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Why blockchain and Web 3 user interfaces will suck for a while
How Web 2.0 grumpiness + Web 3.0 hubris are contributing to terrible user experiences on the cutting edge of tech.
My point in a nutshell: Web 3 people are generally not interested in lessons from the past, and experienced tech people don’t need Web 3 (at least not yet).
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Ready to bring your UX expertise to a startup? Ten tips from a startup-UX veteran.
Startup job searches are special. You’re going to find a lot of job descriptions that seem boilerplate, many that are looking for purple squirrels (“you must have 15 years of UX experience AND be an ace front-end coder!”).
Talk: Human Insights Podcast
Speaking the language of execs: it’s not about CX
To quote me: “I would evangelize business centricity to customer-focused professionals. That’s what’s standing in your way. We’ve tried all the arguments about why it’s so great to be customer-centered. We have to meet them where they are. We have to find the people who control the dollars….If you’ve been battling as a professional with evangelizing customer-centricity, then stop and ask yourself, how can I become more business-centered to achieve the same result.”
Talk
Introduction to Executive Alignment and Alignment Personas
Join me for a 45-minute intro to some of the real (and very human) reasons why organizations full of great, talented people don’t release awesome, useful products, and how executive alignment (using alignment personas) can make all the difference.
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Executive Alignment is the solution to a problem you don’t think you have.
You started a company and assembled an executive team for a reason: to solve a particular set of problems for a particular set of people in a particular way. You’ve had countless hours of conversations, drafted hundreds of documents, and collaborated on every detail.
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How to copy-and-paste yourself into your dream job.
We all read job descriptions the same way: we hurry over the parts that we are qualified for, and we over-react to elements we think we are not qualified for.
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Why UXers are — and shouldn’t be — intimidated by blockchain.
I’ll admit it. I’m intimidated by blockchain. I started working in the space a couple of years ago and I’m still at advanced-beginner status. It’s an unfamiliar feeling: I’ve faced dozens of new technologies and domains over my 20+-year UX career, but it’s never felt like this.
Talk: The State of Commerce Experience Podcast
Driving User Experience Design with guest…me!
Host Brian Walker and I talk about the evolution of the UX design profession, what it takes to get executives to truly understand their customers’ experiences and why the future of eCommerce may actually lie in reCommerce.
Talk: UW HCDE
Ask Me Anything on Salaries, Negotiation, and Asking for the Right Title
An hour of practical, atypical advice on salaries, negotiations, and titles. Full of classic hits like ‘be brave for 10 seconds,’ ‘job descriptions are big dumb bullies,’ ‘say the number and STFU,’ ‘UX people need to learn about how business works,’ and ‘titles always matter.’ Also, there are diamonds.
Talk: Content Strategy Insights Podcast
The Power of Personas
Tamara Adlin uses the power of user personas to align teams and help them develop better products. Tamara literally co-wrote the first book on how to develop and use personas. She has subsequently developed several practices that help teams align executives and other stakeholders on how to build genuinely customer-focused products and services.
Talk: UX Cake Podcast
Negotiate the Salary & Title You Deserve
Negotiating a salary or title in UX in general is not easy, a lot of people struggle with translating their value in UX into business metrics. So it can be challenging for anyone, but many women especially have other internal hurdles to jump.
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Elation/Deflation: The Responsibility of Being an Experienced Woman in Tech (or any business)
I give pep talks to women to help them get through a job change and/or negotiation. I tell them to be brave for 10 seconds, say it, and shut up.
Talk: World Usability Day 2018
Kryptonite
This is a story about facing unforeseen challenges that made me want to rip my hair out (and use that hair to smack my client). It’s a story about how blockchain, in all its obscenely technical and ridiculously disruptive glory, flew into my airspace and hit me like a flock of geese hits a majestic airplane.
Talk: UX Cake Podcast
Creating Personas that Align Stakeholders
“We’re talking with Tamara Adlin, a persona pioneer, about a process for creating personas that not only aligns executives and stakeholders, but that also actually gets those personas used. Tamara’s honed this process over the last decade, and she shares with ‘alignment personas’ are, how and why she creates them, and how you can create them too.
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Personas need a purpose: why you shouldn’t try to make personas that cover the whole company
My friend Benjamin asked a great question when I published my recent article on personas. In that article one reason an existing set of personas might not have worked: “They were probably created for the entire company, a big bunch of products or services, or a big division in the company…”
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What to do when you are asked to “refresh the personas”
I got a call today from yet another person in yet another large company (a super-big one this time) who has been tasked to ‘refresh the personas’ that were created several years ago by collecting new data and creating new posters. Let’s unpack the ‘reasons‘ to refresh them.
Talk: World Usability Day Keynote 2014
Guru Heal Thyself: Getting To UX Greatness
Tamara presented the opening keynote talk at the World Usability Day conference.
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Back by popular demand: Let Them Pee
Hey there! I was mentioned in this fun article by Greg Nudelman, who shows extraordinary taste when it comes to “UX People.” And just ‘cause, I figured I’d repost the original, now-famous “Let them pee” blurb!
![“We need more [latest tech thing]” underpants](https://adlininc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/we-need-more-sexy-tech-795x600.png "“We need more [latest tech thing]” underpants")
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“We need more [latest tech thing]” underpants
I found an old post that I never ported over–it’s from 2006! Remember 2006? That was like…ages ago. But it’s still a good in my extremely humble opinion, so here you go!
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What happens if you don’t use personas?
A potential client once asked me to write this up to help her convince the powers-that-be to invest in the project. Thought I’d share with all y’all.
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36 electronic devices are still on in the cabin… and other awesome lies.
You know how I am about traveling. I take pleasure in tiny rebellions, like only putting my cell phone in ‘airplane mode’ instead of turning it all the way off. And I think maybe I’m not the only person who does this.
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User is a four-letter word: the cow argument
The word “user” is such a bad word. And, by the way, so is the word “customers.” They are confusing, arbitrary, totally flexible and, worse, a great excuse to never think about the real people who use or buy or enjoy or hate your products.
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Corporate Underpants.
I picture big companies as if each one of them was really some kind of huge person. A giant resembling a businessperson in a suit. To the casual glance, and from the outside, they often seem impeccable, well put together, professional, thoughtful, perfectly groomed, confident, and capable just like a person in a well-cut business suit of the finest fabric.