Informing Design with Context Scenarios

The planning phase of any project is crucial, and there are many deliverables that can help document it, including a project roadmap, a product backbone, and user research insights. The challenge comes when trying to turn these deliverables into a wireframe or design. For a recent project, I took to writing context scenarios to bridge […]

How to Facilitate a Remote Workshop

If you were to google how to facilitate a remote workshop, you’d find a lot of articles on which tools to use and even some opinions that you shouldn’t host a remote workshop at all. How can you bring your superstar facilitation skills to the table and create a remote workshop experience that’s both enjoyable […]

Six Principles for Planning and Facilitating a Workshop

There are hundreds of methods for planning workshop activities. In fact, one of my favorite resources is Vijay Kumar’s 101 Design Methods. By combining these methods, designers can create engaging workshops that bring people together to solve problems in just a couple of hours or over a few days. Regardless of how long the workshop […]

4 Simple Questions to Get Your Team Started on the Right Foot

Starting a project with a new team and a new client can be challenging. Everyone is dedicated to understanding the problem space and the project needs. At the same time, we’re learning how to work with each other, sometimes for the first time. We’ve found 4 questions that bring the team together in alignment and […]

Engaging Users in Research without Opening Pandora’s Box

Engaging a product’s users early in the process enables the team to gather information about user needs and make user-driven decisions out of the gate. But some software developers might worry, “What if users ask for features that we can’t deliver right away, or worse, can’t deliver at all?”

Creating a Fast, Easy Daily Log with Bear & aText

I am a big note taker, mostly because I tend to be forgetful. No matter how significant or recent a discussion may be, I often forget the details of what was said or decided–unless I take effective notes.

What Software Design Is & How it Makes Software Much, Much Better

What’s software design? It’s about making technology easier and more valuable for people to use. Professional software designers do far more than “make software pretty.” They make sure that software works for people.

My Five Favorite Tools for Mobile App Design

My work as a digital designer has focused on creating digital experiences for (mostly) desktop or laptop users. When I’m designing in Sketch, what I see is really close to what I’ll see in the finished interaction. But what about designing for mobile or tablet apps? It can be easy to underestimate the size of […]

Hacking a Product Roadmap for Uncertain Circumstances

Product roadmaps have long been used to illustrate the direction of product development, including how much time the project will take to complete, what tasks need to be completed, and who is responsible for those tasks. In my experience, a roadmap has been the best tool to align the team and leadership around the same […]

Software Feature Prioritization – Pruning the Product Tree

You’re about to launch the MVP of your product—but in the background, there’s a never-ending stream of feature requests from stakeholders who have waited months (if not longer) for their idea to reach the top of the list. Where do you begin to prioritize these requests and foster shared ownership of the outcomes?

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By: Taylor Vanden Hoek

Author: Taylor Vanden Hoek