In my last post I made a reference to a “Data Exchange Agreement” or DEA, and I’ve since been asked a couple of times about this. So I thought it would be worth while writing a post about what it is, why it’s of value to you and to your business.
So what’s a DEA? Well in simply terms it’s exactly what the name states, it’s an agreement that defines the parameters in which data is exchanged between Service A and Service B. … [Keep reading] “What's a DEA?”
In this post I will talk about data (aka the source)! In IAM there’s really one simple concept that is often misunderstood or ignored. The data going out of any IAM solution is only as good as the data going in. This may seem simple enough but if not enough attention is paid to the data source and data quality then the results are going to be unfavourable at best and catastrophic at worst.
With most IAM solutions data is going to come from multiple sources.… [Keep reading] “Where's the source!”
Strategic planning is becoming increasingly important in the technology fuelled world we live in. It’s critical an organisation’s response to shifting external events is measured & appropriate. The flow on effects of change to the nature and structure of the IT department has to be addressed. Is a defensive or attack formation needed for what lies ahead? In this post, I’ll introduce what is meant by strategy and provide a practical planning process.
I often see technology departments so focused on operations, they begin to lose sight of what’s coming on the horizon & how their business will change as a result.… [Keep reading] “The Art Of War – Is your Tech Department Combat Ready?”
Agile is here to stay. Corporates love it, start-ups embrace it and developers live by it. So there is no denying that Agile is going nowhere and we have to work with it. For a number of years, I’ve tried to align User Experience practices with Agile methods and haven’t met with great success every time.
But nevertheless, there are a lot of lessons that I’ve learnt during the process and I’m going to share 7 tips that always worked for me.
A pair of studies published a few days ago by global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company entitled IT as a service: From build to consume show enterprise adoption of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) services accelerating increasingly rapidly over the next two years into 2018.
Of the two, one examined the on-going migrations of 50 global businesses. The other saw a large number of CIOs, from small businesses up to Fortune 100 companies, interviewed on the progress of their transitions and the results speak for themselves.… [Keep reading] “Enterprise Cloud Take Up Accelerating Rapidly According to New Study By McKinsey”
User Experience is a means to drive product innovation and differentiation. When implemented successfully, UX contributes to a number of critical business key performance indicators including customer engagement, retention, and loyalty.
Over the last two decades, most of the fortune 500 companies have come to the realisation that UX is an integral part of their business success. In his 2016 Design In Tech report, John Maeda suggests:
A good User Experience matters a lot, because we experience digital products a lot
Furthermore, the report (illustration below) uncovers that:
I was in a design meet-up a couple of weeks ago where I heard someone saying this – CX is the same as UX. And to my surprise, there were about a dozen of people who nodded (in agreement) to this statement. Now, this is where I lose my fuse!
As design professionals, it’s imperative for us to learn the difference between Customer Experience and User Experience.
User Experience is everything that affects a user’s behaviour and interaction with a product or service.
A customer I am working with at the moment is in the (very) early stages of discussion around the gathering and application of profile photos across their internal systems. In this particular case, we are considering that the photos themselves do not exist. Sure, there are ID card photos of startled staff taken on day one of their employment, but people being people, they would rather not be forever digitally represented by their former selves – particularly not the version of themselves which had an ID photo taken in a poorly lit un-used meeting room 7 years ago before they got that gym membership.… [Keep reading] “Applying Business Rules to Profile Photos Using Microsoft Cognitive Services”
How often are you asked to jump straight into design without doing any research? Well, it happens to me quite often. Reason – lack of time or budget.
No matter how tight the budget or timeline is, I always recommend to do some research beforehand. And if “how to do it in a cheap and efficient way?” your question, then here is how:
I stumbled upon Kano model in my MBA book – an incredible technique used by many businesses to discover, classify and integrate consumer needs into the products and services they offer.… [Keep reading] “Driving innovation & user experience using Kano model”
Many people confuse User Experience with aesthetics of a product. User Experience Design – rather than focusing just on visual or technical aspects, largely deals with the psychology and behaviour of people.
Also, UX is an umbrella term which comprises of four major disciplines:
When someone refers to themselves as UX designers, it usually means they have a good understanding of all the four disciplines and are experts at probably a couple of them.