Popular articles
Design Practice

The Golden Age of UX may be over, but not for the reasons stated

Last week an article entitled The Golden Age of UX is Over popped onto my RADAR, after causing a bit of a stir amongst the design community. If I was being generous I’d say it was a genius title, designed to spark debate amongst UX designers. If I was being slightly less generous, I’d say it was a devilishly brilliant piece of click-bait, designed to drive traffic to an agency site. Either way I had a feeling the article would annoy me, so spent the next couple of days actively ignoring it. However temptation finally got the better of me and I ended up taking the bait.
Design Practice

UX Design and Service Design are Growing Ever Closer

For the longest time I’ve maintained that Service Design was a specific discipline, distinct from UX Design. It’s true that they have a lot in common, like the way both fields approach problems through a user-centred lens. They also use many of the same tools, such as design games and personas. Even some of their distinctive tools, like the service delivery blueprint have similarities with our own user journey maps. But if you spent any time with a credible Service Design agency five or ten years ago, you’d easily spot the differences.
Tech Culture

Are we moving towards a post-Agile age?

Agile has been the dominant development methodology in our industry for some time now. While some teams are just getting to grips with Agile, others extended it to the point that it’s no longer recognisable as Agile. In fact, many of the most progressive design and development teams are Agile only in name. What they are actually practicing is something new, different, and innately more interesting. Something I’ve been calling Post-Agile thinking. But what exactly is Post-Agile, and how did it come about?
Design Practice

Why can’t designers solve more meaningful problems?

Every few months, somebody in our industry will question why designers don't use their talents to solve more meaningful problems; like alleviating the world from illness, hunger or debt. This statement will often be illustrated with a story of how a team from IDEO or Frog spent 3 months in a sub-saharan village creating a new kind of water pump, a micro-payment app, or a revolutionary healthcare delivery service. The implication being that if these people can do it, why can’t you?