Pleasure and Pain » Blogging

A Brief Recap on Year 4

whitney — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:36:09 +0000

2012 started off with a bang and my mind has been moving at a million miles a minute ever since. I managed to miss a few important milestones and never got around to taking the time to reflect on the year here. I suppose I decided that dwelling on the past (even if it yielded some benefit) shouldn’t take precedent over working on the future.

But I’m a fan of tying things up with a nice little bow on top…maybe I need it in order to fully move on. So I’ll keep it short.

January 7, 2012 marked my 4th anniversary on Twitter. Joining Twitter completely changed my life and it continues to have a huge impact on my work every day. Whatever you think about the new design or the lack of features on the apps, or whatever silly complaint you might have about it, this asymmetrical chat room we call Twitter is ultimately about one thing and one thing only: people. People connecting with people they would never have had access to, would never have been able to communicate with so fluidly, so frequently, and so intimately if Twitter had never existed. And for that I’m incredibly thankful. [On my 1 year anniversary on Twitter]

January 10, 2012 marked the 4th anniversary of this blog. Pleasure and Pain was born just 3 days later, when I realized that being constrained to 140 characters wouldn’t nearly be enough for me to fully express myself to the world. The blog was unnamed for a while, but the intention has been the same since day one: bringing empathy into design and business, and stopping at nothing to defend the needs of the people who use our products. It has been a wild ride and I can’t wait to see where things go next.

I published with a lot less frequency in 2011, largely due to a significant increase in my speaking engagements and some pretty intensely awesome client projects. But when I did make the time, I found myself writing about things that I was incredibly passionate about. Many of you share those same passions, and the posts started very interesting conversations throughout the community. I’m really proud of that, and encourage all of you to do the same. Write what you know, what you believe, share it far and wide. People will respond, people will connect, and you both will be changed.

Here are my most popular posts (based on comments and views) from 2011:

Thank you for being a part of my experience. Thank you for making it so pleasurable and so unexpected and uplifting and really, truly wild. I’m really looking forward to connecting much more deeply in 2012. Now let’s get to it!

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Pleasure and Pain has gone mobile

whitney — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 14:59:21 +0000

It’s quite overdue, but this blog is now optimized to be viewed in a mobile browser. Many thanks to Ben Seven for giving me the kick in the ass I needed to get it done:

Commented on You’re not a user experience designer if… by Ben Seven:

Are you allowed to call yourself a User Experience designer if you don’t care about the user experience of your own blog on handheld devices? I tried reading this article on the bus home having seen it retweeted, and enjoyed the delicious irony of it not being particularly web friendly. Just saying – UX suffers from the same thing my profession does – people calling themselves designers with no real expertise, qualification or questioning from clients – but it’s strange to be concerned about the experience of computer interaction and not catch up with the boom in mobile web browsing on your own platform!

I confess to having a case of “the cobbler’s children have no shoes.” I think some of the busiest practitioners have the crappiest websites because we’re so busy fixing other people’s problems. But it’s no excuse. I need to do a major website redesign pronto.

But hey, now you can at least read this on mobile! Please leave a comment if you are right now.

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What I Did on My Summer Vacation

whitney — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 17:09:30 +0000

You might have realized I haven’t been here in a while. That’s because I’ve been everywhere else.

I spent my summer doing deeply meaningful client projects and traveling the world sharing my passion for making people’s lives better. I met a ton of interesting new people along the way — people who inspired me to keep going, to consider new perspectives, and to enjoy the best that life has to offer.

Despite it being the densest period of travel, speaking engagements, and deadlines I’ve ever had, it was also one of the most relaxing. How can that be possible? Because I eliminated a lot of the miscellaneous obligations that had been dragging me down for a long time. I’m more focused than I’ve ever been. I’m doing only what’s important to me personally and to my business, and nothing superfluous. I’m enjoying my weekends, spending more time with friends, taking time to smell the proverbial roses, and taking much better care of myself.

I had a string of recurring sinus infections in the spring that seemed incurable, and I knew I needed to give myself a break. I was on the brink of burning out. While I didn’t reduce my travel or my workload, I gave myself the permission to ignore everything else: emails, meeting requests, writing gigs, volunteering, and most of all, this blog.

Not writing for the last three months has been incredibly difficult. Writing is how I express myself best and has been such a powerful tool of growth over the course of my life. But it also takes a lot out of me, mentally and emotionally. “If you love something, let it go.” That became my mantra this summer, and I’m happy to say with absolute confidence that I am now back and better than ever.

This summer brought several important milestones: the 6th anniversary of my LLC (August 3), the 3rd anniversary of my self-employement (August 22), and the last year of my 20s (July 11).

I spent my birthday in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island on a solo weeklong tech-free vacation that I had been dreaming about for years. I ate the most delicious mussels, oysters, lobster and scallops I’d ever eaten, three meals a day for seven days and I still wanted more. I walked around the Fortress of Louisbourg where the French tried (unsuccessfully) to fight off the British. I rode the muddy waters of the world’s largest tidal bore in a three-propeller raft along the Shubenacadie River with six strangers (four were there for a bachelor party adventure). I celebrated the end of lobster season at the annual Pictou Lobster Carnival (population 2000, one of whom told me that this is the *only* thing that happens in the town all year). I saw the area that inspired Anne of Green Gables (a series I’ve never actually read) whose rolling hills really are remarkably green enough to be named after. I learned how whiskey is made (and drank some!) at Nova Scotia’s only single malt distillery, designed to the exact specifications of namesake Scotland. I spent an hour watching local kids jump off a bridge into the inlet below, then swim up to the rocks, climb back up to the bridge, and do it all over again (I wanted to join them, but couldn’t work up the courage). I swayed to the Preservation Hall Jazz Band who came all the way from New Orleans to play at the Halifax Jazz Festival under a large tent on the waterfront. I went to a tweetup with the web designers of Halifax who explained Nova Scotian customs and insisted I eat a donair (I did). I spent my birthday morning on the boulders of Peggy’s Cove (red lighthouse behind me, Atlantic waves crashing in front of me, hopping from rock to rock in my flip flops, trying not to fall), my birthday afternoon walking through the storybook town of Lunenberg (a UNESCO World Heritage site preserved from the late 1700s), and my birthday evening eating an unforgettable farm-to-table five-course meal in an old converted home owned by a local couple. When it was all said and done, I had driven more than 2500 kilometers (1500 miles), exceeded all my expectations, and didn’t miss my laptop, my iPad or even my phone one eensy teensy bit.

I had a few very important revelations while I was on vacation and I’m in the process of making the necessary changes to my life in order to be closer to the person I want to be. Among them is taking much better care of my health (I always thought I had been, but I was ignoring one major part). If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably noticed by now that I’ve been tweeting what I eat along with the #4HB hashtag (which stands for 4 Hour Body, a book by Tim Ferriss). Call it a diet, call it an eating plan, whatever you want to call it, I’m in control of my body for the first time in my life and I feel amazing. I’ll go into all that in another post soon.

As for where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing, here’s the full itinerary starting June 1:

Vancouver, Canada

Interlink Conference
Design Principles: The Philosophy of UX

Sebastopol, CA

Foo Camp

Florence, Italy

Frontiers of Interaction ’11
When I Speak My Mind

Atlanta, GA

UPA International
Design Principles: The Philosophy of UX
Evangelizing Yourself

Atlanta Web Design Group
Design Principles: The Philosophy of UX

Nova Scotia, Canada

Vacation!

Philadelphia, PA

Wharton Web Conference
Design Principles: The Philosophy of UX

Miami, FL

Client work

Atlanta, GA

Client work

Burlington, VT

Client work

Tel Aviv, Israel

UX Israel Live 2011
Design Principles: The Philosophy of UX
Creating a Culture of UX

(Of course this doesn’t count 2011 prior to June when I was in Boulder, San Francisco, Austin, LA, San Diego, Denver, Portland, Boston, and Burlington)

I feel so blessed to be invited to speak around the world — it really blows my mind — and to have such wonderful and widespread clients. It’s an honor and a privilege. I’ll go into more detail on each of these in subsequent posts. I AM BACK! And I’m so happy to be here. I can’t wait to share more about what I’ve been doing and what big changes are just around the bend.

Won’t you come along with me?

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Catching Up on Pleasure and Pain

whitney — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 15:32:18 +0000

Welcome! If it’s your first time here, you probably arrived via a link to a single post and may not have a full picture of the things I write about.

If you’re interested in learning more about me, here’s a selection of posts that can speak to my broader vision about user experience and my goals as a practitioner.

What’s below is just a sampling of posts I enjoyed writing and spurred some interesting conversations. You can comb through all 612 of them (this is my 613th!) in the “Also on Pleasure and Pain” section at the bottom of each page.

Please leave your thoughts in the comments on any post. I hope you enjoy — and come back soon, ya hear!

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Follow-up to “You’re not a user experience designer if…”

whitney — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 15:28:32 +0000

The blog post I wrote about six weeks ago titled, You’re not a user experience designer if…, got way more attention than I ever could have predicted — in fact, I think it got the most traffic of any post I’ve ever written.

Sure, it’s an antagonistic title and that always gets people riled up. But I spend so much time talking and writing about what user experience design IS, I felt it was about time I wrote about what it ISN’T. I’m confronted with so many misconceptions on a daily basis that make our work all the more difficult.

A few notable comments

A lot of people agree with me, a lot of people don’t. I enjoy hearing both perspectives.

A few notable posts

As a result of the post, several other folks published their own perspectives. I swell with pride that I was able to jump-start this conversation, as I believe that conversation and debate and analysis is what propels our industry forward and makes us all better practitioners.

Being a Designer by Uday Gajendar

Getting Into User Experience by Karl Smith

Un designer d’intérieur d’estomac by Benoît Meunier

Humble Design by Rian van der Merwe

You might be a user experience designer… by Jack Moffett

You’re not a software craftsman if… by David Adsit

Translations

Having my writing translated into another language is one of the most thrilling experiences, not only because it means someone found my thoughts valuable enough to take the time to painstakingly translate, but moreover because it then reaches a whole other audience I wouldn’t have been able to connect with on my own. Thank you so much!

Você não é um User Experience Designer by Fabricio Teixeira

Vous n’êtes pas un UX designer si… by Julien Hillion

Ongoing

If you have additional thoughts on my post, please feel free to comment there or here. If you’ve written a post of your own about this topic, please let us know about it in the comments.

I hope this is a conversation that can continue as long as it takes for us to reach clarity around our roles and evangelize the value of the user experience practice worldwide.

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Pleasure and Pain turns 3

whitney — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 19:57:42 +0000

Three years ago, I was feeling stagnant and purposeless. I wasn’t happy with the direction of my career and I didn’t know what to do about it.

Without a clue what it was, I joined Twitter, and three days later I started this blog. January 10, 2008.

This is a tough day for me to be reflecting on the three years — wow, three years — that I’ve been publishing this blog. I’m having an off day. It’s cold, I’m hungry, and to be perfectly honest, I’m filled with discontent. It’s a unique mix of pleasure and pain that I’ve grown far too accustomed to feeling.

When I started this blog and made small movements towards gaining prominence within the user experience community, I felt like I was on top of the world. It was such a pleasure to be heard, trusted, and cared about. It became like a drug, making me feel powerful and high. Every time someone shared one of my links or offered their thoughts in the comments, my heart skipped a beat. When the traffic receded, so did my pride.

Over the years I have occasionally found myself writing posts because I knew they would get attention, not because I particularly cared about them. I wanted to ensure that I stayed top of mind, for the health of my business, but also for the health of my ego.

Quite frankly, I don’t want to live for other people’s approval. I know what I’m good at, what I have to offer other people, and what I need to improve upon. Being showered with praise temporarily muddles all of that. It gets you to start believing you’re good at things you really have no business doing. And when the buzz dies down, you realize no one has the power to change how you feel about yourself.

This blog has been an incredible outlet for me to share myself, work out my thoughts, attempt to help others, and be a record of my personal and professional journey. But fear has held me back from saying a lot of things that I needed to say, and self-importance kept me writing when I had nothing to say at all.

Once again, I’m ready for a change. Starting now. I want to get back to what I was trying to do here in the first place: get better. Not seem better, not feel better, but actually be better. Learn more. Share more. Do more. Help more.

Thank you for everything you’ve given me. I hate to ask for anything more, but I have to. I need your guidance, not your praise. I hope you’re willing to share it, and I can promise to do the same.

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Pleasure and Pain’s Most Popular Posts of 2010

whitney — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 22:02:04 +0000

I hate end-of-year roundups. But they’re contagious, so I just can’t help myself. Here are the most tweeted, most commented posts I wrote this year. I hope you like them, too.

The UX Design Process for the Boxee Beta

January 27, 2010
175 tweets, 23 comments

More than a year ago I very proudly announced that Boxee, the much-loved social media center software company, had hired me as the user experience designer for their beta. In the five months that I worked with them, I conducted user interviews and usability testing to identify people’s needs, behaviors and frustrations, and redesigned the app’s navigation and key screens.

How Little You Really Know

February 26, 2010
39 tweets, 10 comments

You work in technology for a living. You’ve been using a computer since you were born. You are obsessed with learning new things. You are a nerd and you hang out with other nerds. You constantly think about the future. You love math. You spend the vast majority of your day staring at screens of varying sizes.

In other words, you are not normal.

Can Leadership Be Learned?

March 6, 2010
19 tweets, 12 comments

Since I am always brought in as a consultant, I am never the true project lead because it is ultimately not my responsibility to implement the solution and integrate it into the business. One day I would very much like it to be, but that’s simply not the case right now. While I do currently get to lead almost all of the user experience phases of these projects, I still have an overall project lead that I report into — and in order for my work to be successful and impactful, the leader has to possess some pretty specific qualities.

SXSW Interactive: Never As Good As the First Time

March 26, 2010
9 tweets, 11 comments

The first time you attend SXSW, it’s magical. It’s a long-awaited assembly of neighboring tribes who come together to share knowledge, and passion, and culture. And the first time you’re a part of it, you feel like you’ve arrived. There’s so much possibility; the field expands in front of your eyes and suddenly your career means so much more.

But once you’ve seen it, you can never un-see it. Anytime you return, you’re never going to experience that first discovery again. It’s always going to feel like a disappointment.

The NEW Frappuccino: however-you-want-it

May 12, 2010
10 tweets, 16 comments

Over the past year I’ve had a handful of really bad days where I felt the only thing that could cheer me up was such a Frappuccino. I’ve hopped into whichever Starbucks was nearby and asked for it not by name, but by recipe. Baristas, well-trained as they are, would look at me cross-eyed, but would oblige. I would walk away with my drink, satisfied but embarrassed by my off-the-menu order.

My Best Advice for Conducting User Interviews

July 7, 2010
101 tweets, 20 comments

When a cute guy asks me, “Do you workout?” my answer is always Yes. But if he asks me how often I work out, he’ll get a much clearer picture of reality.

Always start your questions with Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. Open-ended questions can’t be answered with a Yes or No. Never start a question with, “Do you…” and expect to get more than a three-word answer. A better way to phrase it would be, “To what extent do you…” or “Tell me more about…”

Fulfilling My Dreams, and Saying No Along the Way

August 3, 2010
26 tweets, 31 comments

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.

My 2nd Indie Anniversary

August 23, 2010
12 tweets, 10 comments

Last year I was feeling a huge mix of emotions as my first year of full-time independent consulting came to a close. Quite frankly I was a chicken with my head cut off, and I was feeling it at hard. I knew I needed to make a change. So I created a strategic plan for how I wanted to move my business forward and how I wanted to better live my life — and now, looking back at Year 2, I’m happy to say that I stuck to it.

Literally Desperate

November 18, 2010
16 tweets, 19 comments

I’m not the first person to plead this case, and I doubt I’ll be the last. Complaints of the misuse of the word are rampant. But despite the growing reeducation and the obvious satire, the abuse seems to be spreading more aggressively than ever.

And I think I’ve figured out why.

What are you worth?

November 22, 2010
103 tweets, 10 comments

When anyone asks me, “How do I figure out my value?” I say that value is the greatest amount that someone is willing to pay. It’s incredibly elastic, so it’s crucial that we continually put ourselves in a position to figure out how that value is shifting.

But there’s a deeper issue here: your current value is not necessarily equal to your worth. And the only way to get your value as close as possible to your worth is to know how to sell yourself.

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My Top 10 User Experience Blogs to Watch in 2010 on Blogs.com

whitney — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:00:15 +0000

Last April I had the honor of contributing a guest list on the 10 Best UX (User Experience) Design blogs [the list, my blog post] for Six Apart’s Blogs.com.

I still regularly read almost all of the blogs I listed, but recently realized that there are many new, revamped or lesser known UX blogs that really deserve some attention. Another year, another list.

Now live on Blogs.com is my 10 UX (User Experience) Blogs to Watch in 2010!

Okay, so I couldn’t pick just 10…there are 11.

Here are my picks for the UX blogs to watch in 2010, in alphabetic order:

52 Weeks of UX
For each week in 2010, co-writers Joshua Brewer and Joshua Porter each offer a highly focused post that packs a lot of punch.
90 Percent of Everything
Harry Brignull illustrates Sturgeon’s Second Law — “90% of everything is crud” — with periodic insights on how to create the 10%.
Bobulate
Liz Danzico’s scrapbook of seemingly disparate ideas brilliantly broadens the scope of experience design.
Johnny Holland
An international group of writers explores the meaning of interaction design and aims to have its (sometimes incendiary) essays start new conversations.
Pure Caffeine
Nathanael Boehm shares his thoughts on the intersection of social experience design and Government 2.0.
UI&us
Keith Lang talks about technology trends and how they relate to cognitive psychology and user interface design.
Usability Post
Dmitry Fadeyev provides weekly tips and resources on how to make your products more usable.
Uselog.com
Jasper van Kuijk posts design examples, news, and observations on consumer product usability as he works on completing his PhD.
UX Booth
Andrew Maier, Matthew Kammerer, and David Legget are three fresh-faced guys behind the blog that’s becoming one of the most widely read UX resources.
Winning Content
Colleen Jones shares demonstrates the crucial role that content strategy plays in creating positive user experiences.
Wireframes Magazine
Jakub Linowski proves that there’s no right way to wireframe with regular samples of practitioners’ UX deliverables.

Did I miss one of your favorite blogs? Feel free to tell me about it in the comments!

Many, many thanks to Wendy Taylor, editor of Blogs.com, for her generosity and guidance.

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Best of the Last Two Years

whitney — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:46:03 +0000

I’ve published 447 blog posts over the past two years, but there are a few that really stick out in my mind. Some took a lot of research and analysis, some were important announcements, and others captured my wild emotions at pivotal moments in my personal and professional life.

Below you’ll find a list of my favorite posts and your favorite posts. Happy reading, and be sure to leave me a comment when something piques your interest.

My favorites

Nine Reasons Why I Love the Roomba
02/17/2008
TwitterBerry was mean to me
03/01/2008
The catch-up obligation
03/04/2008
People You May Know
03/30/2008
The importance of delivery to New Yorkers
04/05/2008
The User Experience Relationship
04/21/2008
The Stranger Aversion
06/05/2008
The User Experience of a Staircase
06/22/2008
My Beef with the NYC Taxicab Touchscreens
07/07/2008
I Popped My Cherry at BarCamp Philly
11/15/2008
The User Experience Designer’s Anthem
12/05/2008
Today is My 1-Year Anniversary on Twitter
01/07/2009
Maimonides Eight Levels of Charity Applied to Building Your Personal Brand
02/18/2009
Essentials to Designing a Conference
02/18/2009
Experience Design Lessons We Can Learn from My Nail Salon
03/11/2009
The Conditioner Bottles at the Hampton Inn
03/29/2009
Being a Consultant is like Being an Actor
05/12/2009
A Hippocratic Oath for User Experience Designers
10/02/2009
DIY UX at An Event Apart Chicago 2009
10/20/2009
The Project of a Lifetime
11/09/2009

Pleasure and Pain turns 2

whitney — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:00:19 +0000

I started this blog two years ago on January 10, 2008 with a post titled, Genesis. I didn’t know at the time just how fitting a word it was. It truly marked the beginning of my re-creation.

Since then I’ve published 447 posts (including this one), received 1,491 comments, and had 159,031 unique visitors.

The stats alone take my breath away, but what it has all meant to me is even more astonishing. I never could have expected what a fulfilling outlet this would be for me, to share both my professional accomplishments and personal challenges, my insights and inspirations.

If 2008 was the Genesis, then 2009 was certainly the Exodus. After quitting my full-time job the prior August, I was faced with a journey through the wilderness of independent life. I have followed many role models, and described the process in detail here. I even managed to gain some followers of my own, people inspired by my stories to take their own leaps into self-employment.

When I started writing two years ago, I never imagined what effect this blog might have on others, and I’m deeply moved every time I receive an email or comment from a reader who has found something meaningful here. It’s what drives me forward on the most difficult of days, and what has given me the confidence to keep striving for what is just slightly out of reach.

Perhaps I am entering into the year of Leviticus — the establishment of rituals and the greater understanding of consequence. In the last year I have greatly overextended myself, and in many ways let myself and others down by not being able to fulfill on commitments, but not being able to adhere to a routine, and by not clearly articulating my limits. I suspect that this will be the year in which I develop a more mature approach to running my business and choosing my commitments wisely. I am hopeful that many wonderful opportunities will continue to come my way, and that I will have the prudence to make good decisions about what to pursue (instead of my previous tendency to just take on everything).

There is one thing that I will be sure to make an even deeper commitment to: sharing myself on this blog, and finding ways to more profoundly connect with you (whomever you are).

So let’s start today. Tell me who you are, how you got here, and what you were hoping to find. I’ll keep coming back to put my soul on the page as long as you do the same.

Similar Posts:

Pleasure and Pain » Blogging

A Brief Recap on Year 4

Pleasure and Pain has gone mobile

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Vancouver, Canada

Sebastopol, CA

Florence, Italy

Atlanta, GA

Nova Scotia, Canada

Philadelphia, PA

Miami, FL

Atlanta, GA

Burlington, VT

Tel Aviv, Israel

Catching Up on Pleasure and Pain

Follow-up to “You’re not a user experience designer if…”

A few notable comments

A few notable posts

Translations

Ongoing

Pleasure and Pain turns 3

Pleasure and Pain’s Most Popular Posts of 2010

The UX Design Process for the Boxee Beta

How Little You Really Know

Can Leadership Be Learned?

SXSW Interactive: Never As Good As the First Time

The NEW Frappuccino: however-you-want-it

My Best Advice for Conducting User Interviews

Fulfilling My Dreams, and Saying No Along the Way

My 2nd Indie Anniversary

Literally Desperate

What are you worth?

My Top 10 User Experience Blogs to Watch in 2010 on Blogs.com

Best of the Last Two Years

My favorites

Most popular posts

Other top traffic posts

Pleasure and Pain turns 2