From User Experience to Customer Experience - talk by Kerry Bodine

Kerry Bodine is kind of a big deal.  Watch as she:

• Distinguishes Customer Experience from User Experience
• Monazites the billion dollar customer experience industry
• Makes clear the huge, growing opportunities for leaders to rise to the challenges

This is an exciting video to watch as a ux designer.

Did you want to cry today?

Watch this video created to make employees at a hospital express more empathy. It's going to probably make you cry.



Also check out these MIT suit which dims your sight and stiffens your body so you can empathize with someone who's about 70.

Follow Rachel's board I made it, Rachel Li said. on Pinterest.

Free sketching templates for downloading

Find yourself tired of constantly making screens? Does your arm smart after too many rectangles? Worry no more! Download sketching template PDF!

Collect them all: 1, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 16 up! If you act now, receive all in one convenient PDF.

A time visual design made my life better

Two things really helped me apply for college: 

1. A very visual roadmap of the process (I can't find it so I recreated what I remember below). I wish I could find this again!
2. The (very thick) Fiske Guide to Colleges 

How to explain design in 75 minutes

Those of us working in design have seen a huge spike in interest in our profession. No matter the cultural zeitgeist however, we feel like designers. People who make stuff well.

Watching Objectified was awesome as it explains the UX process.



I cringed when one designer equated design with for-profit work. Sure, that's something designers do too, but it clashed with something I've thought for a long time but needed to see the movie to expand on:

Everyone is a designer.

Seriously, everyone. We are natural designers, because design is embedded in everything we do.

• Did you put on clothes? Then you crafted an experience for those around you. 
• Did you arrange your own furniture? Then you designed an experience for yourself, family & guests.

That philosophical difference aside, this is a great movie about design.

Meet PIG

I created the Project Inspo Generator to help you jumpstart your brainstorming.

What a little typography can do

I recently discovered the fun of google fonts. See how they take this boring site design: 

And gives it a modern, sleeker touch? I'm a fan.

You may be visual if...

You've printed a crib sheet for your date in the city.

The notes include: 

• ferry departures
• nearby restaurants
• the meeting place and  description of the tour

Proof students need to take over the world

I submit to you as ironclad proof this project: 

Oakland's homepage in wordcloud format

City of Oakland homepage wordcloud:

Word clouds are a visual way to see word frequency. Note the 3rd most important word, Click.

Of high importance:

• Click
• (City) Council
• Budget
• Illegal (Fireworks)
• Business
• Parking
• Night
• Public
• Information 
• Report

Notably small or absent:

• Citizen
• Services
• SeeClickFix

Does the word cloud tell us something the visual design does not? I'd say so. The Banner photo of Chinatown, Mayor Jean Quan, and the Maintenance Notification feature prominently.

Where men are men, women are moms.

One of these things is not like the other..

• A mom's invention helps kids.
• A man is expecting Quintuplets.
• A mom meets her baby.  

Pulled from story titles on Huffington Post

A quick citizen experience tour of Government websites

At a quick glance, which website would you rather use?

Ireland

 Australia

 The UK

New Zealand

Canada

United States

I know what technology wants.

It's the same thing we all want. Attention. Energy. Care.

Help, I'm sick! Go plug me in.

Seriously, Upworthy

Stop it.

My remote usability testing setup

After a recent grueling round of recruiting : ( then testing and sharing results, I was wiped out. Testing is intense, but recruiting and testing? I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.

I wanted to share my basic setup:

• Computer 1, on speaker: Webex as the host and recording tool, Silverback (backup recording) audio through google voice on speaker
• Computer 2, muted: Sococo (to communicate with coworkers), view observers live notes on ideaboardz,  Participant contact info (in case of issue), the Schedule 
• Printed: Script
• Often overlooked but important  Participant compensation/gifts, a practice run, Dialing and webbing in 15 minutes early, a deep breath, one medium sized beverage, a smile in your voice to put the customer at ease, and immediate feedback for front-line stakeholders who are thirsty for input they can put into their product.

Why modern cars are no fun

Confusing navigation systems, limited styles. Face it, modern cars are a fucking bore.

The design of cars is disappointing. Cars don't evolve, they only iterate. Why don't car companies innovate both the driving experience and the sales experience? Commercials tout luxury, practicality, and style but how stylish could it be if most every car looks the god damned same and it replicates but doesn't improve upon your phone's navigation system? Or how cool could it be if the person selling these machines didn't tell you why he really needs this sale.

What car shopping feels like. 

For the sake of simplicity in terms of design, let's just talk about physical appearance. I feel like most cars on the road look the same.

Look at this sexy BMW with a Vintage Makeover on Messy Nessy Chic. Yow. It looks ah-mazing, right?

Well, this is a custom job. Don't expect this kind of style from the car manufacturing industry.

"I'm too sexy for this world" says the custom BMW.

Can you imagine if modern cars actually innovated? 

To tease us, Fiat released a "1957 edition" pictured next to their actual vintage version.

Do you see the resemblance? Me neither.

I want the body on the right and the engine on the left!

Vintage gender thinking: the idea that white people are wealthy & awesome & dudes ALWAYS drive. How about he's opening the driver's seat for her? Or they're both getting into their own cars? Or they're people of color? Or they're gay? or  Trans. #inclusion!

Just look at the modern version! WHERE IS THE CHROME? Yeah, I all-capped it. What is 1957 about the new one?

Emoticon what you thought of the service

Seen in Montreal, Canada. 

Makes me wonder is quantitate feedback really useful without the qualitative? Checking out their Yelp page though made me confident they have the data they need to start making the experience better and this method will only quantify a trend they should already know. 

Twenty-seven developers in training provide answers to "What is User Experience?

Steve Jobs talks about Vision and Customer Experience

The whole video is worth a watch but if you don't have time, here's the most important quotes:

"How does that fit in to a cohesive larger vision that's going to allow you to sell 8 billion-10 billion in products a year . . . You've got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You can't start with the technology and figure out how to sell it."

"As we've tried to come up with a strategy and a vision for Apple, it started with 'what incredible benefits can we give to the customer?', "Where can we take the customer?'
not starting out with 'let's sit down with the engineers and and figure out what awesome technology we have and how we're going to market that.'"

Leonardo D's notes...translated

I think it's pretty interesting that of the nine tasks shown, six involve consulting and learning from other people. Leonardo da Vinci needs to find a book. Leonardo da Vinci needs to get in touch with local merchants, monks, and accountants who he hopes can help him better understand concepts within their areas of expertise.
Leonardo da Vinci knows he doesn't know everything. Andrew Sullavan via Idiot Tracker: November 2011

Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares: A Context Sensitive Approach - Chapter 10 Intersection Design Guidelines

Don't you just love chapters on traffic? Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares: A Context Sensitive Approach - Chapter 10 Intersection Design Guidelines

One of my favorite videos ever, natch.

Thanks to Burk for this!  : )

Oh, Tina Fey, at NBC!

LinkedIn Comedy.