Divergent thinking and collaboration

I watched an illustrated video of an illustrated speech by Ken Robinson on changing education paradigms. I believe the paradigm shifts he calls are also needed in the development process of software and information products.
In his speech, Robinson cites a study on divergent thinking—thinking in an unusual and unstereotyped way—which isn’t the same thing as […]

Agile design and usability: Will a prototype do?

The Agile Manifesto includes twelve principles. These two are related:
Deliver working software frequently [in short sprints that last] from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
Working software is the primary measure of progress.
From discussions with other practitioners, I know that software teams can get dogmatic about the above […]

Testing in the UX-design process

Three weeks ago, a client called me. They had just completed release 1.0 of a new Web application that will replace their current flagship product. The client was asking about summative usability testing to evaluate how well the product performs in the hands of users, because they want their customers to succeed.
Since the product is an […]