As Covid continued through the start of 2021, Adi Adegbite, a UX researcher and designer, noticed an increase in the number of people complaining on Twitter about PLT, a shopping app made by a UK-based fast fashion brand. Adegbite took the complaints as an opportunity to practice her UX design skills. Her aim, she says, was to improve the overall user experience by providing a better shopping...
Brett Bilbrey thought he’d made a mistake. As an engineer at Apple, his team had been set the task of creating the original Mac Mini. The Industrial Design group brought in mock-ups showing how they wanted the miniature computer to look, and Jony Ive, Apple’s chief designer, told them he wanted it to be as small as possible. Bilbrey, worried in part about the challenges involved in cooling a...
When the blockchain launched in 2008, the expectation among enthusiasts was that Satoshi had created a new technology that would soon reshape the world. Money, in particular, would never the be the same. Instead of the whim of a central banker determining the value of a national currency through the printing of more cash, a connected world would use a limited currency whose value would be...
It took Adam Satariano less than an hour. Writing in The New York Times last year, he explained that he had started work at 8.49am. He responded to emails, browsed the news and scrolled Twitter. (As a journalist, it’s just possible that reading a newspaper and flicking through social media could count as “work.”) At 9.14am he started editing an upcoming story and read through his interview notes...
How do you tell a market to buy your product instead of your competitors’ products? One approach is to focus on your product’s unique features. Your product is faster, cheaper, and generally does the job better. It’s like the other products but gives customers more bang for their buck. The other approach is to tell a story. Ignore the characteristics and build an emotional engagement that will...
It’s the moment every sportsman waits their life for. Ollie Robinson was 27 years and his career as a professional cricketer had been troubled. Fired at 20 from one team for “unprofessional conduct”—he preferred partying to training—he found his way to a different team. He knuckled down, worked hard, and rebuilt his reputation. Seven years later, he received what every professional cricketer...
For Paul Buchheit, it was often a side project. Google’s employee number 23 would take on ideas that caught his eye and see if he could get them to work. While employed on Google Groups, he took the code and built a new email interface with an in-built search mechanism. That code became Gmail, a service that now has about 1.5 billion users. AdSense too had been an idea that Googlers had talked...
Like any creative company, Design Incorporated, a UK design agency, depends on good communications. It needs its clients to explain exactly what they need, how they want it, and what they want the product to do. And like most creative companies, Design Incorporated has received its fair share of poorly written briefs. The company has even categorized them into five forms. “The Closed Book” leaves...
As Covid spread across India, Flipkart, the country’s answer to Amazon, sent its staff to work from home. Six months later, the company asked some of those employees to describe their experience. It was generally positive. Pallavi Nanda, a new senior manager in talent branding, was happy to be able to spend more time with her family. Ritesh Savio Rodrigues, an assistant manager of social media...
Even for Jeff Bezos, the decision wasn’t easy. In 1994, he had a good job on Wall Street, was set for a high-earning career, and had little reason to hope for anything more from life. But he noticed that Web usage was growing at a rate of 2,300 percent, and he wondered what sort of business plan might make sense in the context of that growth. “I went to my boss,” he said in a 2001 interview, “and...
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