Last Thursday I gave my talk Design Principles: The Philosophy of UX, at WebVisions at the Hudson Hotel in NYC. Christina Beard, a graphic designer and writer for Core77, was in the audience and wrote about my presentation in an article published yesterday.

Christina later asked me if I believed my principles would change as technologies change and users adapt. I told her:

I feel confident that my principles for designing experiences will stand the test of time because they are technology agnostic. People deserve to be treated with humanity and empathy regardless of the communication medium. As the web evolves, as technology becomes even more pervasive and robust, we have both an increasing opportunity and responsibility to treat each other with compassion. I hope that my principles can continue to guide our behavior as technologists and ultimately change the way we do business at the most fundamental level.

Core77 is possibly the oldest-ever online magazine, started by two Pratt Students (my dad’s alma mater) for industrial designers, and has expanded to all facets of design over the years. It’s a very highly respected publication and I am honored to have my name in it.

I hope this helps designers of all stripes to think about the philosophy behind their work and approach their designs with principle and purpose.

[Read the full article]

Can you tell just how sick I was from the photo? Eesh!

• Design Principles: The Philosophy of UX
• Pleasure and Pain now on UX Magazine
• My 20 Guiding Principles for UX Design on Monster.com’s InsideTech
• Whit Hour – Week 10
• See For Yourself on Johnny Holland Magazine

It’s a funny thing — the more you share your opinions openly, the more people ask you for them. As the year is coming to a close, if you’re thinking about starting a blog next year or writing more frequently on the one you already have, don’t just make an empty resolution. STICK TO IT. I’ve been writing here for almost four years, and I am evidence of the fact that amazing things happen when you’re devoted to putting yourself out there.

Recently I was asked to contribute my thoughts to a few year-end articles, and have been quoted alongside many web practitioners who inspire me every day. You can read my excerpts here, but I encourage you to go to the full articles for a lot more wisdom:

A List Apart: What I Learned About the Web in 2011

CONTEXT IS KING
The most important thing that 2011 taught me about web design is that physical context of use can no longer be assumed by platform, only intentional context can. For the past couple of years, we have gotten into the habit of presuming that mobile means on-the-go, desktop denotes a desk, and tablet is on the toilet. But increasingly the lines are blurring on where devices are being used and how they’re being used in unison. This year I have learned to see devices as location agnostic and instead associate them with purpose—I want to check (mobile), I want to manage (desktop), I want to immerse (tablet). This shift away from objective context toward subjective context will reshape the way we design experiences across and between devices, to better support user goals and ultimately mimic analog tools woven into our physical spaces.

Webdesigner Depot: Web Design Predictions for 2012

The rallying cry of the web community in 2011 has seemed to be “make stuff.” My prediction for 2012 is that we’ll soon realize that that was rather shortsighted, and instead will encourage one another to “make stuff that matters.”

I have seen so much incredible talent squandered on designing products that only meet the needs of a small, homogenous, insular group of friends. While this can be fun and challenging for a side project, it is a fleeting satisfaction.

In 2012, mastery of the tools and a cool idea will no longer be enough to get attention. I predict that there will be a widespread movement to uncover and understand deep-seeded, life-damaging problems for sizable communities across the globe, and our efforts instead will be put towards improving their lives and work in ways that empower humanity. Productivity and entertainment tools have their place, but I suspect that we won’t continue to pat each other on the back so vigorously for continuing to crowd the market.

Design is the problem. The social, economic and political environments we will find ourselves in in 2012 will push us towards asking questions before devising solutions, equip us with a longer-term vision, and ultimately deepen our greater purpose.

The Next Web: The Future of Web Design

I hope we come to have a greater understanding of the various target audiences that our products have and that we deliver them content more intelligently. Right now, different content is appropriate on different platforms. But users tell us so much about themselves through their repeated use of our product and we haven’t done enough work to create customized content experiences for them as a result of all of that intel. Instead, we’ve only created custom, functional experiences but not custom, content experiences.

What did you learn about the web in 2011 and what do you predict we’ll see next year (or are just wishing will happen)? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

• Location Agnostic, Context Specific
• TweetDeck stream of consciousness
• Why I detest the term “Lean UX”
• boxee now in public alpha
• Onboarding: A Sidebar in “Designing Social Interfaces”

A big thanks goes out to Andrew Maier whose article “Designing for Startups: How to Deliver the Message Across” in Smashing Magazine included some thoughts from a blog post I wrote a few months ago titled “A Plan of Action.”

In it he features my three approaches to design: Reactive, Preactive, and Proactive — the latter of which I recommend as the best way for startups to design, test, and iterate.

“I believe that most UX designers would agree — dare I say, empathize — with Whitney’s prescribed preactive approach. Beginning with thinking — with research — is in a user-centered designer’s blood; it helps them understand their audience and voice their messages appropriately. Further still, “preactivity” appears to be the only real way for designers to gain empathy. But most start-up environments run counter to this approach. Acting and then thinking usually leaves little room for the voice of research.”

It’s a really great article for anyone who’s currently trying to figure out how to adapt their typical design and UX process to a company — startup or otherwise — that needs a more fluid, lightweight, fast-paced approach.

[Read the full article]

• “Design Principles: The Philosophy of UX” featured on Core77
• A Plan of Action
• “Using Mental Models for Tactics and Strategy” webinar with Indi Young
• When You Startup With UX
• Whit Hour – Week 19

I am crying. And I am desperately trying not to smear the mascara I just put on.

I’m emotional this morning (well, more emotional than normal) because a professional dream of mine has been fulfilled: I’ve been published by A List Apart.

I read A List Apart when I was in college and needed to understand the difference between usability and design. I read A List Apart when I started my first full-time job and needed to create my first wireframes.

Today, people are reading Issue 311 of A List Apart and it’s my name at the top of that article. No One Nos: Learning to Say No to Bad Ideas by Whitney Hess. Woah.

Kevin Cornell’s accompanying illustration is kept under wraps until the article goes live. When the page loaded and I finally saw it, saw how perfectly he captured the essence of my message…that’s when the tears started flowing.

A shield and a whip mace. Holy shit.

I believe this is what Oprah calls a “full circle moment.”

In the summer of 2003, just around this time, I sat at my desk, head in hands, trying to decide which career path I was going to walk down. I was entering my senior year of college and thinking about grad school: Master of Arts in Professional Writing, or Master of Human-Computer Interaction. I was double-majoring in both, and now I was being forced to choose.

In my heart, I wanted to be a writer. I wasn’t great at it, but I loved writing more than anything in the world. I loved the research, and the synthesis, and the craft, and the iteration. Newsrooms turn me on. But my parents warned me of a lifetime of pain and suffering and measly paychecks. Was I, a Manhattan girl, really going to spend my 20s at a free newspaper in Tulsa? I had second thoughts.

Having been a gadget freak since the age of 3, the technology sector was always the obvious choice for me. I had taken computer science for all four years of high school, and had been accepted into Carnegie Mellon’s prestigious School of Computer Science. But within weeks of getting there, I hated it. Being in the computer cluster spending hours hunting for a misplaced semicolon just wasn’t for me. I wanted to go out and explore the world, and I wanted to make it better.

When I first learned about HCI, a light bulb went on over my head. It was a calling. Thank God for Carnegie Mellon or I just might never have found it. Yes! I can “make technology more useful, usable and desirable.” That was our HCI program’s tagline. And it fit me to a tee. The research, and the synthesis, and the craft, and the iteration. Still I couldn’t see the parallels at the time.

So there I was, deciding which grad program to apply for, and I was crying. I was furiously searching my mind for a way to combine my love of writing and my love of HCI. Now you’re going to find this hard to believe: it never occurred to me that I could write about HCI. Even at 21, I was sure that the only way to combine writing and tech was to be a tech writer, and I desperately didn’t want to do that. I wanted to write about people. I wanted to write stories. I wanted to write to inspire. And in my mind, traditional journalism was the only way to do that.

And with a mental flip of a coin, I gave it up. I said no to writing and I chose HCI.

Seven years later and I’m crying again. I’m crying because I haven’t thought about that day ever since. I woke up this morning and pointed my browser to alistapart.com and I saw my name at the top of the page. And it all came flooding back. I remembered. I had been heartbroken over having to give up one passion for another…

Today I realized that I never did.

These are tears of joy. These are tears of revelation. These are tears of pride.

I am doing what I love. Both loves.

What a gift. It hasn’t been a straight path, but then again, fulfilling your dreams never is.

Thank you to acquisitions editor Carolyn Wood. Thank you to editor-in-chief Krista Stevens. Thank you to article editor Mandy Brown. And thank you to the entire crew at A List Apart for allowing me to take another wild step forward on this incredible journey.

• The User Experience Designer’s Anthem
• From the Archive: Interview with The Baltimore Sun
• Awesome Email of the Day: I write to you, thanks to Google Translator
• I Am Not A Woman Blogger
• MFA in Interaction Design at the School of Visual Arts in NYC

On Wednesday, UX Magazine published my article, When You Startup with UX — a look into how a few successful startups are integrating user experience practices.

I posed 5 questions to 5 people (4 folks at 3 different startups and 1 venture capitalist) to find out how they think about UX and what it means to their businesses.

The players:

• Paul Graham, VC and co-founder of Y Combinator, a seed-stage startup fund
• Nate Westheimer, Co-Founder and EVP of Product & Technology, and Gabi Moore, Senior Designer, AnyClip
• Andrew Kortina, Co-Founder, Venmo
• Mike Singleton, Developer, Foursquare

An excerpt from my article:

As a consultant living and working in NYC, I come into contact with a lot of entrepreneurs and the startups they’re trying to get off the ground. They have limited budgets, limited resources, and boundless aspirations. And not one of them has a full-time user experience designer.

Most startups never quite make it, while a choice few rise above to unpredictable heights. So what distinguishes the successes from the failures? Armed with my unwavering faith in the power of UX, I set out to prove that the trailblazers are engaging in user-centered design activities—even if it means doing it on their own terms.

I interviewed three well-regarded New York-based startups and a powerful Silicon Valley venture capitalist to get their definition of what user experience actually is, how to do it, and why it really matters.

Read the entire article over at UX Magazine.

Thanks so much to UX Magazine for publishing the piece, and to everyone who agreed to be interviewed. If you’re a startup integrating UX practices, I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

• If the product doesn’t work, its “user experience” doesn’t matter
• Designing for Startups in Smashing Magazine
• Ultra Light User Experience
• See For Yourself on Johnny Holland Magazine
• Pleasure and Pain now on UX Magazine

Last week, Fortune.com (CNNMoney.com) published an article and screenshot gallery titled Hey Facebook! Here’s your privacy redesign, and I was fortunate enough to have my work included in it.

Reporter JP Mangalindan reached out to me a few weeks ago and asked me to mock up a couple ideas for how Facebook could redesign its complicated privacy settings, then he interviewed me on my thoughts about the flack they’ve been getting.

Also included in his piece is the work of rising star Catriona Cornett; Jason Brush of Schematic; the Sapient Nitro team of Nathaniel Perez, Eddie Gomez, and Omar Mendez; and Michael Jones of Smart Design.

My concept (which was cropped for the article) was not to redesign the privacy settings page, but instead to bring the functionality onto the profile page itself in order to give better context to what content those settings actually control.

With Facebook, it’s largely a communication issue. Privacy settings are completely divorced from your actual information. You have to either bring up both pages simultaneously, which is cumbersome, or you have to remember what you put into each of those fields and what those fields were labeled, which isn’t typical behavior. So when redesigning, I didn’t think the issue that needed tackling was a better design of the privacy settings page necessarily, but actually the context in which those privacy settings are being set.

[Read the full article]

Info Tab

Additionally, I added a couple settings to the top of the Wall to control who can post to it and who can view the posts.

Wall tab

I really enjoyed thinking through these ideas, but the necessary caveat must be made: I would never produce designs for a client without first gathering user intel — either via interviews or usability testing. Still, it was fun to toss around some ideas and have them seen by such a wide audience.

I didn’t quite expect the article to get passed around as much as it did. And while I can’t say for sure if it had any impact on the Facebook team, just a few days later they announced their simplifications to the privacy settings. Read Facebook Bows to Pressure Over Privacy in the NY Times.

Learn more about the changes on Mashable here and here.

Thanks to JP and Fortune for including me in this great piece. I hope to be able to participate in more design brainstorms like this in the future.

• Twitter updating Facebook status without permission
• Interviewed for “Facebook, Google, and the data design disaster”
• Facebook recruits for user research…on Facebook
• Twitter Redesigns Follower and Following Pages
• People you may know

Last month I mentioned that UX Magazine would now be syndicating some of the content from Pleasure and Pain. A couple weeks ago they republished my Guiding Principles for UX Designers post, which then in turn got picked up by Monster.com’s InsideTech, a “meeting place for IT professionals.”

The article has more than 2,600 views in just a week, and today became their “top story of the day.”

Check out the reprinted article on Inside Tech (with stock photography added)

• Pleasure and Pain now on UX Magazine
• Pleasure and Pain on Blog Talk Radio
• I’m Speaking at Pittsburgh Web Design Day
• 10 Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design — the presentation
• My Interaction 09 recap on Boxes and Arrows

Yesterday the wonderful Johnny Holland Magazine published my essay, See For Yourself: About the Power of Observing.

The article, or more accurately, rant, is all about how imperative it is for user experience designers to actively observe the world around us on a regular basis. Re-reading it now, it feels quite different than most of my other writing for publications. It’s much more prescriptive than normal — I’m always emphatic, but this is borderline demanding. It just sort of flowed out of me, without me ever previously realizing how passionate I am about the subject.

In a few recent occurrences with clients, I have come to realize that one of the most valuable things I bring to the table is being a sort of anthropologist, a student of humankind. And I really want to encourage other UXers to view themselves the same way. Hopefully I’ve planned a seed.

Read the full article

Johnny Holland is an online magazine on interaction design run by Jeroen van Geel, Steve Baty, and Vicky Teinaki, with contributors from around the globe. I feel very fortunate to now be among them.

Thank you to Jeroen for helping me shape this piece, and for encouraging me to making it something that people will remember.

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments.

• When You Startup With UX
• Pleasure and Pain now on UX Magazine
• If the product doesn’t work, its “user experience” doesn’t matter
• My Top 10 User Experience Blogs to Watch in 2010 on Blogs.com
• My 20 Guiding Principles for UX Design on Monster.com’s InsideTech

I am happy to announce that starting today, some of my posts on this here blog will be syndicated to UX Magazine.

UX Magazine is an online publication for user experience professionals that was founded in 2006 and was nominated for a Webby in 2007. In their words:

Every month we combine original articles with the best from blogs and online media to deliver an online magazine that covers the best new thinking on design, strategy, technology, and common sense.

Tiffany Airres, the magazine’s Project & Content Manager, reached out to me recently about syndicating some of my content from Pleasure and Pain. I did a poll of my Twitter followers to get a feel for who’s reading it, and 39 people said that they do — more than enough to convince me that it would be a worthwhile effort.

I then worked with Managing Editor Jonathan Anderson to identify which of my pieces would be best for syndication. We chose a few and the first one went live today:

Onboarding: Designing Welcoming First Experiences

This piece was originally published as a sidebar in Designing Social Interfaces by Christian Crumlish and Erin Malone. They graciously permitted me to republish the piece on my blog, and now it is up on UX Magazine. Not only do I hope the article will be helpful to people, but it’s an honor to be able to promote their book at the same time.

Just a short while after it was published, the article was picked up by Smashing Magazine:

Hopefully that will drive a lot of traffic to UX Magazine and further spread the word about Erin and Christian’s awesome book.

I’m looking forward to future collaborations with UX Magazine and thank them very much for their interest in my work.

• Onboarding: A Sidebar in “Designing Social Interfaces”
• See For Yourself on Johnny Holland Magazine
• My 20 Guiding Principles for UX Design on Monster.com’s InsideTech
• Catching Up on Pleasure and Pain
• Join me at IDEA2009 on Sept 15-16

UXmatters just published the fourth article in my bimonthly column, Client Matters, where I give UX professionals an honest look at initiating and managing relationships with clients.

The latest article is titled, Ironclad Contracts: Tougher Than a Pinky Swear. In it I expound on how to determine the nuts and bolts of your client contract: the various payment structures and payment schedules to consider; how to handle changes in project scope; how to craft a contract; determining whose contract to use — and at the very end I scare you into reading the fine print by telling you what happened to me when I didn’t.

You’ve passed the seduction phase. You’ve made the client fall in love with you. You’ve determined the terms of your engagement. Now, you need to make things official.

When I used to do freelance on the side, while still employed full time, I never got my clients to sign contracts. I didn’t see the point, and I hated the formality. It felt stuffy, and I thought it would be a turnoff to my clients. Instead, I outlined a loose schedule and process in an email message, told them the dollar amount, then got to work while I waited for the check. If I didn’t get things done on time, it was no big deal, because my clients’ expectations of my commitment were pretty low. If the check came later than I was hoping, that was no big deal either, because I had my salary to rely on. All in all, everything was fine.

But once I quit my job to do consulting full time, all of that easy, breezy stuff had to change. I needed protection. And so did my clients.

I’m going to tell you right now, the legal part of consulting isn’t fun. All of the good will you’ve built up with your prospective clients during the getting-to-know-you phase is going to be tested. It’s entirely possible your budding relationships won’t make it. Sometimes people get touchy about the details, and seeing them all on paper can make people uncomfortable. You’re essentially asking your fiancée for a pre-nup. It’s going to be tough, but trust me, it will be worth it.

Everything you figured out during your scope-definition process lays the groundwork for the terms of your contract: the activities you’ll be conducting, deliverables you’ll be producing, your intended schedule, costs. But there are some crucial elements you and your client still need to agree on: payment structure, payment schedule, overage policy, change request policy, and the dreaded termination agreement.

Read the full article on UXmatters, and stay tuned for future articles in my Client Matters column.

Huge thanks goes to Matt Nish-Lapidus, Justin Davis, Livia Labate, Jared Spool, Kyle Soucy, Katherine Gray, and Josh Evnin, who shared their best advice on contracts in pithy and well-constructed one-liners.

• Client Matters: Needs + Resources + Location + Schedule + Budget = Scope
• Client Matters: Does Your Client Need a Consultant or an Agency?
• Client Matters: Process, Not Portfolio
• Whit Hour – Week 6
• Whit Hour – Week 14