Passion knows no bounds.
Thanks never gets lost in translation.

From: Bruno Chaves
To: Whitney Hess
Subject: hello from brazil
Date: August 4, 2010 9:04:13 AM EDT

I do not know write in English.
my English is very bad. But you can read;)
I write to you, thanks to google translator:)
I met his blog, twitter by Zeldman.
I loved you!
just wanted to tell you that there are people in south america, enjoying reading your posts and twits
have a nice day! :)

Bruno

—

From: Whitney Hess
To: Bruno Chaves
Subject: Re: hello from brazil
Date: August 7, 2010 11:18:06 PM EDT

Bruno, thank you so much. Your email is awesome, because I can tell how much effort you put into writing it. Do you mind if I post it to my blog? I won’t include your name.

Keep reading!

—

From: Bruno Chaves
To: Whitney Hess
Subject: Re: hello from brazil
Date: August 8, 2010 6:25:05 PM EDT

hi!
thanks for responding.
you can write about my email to your blog, no problem!
can quote my name too. I’ll be happy.
google translate and a modern marvel.
you can write in Portuguese for me too.
Nowadays, we only need to be willing to communicate. to communicate!

Bruno

• Awesome Email of the Day: Evangelizing Myself
• Awesome Email of the Day: How Little You Really Know
• This email is bloggable
• Fulfilling My Dreams, and Saying No Along the Way
• Onboarding: A Sidebar in “Designing Social Interfaces”

I am a very fortunate person. I feel it every day. Some days I get the most incredible emails that make me realize it even more deeply. A few months ago I got this one, and I was given the permission to reprint it.

This is why I do what I do. I know so many people who deep down believe that they have more to give, but are too afraid to try. I used to be one of them. I often still am.

Thank you, Pete, for the best gift you could have ever possibly given me.

From: pete@petelove.com
To: Me
Subject: Evangelizing Yourself
Sent: Sep 4, 2010 12:21 PM

Hi there….

I just wanted to say thanks for the Evangelizing Yourself presentation…I stumbled across it in the archive of the Boxes and Arrows podcast the
other week.

I’ve been working in digital media in one form or another for 15 years, and though I feel I’ve got loads to contribute, I’ve become increasingly dissatisfied by how little influence I feel I have beyond my immediate circle, and consequently feel I’m under-achieving considerably.

Your presentation was a real injection of motivation for me. I have consequently (and finally!) got round to launching a blog (http://www.petelove.com) and made my way down to the dConstruct design conference over here in the UK.

I particularly like everything you said about not being afraid to promote yourself. Although I’m very opiniated, and very sure of my own abilities, I’ve always been way too modest about it (a characteristically English trait I think!). Your presentation has given me the confidence to just go ahead and stick my voice out there – better for people to think I’m promoting my opinions too blatantly than for them to not know my opinions at all!

Anyway, thanks again… great presentation!

Keep up the good work,

Kind Regards,

Pete

http://www.petelove.com
http://www.twitter.com/pete_love
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/petelove

• Rejected by EuroIA
• Awesome Email of the Day: Evangelizing Myself
• Final Round of Mashable’s Open Web Awards
• Gel conference videos now online
• My presentation at IA Summit 2009: “Evangelizing Yourself”

A few days ago, I received an amazing email from someone I have never before met, wanting to share some information. The purpose of the email is irrelevant, but the opening paragraph is SO classic, it’s worth reposting here.

You should know that somewhere in the depths of the UX world there are a bunch of people you have definitely never heard working on the remarkably unglamorous side of UX. That would be me and my colleagues…working for the government. Trying to bring large titanic-like agencies into the 21st century. While protecting data. And making everything VERY usable, because our user group is, well, America. Working to provide an excellent experience…while adhereing to a lot of regulations and red tape etc. etc. People who are trying really really hard to make the world a better place. Because we really care that you should be able to apply for a new Social Security card online, and that it should be less painful than going to a Social Security office. Who really want to find a way to make you not want to beat your head against a wall of nails when you have to fill out an IRS form. You get the picture.

We thank you, unglamorous UXers. Sleep well.

• Photo of the day: Do Not Disturb
• PayPal’s Live Chat Falls Short
• A Hippocratic Oath for User Experience Designers
• Awesome Email of the Day: I write to you, thanks to Google Translator
• Photo of the day: Nine wrong ways to swipe

Recently got this zinger in my inbox:

Sorry if I find your site overwhelming.

And I don’t want to be a UX designer.

And I am too busy to blog or tweet.

But I do software. So knowing about UX design is not an issue for me.

That was the beginning. The rest was asking me to help them find a user experience designer for their project.

Too funny not to post.

• Whit Hour is back! Week 9
• Follow-up to “You’re not a user experience designer if…”
• Dare to VMware
• Blogging Tweets
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Back in February, I wrote a blog post titled How Little You Really Know. If you haven’t read it, go check it out now.

I got the below email in response, and have kept it in my inbox as a reminder of why I do what I do.

It’s a few months late, but I wanted to share it in the hopes that it motivates you to reach out to the people who help further your thinking, and to appreciate those who have the kindness to let you know when you’ve furthered theirs.

To the person who wrote this email, you know who you are. Thank you.

Wow, I am going to email your blog post to 9 octrillion people.

I am a seasoned technologist, and I’ve been exasperated at the hubris of my fellow nerds who just can’t believe their understanding of technology isn’t ubiquitous.

As a VP of IT, I’ve had shouting matches with engineers trying to convince me to adopt linux as the desktop platform in my company when my users can’t tell the difference between a forward and backslash.

I am convinced it’s this reason that the iPad is going to be a success. It’s the Internet minus the nerds, and frankly, I can’t wait.

Good luck, and keep writing to educate the rest of us.

- [name redacted]

• This email is bloggable
• Awesome Email of the Day: I write to you, thanks to Google Translator
• An Event Apart Boston Schedule Now Online
• SeamlessWeb Mobile Site: Easy to Use, But Impossible to Order
• I admit it: I’m always five minutes late. And it stops now.

Being able to help people change their lives for the better is worth more than any client check. I’m very fortunate to get amazingly kind emails from strangers around the world. I promptly add them to my Happy File to look back on when I’m feeling down and doubting myself. Here is a recent email I received on Friday, May 29, posted with permission by the sender.

Subject: Evangelizing Myself

Hi Whitney,

I decided to drop you note, and after writing your name in the ‘to:’ field of my email application, i feel stupid already writing this. Maybe it is because of my English (sorry, i’m not a native speaker) or maybe it is just because I do not feel myself ‘big’ enough. I just watched your IA summit presentation on slideshare and wanted to tell you that the whole first part was about me.

It felt like you described the feelings I currently have and the problems I face. I finished my study in Holland some years ago (communication sciences) and started to work in IT companies.

At first the whole UX/IA thing was quite confusing (IA’s tried to define everything, but couldn’t define themselves). So I stopped defining myself and started working. Now after some years the UX community evolved and I feel that I did not catch the train somewhere. I go to meetings and conferences without taking to people and feel a huge ‘wall’ between me and other UX-experts. I do great things at my work, and have loads of satisfied customers, but i just feel my career is getting to a point that I have to get to a higher level.

So.. the bottom line is: your presentation was the little spark I needed. Thank you so much

[name redacted]
Zierikzee, the Netherlands

Thank you so much for your e-mails. They inspire me to keep going, keep learning, and keep sharing. And sometimes I really need it!

• Awesome Email of the Day: Increasingly dissatisfied by how little influence I feel I have
• Loosecubes and the future of work
• Reaching outside the UX tribe at STC’s Technical Communication Summit
• Awesome email of the day: The unglamorous side of UX
• Awesome Email of the Day: How Little You Really Know

Wireframes, wireframes, wireframes. It’s one of the those “insider” terms that gets thrown around the user experience design community all the time. We go to great lengths to explain what they are — to our colleagues, our clients, and our friends (“What exactly do you do again?”). [Dan Brown's explanation on Boxes and Arrows; Sarah Harrison; Paul Boag]

But why do we use the term in the first place?

About a month ago, I tweeted that I was working on some wireframes:

And then I got this response from Matthew Van Horn, whom I had met a few days prior at a dinner for New Work City:

Matt later sent me an e-mail expounding on the term.

Whitney,

I seriously think I coined that term, but I am not 100% sure. In 1993-94 I was working with a group (Snickelways Interactive) that was transitioning from interactive television to web e-commerce. While we were doing ITV, I was doing some 3d animation and rendering for them. In early 1994 as the web work started taking off, I began pushing the idea of designing the structure of the page separately from the look & feel. I described this to my coworkers as analogous to a wireframe model which shows the basic shape, but no shading/color/texture. The name stuck, within our company at least. I know at least a few designers who first used the term (to refer to web mockups) at Snickelways and later went to work for shops like Razorfish, Scient and Sapient, etc.

So I like to think I coined the term, but any documentary evidence is long gone with my old hard drives. It’s possible several people began using it simultaneously, but I don’t remember seeing it in use as early as I remember using it.

Coincidentally all of this took place a block away from where I met you, at 180 Varick St.

– Matt

After talking to him again last night at the New Work City opening party, I thought I’d help Matt get some corroborating evidence. Or perhaps some dissenters. Do you think you actually coined the term? Got any proof? Let me know about it in the comments!

• Whit Hour – Week 15
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• Photo of the day: Tropicana grocery display
• Whit Hour – Week 4
• Design — Architect — Engineer

I just wanted to post an amazing e-mail that I received from Martha Mihaly in response to my post on going solo. It really made me sit up straight and take stock of what I’m doing here — getting involved in the community, making my own rules and exploring my passion.

This e-mail, from one woman to another, is about the very real, very tough decisions we make in life as we settle down and start a family. One of the main reasons I chose to set out on this adventure while I’m still young, single and relatively responsibility-free is because I just don’t know that I’d make the decision to put my career first when I’m, one day, a wife and a mother.

Reading Martha’s words made me realize how right I was to do this now. Thank you Martha, for your honesty and encouragement. I’ll remember it always.

Hey Whitney,

I was glad to hear of your success in week one. It is really great! I don’t know how to say what I want to say WITHOUT sounding totally crazy so bear with me and here it goes…

Were I 10 years younger, or even at a different point in my life I would love to do what you are doing! I am so pleased to see young intelligent women involved in UE in a meaningful and very well thought out way.

I stumbled into this work a year and a half ago when a friend called me to help him out with research and writing, editing, marketing… I loved it, and found it so fun and challenging. Unfortunately the part time work rapidly became an all consuming job and I had to give it up. I am a mother of two, married to a great man who has a super successful (and far more lucrative) career. We made decisions about having kids, and about who had the greater earning potential, and who would be the ‘support staff’. I had to stop the work as it overshadowed the important things in my life.

So where am I going with this? I suppose what I am saying is follow your dreams while you can. Life changes quickly, and once you get to a certain point in the road, you can’t turn back you just have to keep going forward to the next intersection. Your writing is great, your ideas original and well laid out.

I’ll be following your blog, and rooting for your weeks to be billable at 27+ hours.

Martha

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• Awesome Email of the Day: Evangelizing Myself
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• Happy New Year to You