What lessons still remain from my internships in a seemingly bygone era — and how can they help you? — “Can you help me get a UX design internship?” It’s one of the most common questions I receive, and one of the questions I’m least equipped to help with. It’s been YEARS since my teams have been able to hire a design intern. And the later folks get in their…

Users of today’s voice assistants keep asking for a ‘politeness mode.’ But what do they really want? — During my time at Amazon on the Alexa voice design team, we monitored the internal Alexa enthusiasts alias. About once a month, a newcomer to the list would resurrect an evergreen request: “My kids are rude to Alexa. She should only respond if you say please!” That request, of course…

Deconstructing an unexpectedly boundary-pushing multimodal experience for lessons we can all apply — Ever since the publication of my book Design Beyond Devices, I’m asked frequently for my favorite examples of GOOD multimodal experiences — think experiences where you can speak, touch, wave frantically at the screen, or beyond. Like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, but less epic, at least for now…

When the tools we use in the workplace don’t support our diversity, equity, and inclusion goals, we may turn to hacking the system. Simple changes can make a big difference. — As more working professionals become comfortable talking more directly about gender identity — particularly with regard to non-binary and gender-fluid identities —one finds that workplace systems aren’t optimized to support these interactions. When people take it upon themselves to work around outdated systems, unexpected things start to break. Wouldn’t it…

As our success increases, our ability to make contextually informed choices decreases. What are we overlooking? — This week’s announcements from Meta (née Facebook) and their vision of a VR-supercharged workplace have once again forced VR-as-productivity into the collective consciousness. In the fallout, the witty Joe Sondow made this observation on Twitter: “I love how every few years of my lifetime some rich guy starts jumping up…

How can a relationship with a brand go from great to terrible in just 3 short interactions… and what can YOU do differently? — Those of us fortunate enough to have access to COVID vaccinations often have a choice of venues for those vaccinations. I first became eligible in the comorbidities high-risk wave in early April here in Washington state, but availability was still low. After a few days of looking for options, I…

The most challenging part of starting a design career dominates most design advice inquiries: “How should I approach my portfolio?” — In addition to traditional interviews, user experience designers have an extra hurdle to jump through when seeking a new role: the design portfolio. This all-important self-promotional tool plays two roles: As a passive promotional tool, your design portfolio is what hiring managers use to determine whether they want to invite…