Difference between talented and professional athletes is consistent performance. You don’t become a professional skateboarder by nailing a hard trick once and getting it on camera. You become one by nailing it consistently, again and again, in competitions and live events. In products and services design achieving great experience is hard due to many moving parts and dependencies. Achieving it again and again even harder. Scaling it to new geographies, a growing number of users, and delivering consistently is the hardest.

Let’s talk about small but impactful interface design details. Special modes. Quickly compare these two screenshots: Doesn’t seem like much has changed on the right. Well, quite a lot. We entered the bulk select/edit mode. This happens to me every now and then in Pocket app, resulting in confusion and irritation. I do not intend entering bulk select mode, and not being able to recognize it makes it even worse.

One of the essential traits I find in good designers is the ability to explain ideas and concepts clearly. Verbally, supported by visual aid or on the spot doodle, they get the point across regardless of who the audience is. Explaining concepts and ideas to the CEO of a global…

Your first email to a newly signed up customer better be your best one. If not, chance of them unsubscribing or sending your carefully planned series of marketing comms over email goes to &^%$. Same for your first call. Make sure your whole channel of communication doesn’t get compromized by the first outreach.

I would argue that a lot of designers don’t know what exactly they need to work on to become better designers. Feels like it is a profession where the challenge isn’t actually in trying harder, but in identifying what to improve in the first place. Imagine a visual designer who…

The even was a joy. A lot of interesting attendees, good and great speakers, good venue, great city. Solid mix of practice, theory; content aimed at experienced practitioners and newbies too. You could scrape the basics of IA, wireframing and design leadership and get all the way into philosophy and…

Uber finally revels Freight. Basically, ‘Uber for truck drivers’. I find news like this very inspiring and telling for what the future of work will be. The very nature of employee/employer/customer relationship is changing. Being empowered to work when you want to, have the confidence in fair transaction, being able to focus on the work, not the accounting, safety & hustle of working for someone or running a small private business is the future of work for many. And not just for geeks, IT freelancers & such.

What might feel like “innovation” to one business is yesterday’s news for another. Sometimes to “innovate”, larger traditional businesses need to just catch up with more dynamic, smaller new players. Take car space for example. Adding autopilot, personalized dashboards and seat settings, responsive interior and car companion apps etc. is no longer an “innovation”. That’s part of a package customers will expect from a car soon enough. Some already do.