“I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”

— Abraham Maslow — 1966

Abraham Maslow, the father of human psychology developed an idea known as Maslow’s hammer, also called the law of instruments, it is a cognitive bias concept that involves the over-reliance on a familiar tool.

As a refresher, Cognitive bias is a systematic error in thinking that occurs when people are processing and interpreting information in the world around them and affects the decisions and judgments that they make.

Tools in UX and beyond

Technology tools, business tools…

Raconteur — a person who tells anecdotes in a skillful and amusing way.

Pssst… Storytelling is your job! As Designers, whatever your ilk Product/UX/UI/IxD/CX/LX/Graphic/Strategy/Education/Writing/etc., your role is storytelling. (From this point onward, I will be using “Designer” to discuss the various roles in design as it applies to the topic.)

If you are unfamiliar with the Panofsky method it comes from Erwin Panofsky, a German art historian who in 1932 looked into the study of iconography and believed that for us to fully understand the meaning behind any particular piece of art/design, cultural context needs to be applied.

Panofsky applied his method to iconography (religious symbols) in art and wrote multiple books including Meaning in the Visual Arts.

I recently came across the description of a personality trait and thought “this is a UX designer!”

The British Psychological Society’s Research Digest blog explains:

A psychologically flexible person is characterized by a set of attitudes and skills: they are generally open to and accepting of experiences, whether they are good or bad; they try to be mindfully aware of the present moment; they experience difficult thoughts without ruminating on them; they seek to maintain a broader perspective when faced with a challenge; they continue to pursue important goals despite setbacks; and they maintain contact with “deeper values,” no matter…

Successful problem-solving involves failing. Failing comes in many forms and can be called many things. We have called failure things like “getting stuck”, “I’m blocked”, “I’ve gotten derailed”, “I’m sidetracked”, “I have made a misstep”, “I got defeated” or “I’m uninspired” when solving problems one of these “Failures” is enviable. The question:

What do you do when you “fail”?

There are many types of failure but let’s discuss the two main occurrences where failure looms large.

1. Failure to start
2. Failure in execution

1. Failure to Start

At art school, I studied painting and learned the concept known as…

The 1990’s classic film Glengarry Glen Ross has a well-known scene with Alec Baldwin. (Honestly, In my option it is one of his best comedic performances.)

“ABC — always be closing”

I am no Alec Baldwin that I’m for sure but at this point as a UX/UI Design Educator, I feel like I am always saying something like this to my students. My version goes.

ABTI: always be testing & iterating

As UX designers we spend a lot of time thinking about our users. …

Designers to listen to

Willem Hendrik Crouwel is one of the greatest graphic designers worldwide. He studied at the Academie Minerva (Art School) in Groningen.

Hartmut Esslinger — Advice For Designers a German-American industrial designer and inventor. He is best known for founding the design consultancy Frog Design Inc.

Fred Deakin is a British designer, educator and musician. He is part of the electronic music duo Lemon Jelly, and was one of the founders of design firm Airside. Since 2012 Deakin has set up a new venture called Fred & Company, dedicated to artistic…

The challenge of being a human-centered designer is there is a lot to remember and tons of knowledge to maintain. The truth is many of the roles that exist in the umbrella of User Experience have overlapping skills and it is our responsibility to build and maintain a strong foundation of knowledge.

More info on design roles:

Growing our foundational UX knowledge is what makes us good designers. UX design is improved through practice, memory, repetition, and execution of our knowledge in our work, therefore let’s apply

Applying Miller’s Law to these 9 foundational concepts will help you memorize and…