If you do a Google search on “UX pyramid”, you get lots and lots of UX pyramids. If you take a closer look, you’ll see that most people agree about the bottom of the pyramid. Applications should be functional, usable, reliable. No arguments here. If things don’t work, the UX will suck. If we move up to the mid-section of those pyramids, we see that there is also a consensus about the niceness of the experience. Experiences should be desirable, esthetically pleasing, pleasurable, enjoyable, delightful. There are more different terms that we find here but the gist is the same: the experience should be nice. So at the bottom, the pyramids say the application should work, in the middle they say they should be nice. A good application works and is nice to experience, looks nice. Good applications solve the majority of business needs. It takes a lot of skill to make a good application. But I am interested in the top of the pyramid, when we move from good to great. …
In my previous essay, I started thinking about a more holistic view on design. I thought about how design is not just beauty, not just problem solving, but also problem finding, questioning. How design is all of that. The head, the heart and the hands. Today, I wanted to take this train of thought one step further. Today, I wanted to think about how to connect these three functions of design and how design can help bridge the gaps between strategy and operations in most organizations. …
Under the banner of the term design thinking, design has been going through a transformation this past decade. More and more people are discovering the power of design to solve problems. The way that designers think, turns out to be a good addition to the traditional thinking in businesses when it comes to solving (business) problems. Especially when it comes to problems that require navigating uncertainty in complex situations.
When we think about the levels of impact and meaning UX design can have, the UX pyramid is a useful mental model. It shows us that applications can not only be useful, but also convenient, pleasurable and meaningful. The base line is about reliability, functionality and usability.
What is your superpower? I dunno. We all know this type of workshop ice breakers. What am I good at? What do I love? What does the world need? What can I get paid for? If you combine all these questions, you will find the reason you exist, your Ikigai.
Change is something that is not controllable. To call the process of change change management implies that it can be controlled, that all you need is a sound strategy and a plan to create change. It creates the illusion that managers can come up with that plan and then everything will be changed according to plan. My experience with change is different. Here are some of the lessons I learned from various change processes…
Artificially created senses of urgency in powerpoint decks don’t change things. Stop pretending they do. Big words will come up during changes. Accept that most of them will be bullshit. You’ll laugh at them later and see that change came from somewhere else. Don’t be afraid to use big words that turn out to be stupid. It’s all part of the change process. …
Here is the model I came up with until now:
How can a designer add the most value? That question is one of the questions that occupy my mind. On a personal level, there is a drive to be valuable but also on a professional level. Valuable can be measured in terms of business value. That is the most direct way to add value in a professional context. But I also see it in a broader context. The well-being of humankind is also something that can be increased through business activities. …
For years, Stanford has been teaching non-designers to think like a designer. They called it design thinking. The term design thinking lowered the bar for people. You can’t teach people to become a designer in a two-day boot camp. That is ridiculous. Designers are people who follow a calling since their early childhood. They were the kids that could draw when everyone else couldn’t. They read design blogs, go to museums, and wear designer clothes. They live and breathe design their whole lives. There is no way one could catch up to that. It’s a lost race. But design thinking is something else. You don’t have to become a designer, you just have to learn to think like one. And since designers do more than they think, this shouldn’t be too hard right? …
One is value creation. Building stuff costs money. Ideally the returns are higher than the investments. At the core of any project is the business case. The goal of a project is to maximize business value.
There are two challenges with creating business value:
One thing that should be kept agile is the business case. Most Agile practitioners keep the investment fixed during a project. This is practical but unwise.
First of all, upfront investment decisions are made up out of guesswork and assumptions. So sticking with those decisions as the project advances and knowledge grows and assumptions get validated, is not a smart thing to do. Before you start, you have no clear picture of what your money buys. …
About