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Re: Pet aversion: energy retailers in “savage dog” meter scam

Nathanael Coyne — Sun, 30 Jul 2017 23:49:46 -0000

> "Perhaps if you kept your meters in an open location"

Can meters be relocated?

Re: DTA’s command and control begins with review of ICT projects

Nathanael Coyne — Thu, 16 Feb 2017 21:27:40 -0000

Will be interesting to see if and how that workforce planning pans out; I tried being a UX designer as an APS employee for several years and it didn't work very well, I ended up moving in and out of permanent and contract roles to follow the project work and would not consider another permanent APS role in this profession (except at the DTA) without seeing positive changes in how designers and researchers are allocated to projects, shared around organisations, and properly utilised.

Re: Fixed Price Contracts in Agile Projects

Nathanael Coyne — Thu, 09 Feb 2017 22:04:31 -0000

I think fixed-price (and thus fixed team size and fixed duration) contracts are a great way to inspire creative approaches to meeting requirements. As long as the constraint is reasonable and not "I give you 3 seconds to run a hundred metres" then it pushes people to work smart and be focused on impact, not outputs.

Re: Fixed Price Contracts in Agile Projects

Nathanael Coyne — Thu, 09 Feb 2017 22:01:24 -0000

Whilst I don't think it's helpful to frame these discussions as worst-case scenario of how it'd play out in a courtroom, I think you over-emphasise the importance of the written and signed contract and if the client is indeed being unreasonable in their expectations and you didn't realise what you were committing to then you might get to wriggle out of it ... perhaps even coming off better than the client. I've seen it before where a vendor got paid for their effort and the client got nothing useful, because lawyers.

Re: Fixed Price Contracts in Agile Projects

Nathanael Coyne — Thu, 09 Feb 2017 21:57:02 -0000

What better way to manage expectations than with fortnightly demonstrations of working software and direct access to the authoritative queue of work (the backlog) that the team exclusively works from? Surely better than traffic light status reports that are an interpretation of project health metrics (if any exist) and a layer of hand-holding and ego-soothing.

Re: Fixed Price Contracts in Agile Projects

Nathanael Coyne — Thu, 09 Feb 2017 21:53:24 -0000

... and then I come along another 8 years after that :)

Re: Say No to Feature Creep Before it Kills Your Project | Toptal

Nathanael Coyne — Thu, 08 Dec 2016 06:07:50 -0000

I think you skipped a step ... saying "no" to your boss is not just hard, it's also completely inappropriate if you don't have a reason for pushing back. You won't make any friends if you get a reputation for being obstructionist, obstinate and uncooperative.

Some of the other principles you covered in the article about being more judicious in what features are added will become part of that, but having a strategy, a roadmap, being able to explain why a specific feature is a bad idea and the consequence it could have in diluting market perceptions of the products purpose, or in making core tasks harder to complete, introducing more decision points in workflows, losing sight of its strengths.

But you know what? Sometimes implementing features because competitors have them and your market expects you to stay current and relevant can be a pretty good argument for including features and you shouldn't be exclusively and myopically focused on the needs and expectations of your existing customers right now.

Some brands have had to completely alienate their existing userbase and acquire a new, larger more profitable market to stay in business. You do want to stay in business and keep your job right?

Also, I don't think using Photoshop as an example is relevant; Photoshop was never good at UI/UX design, it's a photo editing and enhancement package. Adobe acquired Fireworks for UI design and now has Comp CC and Adobe XD

Otherwise, some good advice there! I know you know your stuff Luciano, but I think encouraging product managers to basically erect walls around their fiefdoms is perhaps counterproductive.

Re: Common arguments for ignoring UX (and how to destroy them)

Nathanael Coyne — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 00:30:02 -0000

Really good article and great writing style, thanks Jason.

Re: 10 (of 100) Must-Learn Skills

Nathanael Coyne — Mon, 04 Jan 2016 17:33:12 -0000

That book already exists! https://www.goodreads.com/b...

Re: Engel Hot Knife

Nathanael Coyne — Wed, 30 Dec 2015 15:30:46 -0000

Wow, not cheap! But probably better than my method ... using a propane torch to heat an old kitchen knife to glowing red.

Re: Multiple Levels of Done

Nathanael Coyne — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 04:04:55 -0000

I acknowledge the challenge that this addresses and that this is a solution to that problem, but I can't help but feel it's a nasty hack.

Re: Checkboxes, numbers, bullets, or all together?

Nathanael Coyne — Tue, 10 Mar 2015 22:47:43 -0000

It looks like in this latest version the Hide Completed tasks option only works on refresh or next visit to list, it keeps it visible (though with strikethrough) when previously it would immediately hide on task completion or invalidated. Was that an intentional change?

Re: Your Best Agile User Story

Nathanael Coyne — Mon, 12 Jan 2015 22:52:05 -0000

Thanks Alex, appreciate the insight and examples as I'm trying to figure out how I want to transition to Scrum and user stories, and dialing back on the wireframes and UI specifications.

The hierarchy of epics and stories is something I'm struggling to get my head around; it seems very ... organic? Some epic-level stories have as much detail as I'd expect to produce while other epics could be broken down into a dozen sub-stories and even some of them could be broken down futher to ensure they're testable.

Also, with your example epics I'm not sure if these are expected to have user stories under them but I'd have thought there would be more test cases that test the [derive a benefit] clause of the stories; I felt that the lack of test cases that explored that aspect of the user stories was a missed opportunity to increase the likelihood of delivering a successful product.

Re: Release: delete notes, context actions, integrations, and fixes

Nathanael Coyne — Sun, 02 Mar 2014 04:11:35 -0000

Contextual wipe and reset NICE!

Re: 20 Zombie Books To Read While Awaiting ‘The Walking Dead’

Nathanael Coyne — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 22:37:33 -0000

Thanks for the list! You should also check out Six which is a free e-book, it's really good — wish Ryan would write more! The website seems broken so here's a link to the Goodreads page; can email you the PDF if you can't find it online https://www.goodreads.com/b...

Re: Experimentation beats expertise

Nathanael Coyne — Wed, 17 Jul 2013 00:18:05 -0000

I came here expecting yet another post-intellectualism exhortation to stop thinking and just blindly start running. Was pleasantly surprised!

Re: List wide operations

Nathanael Coyne — Tue, 14 May 2013 17:44:36 -0000

The new 'wipe' command is really useful as I have a generic rolling task list that I dump stuff into (with the intention of categorising later, but often don't) and it had hundreds of completed items, so wiping is a neat way to clean that up (and not make my list summary page look like I'm closer to finishing the list than I am e.g. 0/24 completed rather than 290/300 completed.

Re: Code is material: why designers must learn to code

Nathanael Coyne — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 08:12:17 -0000

I started as a web application developer 14 years ago before going through a number of specialisations in front-end development and finally decided to put code down and focus 100% on design.

So while I don't code I have a background in coding and have a working understanding of web technologies, though one that admittedly is becoming outdated because I don't have the time nor inclination to bridge both design and technology (though I'm loath to uphold that dichotomy).

In response to your article: I disagree with the ceaseless calls for designers to learn to code. Yes it's nice when developers learn a bit about design and designers a bit about technology, but only insofar as it helps both better communicate effectively and constructively … just as it helps when government has some empathy for business and business tries to understand the motivations and constraints of government, but no one expects government to go into business or business to start governing. They are distinct entities.

(I hope that's a useful analogy, though I believe it's at least better than your one of ceramics and glazes!)

Design and it's various specialist fields is comparable to learning programming (generally and specific languages and frameworks) in complexity and depth. I feel that whenever I see arguments like yours Jon (and it may be apparent from my response so far that such arguments have started to really grate with me) that design is treated like some light and fluffy arty thing that isn't really a job or a profession and that only developers do actual work, only developers have real skills, and you know what? Developers could just easily pick up design and put all us designers out of business.

I know that's not your position Jon, but I think we really need to reframe this whole designers vs developers, design vs coding issue.

Perhaps sometime in the future designers and/or developers will be out of a job due to technological or educational progress or we'll morph into new, deeper specialisations from a social sciences, psychological or a technological perspective as we have seen over the last decade or two … but here today we have developers and we have designers, and we need to figure out how the two of us can get along.

Yes, it really peeves me sometimes that I've de-skilled in coding, especially when getting involved in open-source projects but that's a choice I made and I'm happy with it. I'd rather be good at one thing rather than try and be expert in several fields and fail. Sure there are some really awesome talented people out there who are really good developers and really good designers that have managed to keep their knowledge up to date. But I don't run into these people often, so let's not try to encourage everyone to jump at being a jack-of-all-trades.

Re: Why the d.school has its limits

Nathanael Coyne — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 08:09:11 -0000

I have not visited the d.school but as they are oft used as a case study for design thinking I am well aware of their approach. That said, they are not the flagship of design thinking and any perceived failings of the school should not translate to perceptions of flaws or constraints in design thinking as a mindset and methodology.

Re "The answer to any problem unfailingly is a product or a service" — I'm completely at a loss as to how you came to that conclusion and how you think design thinking cannot begin to address the system issues such as the scenario you describe. Design thinking is better positioned than many other approaches to tackle such wicked problems and indeed has been recognised as a tool that governments must have in their toolkit if they want to begin to solve or participate in solving such complex issues.

Empathy, a desire to truly understand from a user, consumer or citizen's perspective, research of and collaboration with those who are involved in and affected by systemic failures or shortcomings today; exploring the problem space and looking at all possible solutions both quick fixes and 10-year strategies, prototyping those ideas to test them for viability, practicality and emotional consequence … absolutely not limited to a new or improved product or a service.

Perhaps you meant to couch that assertion in the context of the for-profit private sector?

Re: Task delegation and better teamwork

Nathanael Coyne — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 15:36:53 -0000

Maybe you shouldn't call it read-only mode any more then :)

Re: The Complete Guide to the Brand New Buffer Web App

Nathanael Coyne — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 19:40:06 -0000

Cool, and didn't know you could drag onto other profiles - that'll come in handy when I typically schedule for Twitter and then choose what to share on Facebook from that.

Re: Land the Perfect UX Job in 2013 - UXmas - Wishing you a great experience through the festive season!

Nathanael Coyne — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 18:49:12 -0000

Portfolios are good but I don't want to wow potential employers who don't know any better with crazy looking whiteboard sessions and colourful sketches because that's perpetuating the same superficiality that UX design tries to combat. I've been collecting, scanning and photographing many of my sketches and concepts over the last four years but I haven't really assembled a UX portfolio as such because I haven't figured out how to tell a persuasive story with it all that demonstrates the value of the process and how it creates value.

Re: 5 popular UX techniques I rarely use - UXMas - Wishing you a great experience through the festive season!

Nathanael Coyne — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 19:42:34 -0000

Good list and good to hear your honest thoughts about these activities and deliverables. I love sketching, I love designing with people in a group though 80% of the time it's me at the whiteboard. I like personas but I DON'T like that "persona" has come to be a specific narrow thing that has a photo, that has bullet points, a long description and an A4 layout. Sometimes for me a persona is what can fit on a Post-it note. Sometimes it isn't even written down. But I still find the concept of modelling personas useful.

Re: How To Hide Your Email: What Petraeus Did & What He Should Have Done - by Adam Popescu

Nathanael Coyne — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 15:55:44 -0000

Yeah, I read it as that too …

Re: Easy linking between lists

Nathanael Coyne — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 18:32:21 -0000

Like!