UX Is a Canary in a Coal Mine
The morale of a UX team is a canary in a coal mine because everything a company does and is impacts the end user experience — the strategy, scope, process, and talent all manifest in the design.
How to choose which job to take
“Which job offer should I take?” is among the questions I get asked the most these days.
UX book recommendations
I frequently get asked for recommendations for books on UX. Here is my short list of favorites.
"In the End"
In the end
you won’t be known
for the things you did,
or what you built,
or what you said.
How to start practicing yoga
As a yoga teacher I’m often asked for advice on how to start a yoga practice. Here are a few tips.
Handling jealousy
I got an interesting question from someone this week:
How you handle jealousy?
There is only this one person that makes me jealous.
DESIGN is... (What CEOs Should Know About Design)
Today, design is as important as technology. I was meeting with a startup last week when the principal architect asked me why is design more important now than ever before?
Love doodles to a stepfather
I just rediscovered doodles my 11 year old daughter made late last year on a notepad Bradley received from the All Things D conference. She never mentioned anything to us about the doodles, just quietly did them over a short period of time.
I'm joining Khosla Ventures!
I’m thrilled to be joining Khosla Ventures as an Operating Partner!
Tales from the trenches: Lessons learned from Netscape, Yahoo!, and Google
I get asked a lot by people for career advice. A lot of the questions center around getting to some destination, such as “How do I get promoted to the next level?” or “What kinds of career paths are available for designers?” In other words,
“Where am I going, and how do I level up?”
Hiring and Retaining Women in Tech
The same day UX Magazine published a QuickPanel on Women in Tech, featuring comments from Indi Young, Christina Wodtke, and Brenda Laurel, and me, I had dinner with a high ranking executive at a large well-known tech company. When the topic about women in tech came up, he declared, “I would love to hire women, if only I could find ones who are qualified.”
New design manager seeking advice
A former colleague, an amazing designer who now finds himself running a team of 18, writes me with questions about managing a design team. These questions might be relevant to many new to design management -- and there are a growing number of them now that more companies are investing in design talent.
Want a job? Act as if you already have the job.
An acquaintance of mine reached out to me about landing an internship for her daughter in product design.
Redefining "Advanced yoga"
“I’d like to get into yoga, but I just wish I were better at it.” The notion that one can be “good” or “bad” at yoga is misguided; with yoga there is no beginning, middle, or end.
Yoga for Designers
Here are a few simple poses to start a basic yoga practice that benefits the creative process.
Mindful Design: What the UX World Can Learn from Yoga
This article is reprinted from the September 2013 issue of UXPA Magazine.
In this article, I will describe how mindfulness practices benefit designers, based on my firsthand experience as a design executive, mentor and yoga teacher.
Designer seeking advice...
Earlier this week I received a message from a young designer asking for advice on how to land her dream job.
Udacity seeks to solve our greatest education and employment challenges
It’s no secret that higher education as we know it today is not sustainable. The cost of going to college is only increasing, and the nation now has nearly a trillion dollars in college debt. And yet, the unemployment rate in the US is around 8%. People are paying sky high prices for college, only to not find a job.
The Nectar of Chanting
We just returned from a family trip to the ashram in upstate NY. Our visit was profound, powerful, and uplifting, in ways that are too deep, personal, and difficult to explain with words. As is typically the case when taking the kids to a new, unfamiliar place, they were uncomfortable at first, but by the end of the week they loved it. Much to my surprise and delight, the kids have really taken to chanting.