by Theo Mandel | Jan 21, 2015 | Product Design, Product Development, Prototyping, Real-World Usability, Technology, User Centered Design (UCD), User Experience
NPR just posted this article about a 90-year-old woman recently hired as a designer at IDEO. What a great idea! As designers, our job is to understand and design for our intended audience. However, older designers may have problems identifying with younger users and...
by Theo Mandel | Feb 11, 2013 | Product Design, Product Development, Real-World Usability, Technology, User Centered Design (UCD)
An obituary in the New York Times highlight’s John Karlin’s historic influence on digital dialing. Karlin died on January 28 at the age of 94. Ed Israelski, a well-know human factors professional, was fortunate to work under Karlin at Bell Labs. Karlin...
by Theo Mandel | Feb 8, 2013 | Product Design, Product Development, Real-World Usability, Technology, User Centered Design (UCD), User Experience
“I’ve been in three board meetings in the last month where it was painfully apparent that there wasn’t a person in the company who owned the UX philosophy of the product. I’m explicitly saying “UX” (user experience) rather than “UI” (user interface) as each...
by Theo Mandel | Sep 27, 2011 | Application Usability, Product Design, Product Development, Technology, Usability Consulting, User Centered Design (UCD), User Experience
As an independent user experience (UX) consultant, this year has been very busy, with more and more companies and clients realizing that user experience and usability is a critical component of any product or device’s design and and development process. Want to...
by Theo Mandel | May 12, 2011 | Application Usability, Healthcare Usability, Product Design, Product Development, Real-World Usability, Technology, Users
This is a classic debate – whether it is nobler to be consistent or to be usable! EMRs have notoriously been both inconsistent and also very unusable. So, what to do – fix the inconsistencies or fix the usability issues? The problem is, fixing one of these...
by Theo Mandel | Apr 4, 2011 | Product Design, Product Development, Real-World Usability, Technology, Usability Testing
Similar to the “Golden Rules” of user experience design that I have written about and cover in my presentations and seminars, there are many common myths about users and the user experience. Some myths have been around for many years, such as the myth,...
