Forget willpower
As people start the traditional making and breaking of New Year’s resolutions, willpower seems to be at top of mind for many. I have been ruminating on what I want to accomplish this year, and how I’ll put the right steps in place to get there. I’m sure many of you have been doing the same! But I dislike making resolutions just because it’s January, and I really dislike pretending that something is going to change unless I am really sure I can establish and execute on an plan. Corporate training meets real life, I guess! So when one of my ZS colleagues posted...
Read MoreFriday yumminess
This week I had a chance to dig into my RSS reader this week for the first time in months, and I found a few things I thought I would pass along for fun. And in honor of this post I’m introducing a new tag – yummy. For those of you that know me in real life, you know that I use this word all the time. Let’s see if I can bring it to the blog with any consistency. :) The first site is a great sampling of well-done Customer Experience maps. What an great format for visualizing workflow, experience, and opportunities for future work! I may have to...
Read MoreSmiling city
This week I was talking to one of the Principals at ZS, helping him to prepare for a client engagement. His consulting team is putting together a proposal regarding the use of iPads for sales enablement. They are preparing to do ride-alongs with local pharmaceutical reps, and they wanted my help to help them prepare. I’m hoping I might get to join in, both for the ride-along and for the analysis of the customer’s requirements. If so I will definitely write a post about my experience, as it’s been ages since I did any field research of my own, and I’ve never...
Read MoreEthnography / PAMA
This week I had the opportunity to present as part of a Lunch and Learn panel entitled Ethnography: Understand and Shape your Brand Experience for the Philadelphia chapter of the American Marketing Association (PAMA). Here is a description of the event from PAMA: The difference between a successful product launch, and one that falls short…or fails, is often an “ah-HA! moment” during its design and packaging. For nearly a decade some of the biggest brands have taken the inside track to market dominance—and that track rolls right through the user’s home, office or worksite. The work...
Read MoreField Research / Philly CHI
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to present to the Philadelphia chapter of CHI on the campus of Philadelphia University, where I am also serving as an Industry Fellow in the College of Design, Engineering, and Commerce (DEC). Here is a link to event details, and the blurb that was circulated about my talk: In this presentation, Natalie will share her experiences in using ethnographic methods (e.g. shadowing) as part of an internally-focused User Experience consulting practice in a large corporation. She will talk about what ethnographic methods are and the potential benefits of those...
Read MoreDisplaying data
In a post some time ago, I wrote about my growing interest in data visualization, and its importance as (1) my team’s work in User Experience consulting was gaining more exposure with executives, and (2) we began working with larger datasets that lend themselves well to these types of representation. I continue to see the importance of these methods to support our User Experience work. In reading some industry news recently, I came across an interesting article from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) called A Tour through the Visualization Zoo. I found it to be a...
Read MoreThe Daily Grommet
This year I became a member of the Creative Good UX Councils. Creative Good is a small consultancy, and (independent of their consulting work) they also offer a knowledge exchange and networking service that they call The Councils. There are about 450 people involved in total, in about 20 councils with 20-25 people each. The service includes Special Interest Groups (SIGs), a Request for Help infrastructure (RFH), and two in-person events a year tailored to the interests of each Council. They also offer a very compelling value proposition – 5x ROI on the investment, and...
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