What We Know About Failure So Far

I’m in the research phase of my book on customer experience product failures and I’m pleased to find several books on failure that will inform my work. I’m collecting them in a list on UX Zeitgeist: Oh Noes! Books About Failure. I’ll be adding reviews of each book I read. So far, Being Wrong is [...]

I’m Working on a Book Titled “Why We Fail”

…Real Stories and Practical Lessons from Experience Design Failures“. Learn more at the book site.

Hire People Who Talk to Plants

Empathy has long been a useful trait in designers, because we’re more likely to design products and services that offer utility, usability, and desirability if we care about customers. By extension, it’s therefore a useful trait for business people as well, as authors like Dan Pink point out. When hiring, the tricky part is figuring [...]

Anton Chekhov on Powerpoint

I’m not convinced the MFA is the new MBA, though I like this use of Chekhov’s technique for talking to clients: “One of Chekhov’s more famous quotes was “Any idiot can face a crisis; it is this day-to-day living that wears you out”. His simple philosophies come through in his stories, which were not noted [...]

Customer-Focus When the Customer Doesn’t Even Pay

Diego pointed to this article for its uncommon attention to aesthetics, I point to it for its uncommon attention to the customer: Mr. Ennes… might be the best soup kitchen chef in New York City. On Thanksgiving, when most of the cooks at the city’s other 470-some soup kitchens simply roasted turkey, he prepared “turkey [...]