Year-End Review: Thinking about Your Use of Time
The year is winding down. Many organizations are near the halfway point of their fiscal year. This is the right time to take stock on your work and processes. You have time to improve processes for the second half of the year. Where should you start when you take stock? You might start with the …
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Working on Imposter Syndrome
Impostor syndrome is the inability to internalize successes and strengths clearly, focusing instead of feelings of inadequacy or fear of failure. There are many of us who sometimes feel like an impostor, but don’t make it to the clinical definition of impostor syndrome. Those people, the majority of us, are the ones I am addressing. …
Starting your DEAI path
Recently, I was asked how to start on the path to understanding the issues of Diversity, Equity, Access, and Inclusion. These are complex issues that take years to grapple with, and even then, you may never truly understand them. Since I have been asked this question often, I wanted to put down some big-picture ideas. …
5 Reasons to Self-Publish and a Free Zine
Self-publishing can be overwhelming and confusing, particularly if you have ever published a traditional book, or worked in an institution with a publications department. That said, there are many reasons to self-publish a book. Here are my top five: Agency: Self-publishing allows the author complete editorial control of their product. Anyone who has written to a …
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#MCN2018 Recap
Most years, on my plane back from MCN, I am furiously typing up notes from sessions. This year, I was volunteer co-chair and Human-Centered Design SIG co-chair. As a result, I was ever-present but not always there when it came to sessions. However, I had a better sense of what people felt about what they …
Simple Steps to Increase Equity: Considering Gender Pronouns
A human brain is basically a pattern-deciphering machine. People make millions of judgments daily, mostly unconsciously. Their brains match all new inputs against all the data that resides in their brains. When the first white flake falls from the sky, they don’t consciously match this information against all the memories in the brain. But, unconsciously, …
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Elements of Content Strategy
Content strategy is a framework that shapes all verbal communications and messaging within a brand. It ensures that all writers working with the brand have a cohesive approach while meeting their specific goals. Ideally, the strategy means that every piece of the text supports the overall feel of the organization. Why write to a strategy? …
5 Classic Journey Mapping Mistakes
Journey maps are great, there is no doubt, but there are certain pitfalls that should be avoided. 1. Maps are outputs, not processes: Imagine you and your friend go to a destination wedding. You use Apple maps. Your friend is brand loyal to Google. You both get to the wedding. You are early enough to …
User-Experience Design/ Service Design: Planning versus Feedback Tools
While many people are focused on the testing/ feedback tools, there are other tools that user experience designers/ service designers use to collaborate and plan within teams. These tools can be broadly broken down into tools/ processes that help shape a project (i.e. expand ideas) and ones that refine a project (solidify an idea). The …
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What are Personas and How can Museums use them?
What are Personas? Personas are sketches of sample users that help designers plan products in user-centered ways. Research can be hard to understand. Numbers are not warm and fuzzy, for example. Turning research into an idealized person makes it digestible across the team. The final personal is like an anonymized, fictionalized version of your …
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