Lost Histories
Back in February 2001, I attended a design history conference—specifically geared to graphic design history—but at the end, as I wrote up my thoughts on the lec...
Author: erin
current: experience matters design :: senior level interaction design and systems strategy consulting
former partner, tangible user experience; Yahoo! founder of the public and internal Yahoo! pattern library. design director of ued teams responsible for designing solutions across key yahoo! platforms: social media, personalization, membership and vertical search.
Foreseeing the Future: The legacy of Vannevar Bush
– Previously published on Boxes and Arrows, 2002 In 1945 a seminal article appeared in The Atlantic Monthly. Titled, “As We May Think,” the article’s auth...
Diagramming Systemic Racism
One of the projects I started at ADL and never finished, due to it not being core to the mission of ADL, was the visualization and modeling of systemic racism a...
Remembering My Father — through music
Rick Malone: 08/09/1940-01/18/22 I read this at my father’s memorial service, March 17, 2022. Most people in attendance were from his theater family and many of...
Finding some old stuff
In 2016 a bunch of us gathered together with folks from IXDA SF to reminisce and record our collective history from the beginnings of the dot com boom and bust ...
Technology—A Passing Threat
[February 2021] I wrote this short piece in graduate school—my first year—when I thought I would still be a graphic designer when I finished school. I think muc...
Donate time, donate money for social justice
If you are looking for ways to put your User Experience Design skills to use this summer consider reaching out and volunteering for one of the various Civil Rig...
Using Modeling to Understand What’s Happening Within a System
In my piece, Using Mapping to Scope a System, I covered the process of using Mind Maps, Cluster Maps and Concept Maps/Models to help you scope the boundaries of...
Using Mapping to Scope a System
The Power of Mapping Maps and models help us see and visualize all sorts of concepts. To get our hands and heads around a topic or a complex system as well as i...
IxD Foundations Reading List
The past two falls have found me teaching the basic Interaction Design Foundations course at CCA. It’s great fun and we get into the basics of task flows,...
Re-finding Your Individual Contributor Self
The Shift Back from Management Moving from management back into the role of an individual contributor—especially if you go out as a freelancer or consultant—can...
A History of Patterns in User Experience Design
As part of my classes that I teach at CCA, interaction design patterns come up. Sometimes in their simple form of elements as captured in a style guide and some...
Chasing the ephemeral
Thoughts from a digital packrat As a person who has created a lot of different types of social experiences over the years and who has written about social ...
Thoughts about Identity, Privacy and Moderation in the Age of Fake News and Emboldened Bad Behavior
I am currently teaching systems design at California College of Arts and we have been talking about the social architecture for social interfaces. Key to the fo...
Writing about the UX of Sales
I have been working on this book material for awhile – I started writing the book about a year after we did our talk at the IA Summit and then it stalled ...