Oct 4, 2011 Posted by admin

8 Unwritten Rules of Locker Room User Experience

Recently, I finished working out and was walking to the locker room with my 7-yr-old son to gather our belongings. It was a little crowded but nothing out of the ordinary. When we arrived, there was of course an individual getting changed in close proximity. Murphy’s Law pretty much guarantees that was going to happen. I didn’t make eye contact because I know the rules. The other individual... read more

Jul 11, 2010 Posted by bradz

Personifying a Product: The Breakup Letter

There are many things happening now in the field of design research. And I am not talking specifically about marketing and communications design research, rather research that will help us design, build and bring more meaningful things into the world. “The Breakup Letter is a design research tool that Smart Design uses to understand the emotional connection between people and their products,... read more

Jun 30, 2010 Posted by bradz

Evidence That Personas Are Effective

In creating effective experiences, I have always found that developing personas helped our design teams better align their mindset with the users we were targeting. This is often a daunting task especially when faced with  high profile public brands whose message transcends among a diverse user base. Many believe that it requires a large research investment to properly inform a persona. That is not always... read more

Aug 2, 2009 Posted by bradz

Dear User, Who Are You?

Earlier in the year, Sanitarium Health Food Company, scrambled to redesign a Weet-Bix promotion, for which they had already spent $1.3 million, featuring All Blacks collector cards because the children that the website was aimed at was a bit too hit-tech and difficult to use. Article here. But this post isn’t about a particular misstep. It is about asking the question – should we execute user... read more