Mar 7A Brief History of Enterprise Computing — Part 3In Part 1 of this three-part series on the history of enterprise computing, I focused on early developments (1880–1970). In Part 2, I focused on major advancement in computing (1970 -1995). In Part 3, I focus on the modern computing environment (1995 — present) including: The internet The world wide…Enterprise Technology7 min readEnterprise Technology7 min read
Mar 7A Brief History of Enterprise Computing — Part 2In Part 1 of this three-part series, I focused on early systems and technologies (1880–1970). In Part 2, I focus on major advances in computing (1970 -1995) including: The rise of an independent software industry Minicomputers and the personal computer (PC) The graphical user interface (GUI) PCs as “thick” clients The rise of an independent software industry …Enterprise Technology7 min readEnterprise Technology7 min read
Mar 7A Brief History of Enterprise Computing-Part 1This brief history of enterprise computing is a chapter from my upcoming book Design for the Enterprise (available in early 2024). For posting online, I’ve divided this history into three parts: (1) Early systems and technologies (1880–1970) — appears below (2) Major advances in computing (1970 -1995) (3) The modern…Enterprise Technology6 min readEnterprise Technology6 min read
Published inUX Collective·Jan 29, 2021Capturing alternative paths to improve design outcomesA common pitfall I’ve observed over the years with design practice is excessive focus on “main” flows. Scenario development, journey mapping, concepting, and prototyping by their nature revolve around a main expected path. …User Experience8 min readUser Experience8 min read
Published inUX Collective·Sep 12, 2020Roam Research: a new way of working with qualitative research dataThere’s a new tool in town. It has been the subject of a lot of hype in the productivity space, some of it warranted, some of it not. It’s a power tool and, admittedly, not immediately intuitive. …User Research18 min readUser Research18 min read
Published inUX Collective·Aug 5, 2020Documenting is designing: How documentation drives better design outcomesIt was the early stages of a new design project, and I was working on a task flow diagram when a colleague asked me about it. “You’re doing that now? I normally wait until the end of the project.” I understood what he was saying: he would do the design…UX10 min readUX10 min read
Dec 7, 2019A UXer’s Guide to Characterizing TasksAs UX designers, we are fundamentally engaged in helping users perform tasks. As such, we spent much time designing from the task perspective — understanding how tasks are currently performed and crafting ways tasks can be performed more easily and enjoyably in the future. …UX13 min readUX13 min read
Oct 5, 2019Creating Role-Based Personas for the EnterpriseIn my last article (a two-part series), I outlined special considerations around journey mapping for the enterprise. In this article, I expand on why, for the enterprise, characterizing users in terms of roles is more useful than traditional personas. …UX9 min readUX9 min read
Aug 9, 2019Enterprise Journey Mapping Part 2: Envisioning the Future JourneyIn Part 1 of this series, we looked at creating a current-state journey map for an enterprise experience. In this part, we’ll look at creating a future-state map. This article assumes that you’ve first created a current-state map, though that artifact isn’t strictly necessary for future-state mapping. You do want…UX14 min readUX14 min read
Aug 9, 2019Enterprise Journey Mapping Part 1: Creating a Current-State MapJourney mapping provides a concise, big-picture view of an experience that can align stakeholders around a vision for improving the experience. A journey has a start-to-finish flow — traditionally a consumer making a purchase decision, as shown in the example below. Journey maps can also depict enterprise experiences, though consumer…UX11 min readUX11 min read
