticket for

So you want to be a UX freelancer?

People sometimes ask me for advice about getting into User Experience freelancing. Is it enjoyable? Is it worth it? Is it good money? The fact is, the answer to all these things entirely depends on you and the way you

User Experience and Jobs To be Done

In the field of UX, we’re all pretty familiar with the concept of behavioural personas, but not everyone is aware of the parallels between this and Clayton Christensen’s “Jobs To Be Done” theory which became famous in his 1997 book

Top posts of 2013

2013 has been an intense year for me, having left Clearleft in April to start my own business as an independent UX consultant. I’ve got to say, I’ve been loving every minute of it. When you’re running your own business

The slippery slope

A paraphrased transcript of my talk at SMX Munich 2013 Let’s start with a little game. In iOS, there’s an ad tracking feature that allows advertisers to identify you (albeit anonymously). It’s turned on by default. Let’s see if we

Are you in a teflon-coated UX role?

Maybe you’re a UX researcher, passing choice insights into the product development machine. If what comes out the other side doesn’t seem right, you feel free to bitch and moan. “Didn’t they listen to the findings I gave them?” Maybe

The drunkard’s search

“There is the story of a drunkard, searching under a lamp for his house key, which he dropped some distance away. Asked why he didn’t look where he dropped it, he replied ‘It’s lighter here!’. Much effort […] in behavioural

Powwowapp: for scheduling research

This is neat. Powwowapp is free little app to help you schedule research appointments. If you work in a UX agency then you’re probably used to paying about £70-£100 a head finders fee for some recruiter to trawl their database

Assumptive Personas

It seems that assumptive personas are getting fashionable again, thanks to Lean UX’s Proto-Personas and Gamestorming’s Empathy Maps. Getting stakeholders to think about their users is a good thing, but it’s dangerous when you start treating them as facts rather