No one’s reading – and now no one’s writing either? By Andrew on 30th March 2024 — 2 mins read The internet’s packed with information, but no one is really reading much of it anymore. Instead of diving deep into articles, most of us are just skimming the headlines or looking for bullet points. This shift hasn’t gone unnoticed. Content creators are keeping things simpler, aiming for content that’s easy to digest, knowing that’s what... More
Building confidence By Andrew on 14th October 2023 — 1 min read For me, supporting team collaboration is all about confidence building. Confidence in new ways of working. Confidence that we’re heading in the right direction. Teams need a safe and positive space to explore and to try things. To sketch out half-thought-through ideas and have the team around them fill in the details. The type of... More
The value of UX By Andrew on 10th January 2019 — 2 mins read Your poor UX is costing you $4m per week in lost sales Like it or not big scary numbers are a great way to get attention (at the beginning of a presentation for example). You might not like it because big scary numbers don’t often bear much scrutiny – and are based on a bunch... More
Respecting participants By Andrew on 18th October 2018 — 2 mins read I had the pleasure of running a UX away day last week. A day for all the UXers at Nationwide to get together, share experiences and techniques. A safe place to explore stuff. Fun and useful. We had a UX quiz, a speed-dating exercise and (my favourite bit) a bunch of short workshops / talks... More
Keeping things simple By Andrew on 10th November 2017 — 3 mins read I questioned the need for a piece of functionality this week. It was a casual thought. Do we really need that? Perhaps we could have it in a later release? Is that a must-have or a should-have? This meant being willing to re-do a little of my work in the UI and being willing to... More
The duty to be interesting By Andrew on 26th August 2017 — 1 min read Some people have irritating ways of talking. They do that thing where their voice raises up at the end of every sentence. Others annoy us by speaking in monotone. They might do any number of these things. Allowing your voice to be irritating is lazy. If we are taking the trouble to say something to... More
Feeling embarrassed by new tech By Andrew on 10th July 2017 — 2 mins read Some iPad doodlings My latest device is the iPad Pro. I have the Logitech Keyboard and, of course, a pencil. It feels like after 10 or so iterations, the iPad is finally more than just a toy. It’s a laptop alternative, and one that has the potential to help shape the future of work. In... More
Worrying about the wrong things By Andrew on 4th April 2017 — 2 mins read I’ve been sleeping terribly over the last month or so. Waking up in the middle of the night thinking about ridiculously unimportant things. Right now, these are detailed project related things. Stuff I should really have a note-book for – and leave at work. In this knowledge economy, we’re paid to have problems mull around... More
It’s ok to be an introverted UX designer By Andrew on 10th September 2016 — 5 mins read Over the holidays, I read a wonderful book called Quiet, by Susan Cain. She’s the powerhouse behind an entire quiet revolution – she’s got a TED talk, a podcast and a bunch of other stuff moving all around a powerful central concept: that there is an urgent need to do more to address the balance... More
A model for emotional experiences? By Andrew on 20th May 2016 — 3 mins read Psychologically speaking we’re all quite similar aren’t we? Everybody has their own particular relationship to stress or fear or anger or whatever, but the same basic colours are there. They just get mixed differently. Pixar reduced it down to five basics emotions for the film Inside Out: Joy, Anger, Disgust, Fear and Sadness. They had... More