Spent some time this evening cleaning things up around the site. With the addition of the microblog, I thought I should create separate feeds to cater to your needs. Have a look and subscribe.
※ Permalink for post published on date_to_rfc822Looks like the quotes might not be necessary after all.
※ Permalink for post published on date_to_rfc822Trying to wrap the commit message in single quotes rather than URL encoding the spaces in the message. Let’s see if that works.
※ Permalink for post published on date_to_rfc822Hmm. Seems Working Copy is leaving the encoded characters from the encoded X-Callback URL in the commit message. Wonder if there’s a solution for that…
※ Permalink for post published on date_to_rfc822While it takes a bit longer to post one of these than it takes to tweet, I’m pretty proud to have found a way to make this work. Next up: posting full blog posts from Editorial.
※ Permalink for post published on date_to_rfc822If you are reading this, I just managed to use Drafts, Workflow, and Working Copy to post to my Jekyll site from my iPhone.
※ Permalink for post published on date_to_rfc822I’ve been interested in microblogging since the early days of Twitter. After seeing my friend Ben using the new Micro.blog service created by Manton Reece, I became enthralled by the idea of adding a microblog (back?) to my site. I’m still awaiting my invitation to the Micro.blog network, but you can see these micro-posts in my JSON and RSS feeds.
※ Permalink for post published on date_to_rfc822Thank you to everyone who attended the first ever Indonesian product design livestream hosted by Viral Foundry. It was an honour to share with you the lessons I’ve learned about improving products through user testing. I hope each of you took something away that you’ll be able to apply to your own craft.
I do apologize for my lack of visual slides. In the past, I’ve found slides to be a hindrance to my style of presentation. However, some of the feedback I received from Kenny following the presentation indicated that I wasn’t fully considerate of the language barriers between us. Seeing the beautiful slide deck put together by Dany drove home just how foolish I was to not have my own. Won’t be making that mistake again.
As promised during the presentation, I want to share with you some notes and links from my talk. If you were an attendee and see that I’ve missed something, please hit me up on Twitter and let me know.
Books
- Design Sprint by Richard Banfield, C. Todd Lombardo, Trace Wax
- Sprint by Jake Knapp
- Design is a Job by Mike Monteiro
- Thoughtbot’s Guide to Product Design Sprints1
- Intercom on Jobs to be Done
Articles
- Quick and dirty method to observe and capture user tests
- Considerations for user testing in Uganda
- Why You Only Need To Test with 5 Users by Jakob Neilsen
- Google Ventures’ Design Sprint Page
- Design Sprints as a Service by Black Pixel
- Know Your Customers’ “Jobs to be Done” by Clayton M. Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, and David S. Duncan
- 13 Ways Designers Screw Up Client Presentations by Mike Monteiro
Tools
I hope I was able to convey just how great of an impact employing user testing can have on both the usability and viability of your product. My thanks to Kenny and the whole Viral Foundry team for hosting the event.
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Not really a “book”, but this site is so jam-packed with useful information about running a design sprint, I had to include it. In fact, this guide helped me understand what improvements needed to be made following my first design sprint. ↩
A few months ago, my friend Kenny and I started chatting about how we can take the lessons we’ve learned building products over the years and share them with people in developing countries. Kenny had recently made the move to Indonesia where his company, Viral Foundry, has built a small team of designers and developers to work with startup founders, existing businesses, private equity funds, VCs and local government agencies to build new companies. I — of course — have been working with the team at Ensibuuko building a platform for micro-financing institutions in sub-Saharan Africa.
One of Kenny’s ideas was to host a livestream event for people interested in learning how to design products. After emailing ideas back and forth for a few weeks, we finally settled on the topic of how user testing can improve a product. It’s a process I’ve found to be absolutely critical to the product design and development cycle and I’ve been eager to share what I’ve been learning about it with designers who may yet to include it in their own toolkits.
On Wednesday, May 24 at 4pm EAT (UTC +3)/8pm WIB (UTC +7) I will be giving a presentation on how user testing can help you design better products. I’ll go over various options for performing user tests, how user tests can help you pitch your work to stakeholders, and how user tests can help your team move from shipping anything to shipping the right things.
I’ll be joined by Indonesian UX designer and illustrator Dany Rizky who will share how to bring your product to life through the use of illustration.
The livestream will be free for anyone to join and will (hopefully) include a Q&A session. Check out the Facebook event page for further details and to find the link to the livestream on the day of the event.
※ Permalink for “Join me on May 24 to learn how user testing can improve your product” published on date_to_rfc822Since arriving in Kampala, I’ve been looking to connect with others in the region who are using design to solve complex problems. For a while, the only evidence I’d found of such a community existing was a Facebook page for a group whose last post was announcing an event back in January. Not very promising.
I started looking up resources and suggestions for running user tests in Uganda and found an article by Jacqui Watson of Praekelt.org sharing the lessons she learned performing user tests in Kabale, Uganda. Praekelt.org doesn’t have an office in Uganda so there’s no opportunity to meet with them, but it was encouraging to see other teams practicing human-centred design in Uganda.
After a bit more searching, I came across an organization called Design Without Borders which appeared to operate exclusively in Uganda. Reading through their case studies, I was floored by the work they were doing. I sent an email in the hopes of connecting with someone there and when I received a response, was pleasantly surprised to be invited to the grand opening of their new office in a new co-working space called Design Hub Kampala.
The following Saturday, my partner, a colleague, and I found ourselves wandering through a beautifully renovated warehouse which now houses eight design-focused companies. The space was filled with glass walls, modern wooden desks, and presentations of work from each tenant.
I spoke briefly with one of Design Without Borders’ design trainees who shared her story of joining the organization with a background in interior design and being trained in human-centred design. To learn of an organization in Kampala so focused on training a new generation of local designers was inspiring.
Design Hub Kampala appears to be an amazing addition to the community of Kampala. My hope is that in the short time I have left in Uganda I can make some connections with people in the space and begin the process of growing Ensibuuko’s design team.
※ Permalink for “Design Hub Kampala” published on date_to_rfc822