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Stick it out
You can’t change your shoes while you’re running. Have you ever heard the expression “it’s gonna get worse before it gets better?” If you’re talking about improving processes or ways of working in your organisation, then chances are this expression’s probably true. Any new process or change in ways of working has a wearing in…
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Copywriting is interface design
Your product’s user interface is its window to the world. It’s how your users interact with you, and how you interact with your users. The words on your interface are central to the user experience, and crafting perfect copy is every bit ‘User Experience Design’ as designing the user flows, choosing colours and designing screen…
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Don’t be evil (product designers)
Today, for the first time in what seems like ages, my PC caught the flu. This time it was a particularly annoying piece of malware called HDD Low; one of those fake system config utilities that spams you with fake warnings about your hard drive or memory until you give in and buy their special…
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How to remove HDD Low malware without paying for Anti-Spyware software or installing anything
For the first time in what seems like ages I somehow managed to catch a virus… this time a very annoying one called HDD Low. It’s one of those fake system optimisation utilities that keeps spamming you with false alerts about your system (low memory, hard drive error, etc) until you give in and buy…
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Analytics, data and product innovation
It’s important to understand what your users do, how they use your product… but remember: data never paints the whole picture. User research, user testing, usability studies, behavioural analysis, usage statistice: it’s all important – understanding and making sense of this data is crucial for your product’s development – but this data doesn’t exist in…
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Better scrum user stories: save the solution for the spec
In the world of Scrum the user stories are at the heart of everything that’s added to the software: it’s how you break down the product strategy and requirements into discreet, develop-able chunks. We build software for our users, so it makes sense that everything that’s added to or taken away from the software is…
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A good scrum sprint demo
The Sprint Demo is one of the most important meetings on the sprint calendar. So why are so many sprint demos so poor? Firstly, why is the Sprint Demo so important? I think for several reasons: It makes the progress (or, where applicable, lack thereof) of the team transparent (to management, to other teams, to…
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Seek understanding – not insurance
When you communicate, you have two responsibilities: 1. communicate your message 2. ensure the message is understood #1 is easy – but it is #2 that counts. You can do #1 and forget or skip #2 – but you haven’t really communicated. Saying words out loud is not communication – it’s just making noise. Communication…
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Be delightful
Every interaction with a customer is an opportunity to surprise and delight them. Two great examples of this have stood out to me in the last week. Amazon.com I’m a shockingly frequent Amazon shopper. There are so many things that I used to go to the shopping centre for that I now order from the…
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What makes a good Product Manager?
I was thinking recently about the relationship between UX experts and Product Managers, which got me to thinking about what a good product manager is – especially in the world of web products. I think a good product manager needs to understand the whole scope of his or her product. In the world of web…