“Cock up – not conspiracy” By Andrew on 11th August 2020 — 1 min read A friend once used this phrase to describe some particular work muddle I was dealing with. I was being paranoid about folks trying to mess with me. It looked deliberate. In my mind, they were scheming – and I was their intended victim. > “Don’t worry so much. It’s a cock-up – not a conspiracy!”... More
How to survive as an introverted UX designer By Andrew on 6th March 2020 — 1 min read Ahhhh extraverts! They dole out their views without invitation or evidence. They like their take on things so much they forget to check whether it’s relevant to the room they are in. They show up ill-prepared, EVERY TIME. Winging it. Making stuff up as they go. “Talking talking talking…” I find myself thinking, “But…! You’re... More
Music box metaphor By Andrew on 26th November 2018 — 4 mins read Imagine that you’re playing a music box. Winding it’s little handle, you let its perfect little melody fill the room. You speed up the winding, the melody speeds up. You slow, it slows. You like it so much you end up playing it over and over. Now imagine that instead of one music box melody,... More
UX is negotiation By Andrew on 17th November 2018 — 12 mins read If you were to say that someone was a good UX practitioner, you could mean a great many things. For example, you could be thinking of their ability to run a workshop, an interview or a testing session. You could be thinking of their prototyping, visual or interaction design skills. You might be thinking of... More
Cognitive fusion and Experiential avoidance By Andrew on 14th December 2017 — 1 min read When faced with stress, we tend to go one of two ways: 1. We lock in to our current approach, becoming rigid and inflexible, or 2. We do whatever we can to avoid whatever is causing the stress, if necessary at great cost to ourselves or others When design collaboration becomes stressful, this plays out... More
Beating the advice monster By Andrew on 21st January 2017 — 1 min read A few years ago a colleague of mine gave me this great piece of advise for workshop facilitation: "Never hold the pen" He meant, that I should try whenever possible to have participants be the ones who are writing things on the white board or on post-its. The temptation to give shape to other people’s... More
