FEATURE
This Simple 15-Minute Creative Exercise Is How the Best Leaders Build World-Class Companies
Creativity is a muscle -- we can flex or use it when we want. But we have to be intentional about it. This article talks about what you should do for 10-15 minutes daily...
inc.com
Do you ever struggle to come up with new ideas?
A 5-minute quick watch video about using a set of cards to get those creative juices flowing, and includes a link to download the Brian Eno's "Oblique Strategies" as a set of PDF cards.
If you don't follow Jeremy Connell-Waite on LinkedIn, you should. I love his bite sized videos on topics related to communication and creativity.
linkedin.com
CURIOSITY
There's an NFT 'Band' With No Music Now. Sorry.
Kingship is the brainchild of Universal Music Group who want to build a Gorillaz-style band for the metaverse cobbled together from marketing buzzwords and non-fungible tokens (NFT). Kingship has produced no music and it’s unclear what kind of band it will be.
There's a part of me that's curious about this, but the rest of me makes associations with Dot-Com bubble and "The Emperor's New Clothes"...
vice.com
EMPATHY
Microsoft XC Research journey to creating a customer-driven maturity model
Microsoft Experience Collective (XC) Research is a multi-disciplinary team of user researchers, product planners, and customer advocates working on a breadth of user experiences across Microsoft 365. This article describes their path to creating a customer-driven maturity model that encompasses how they work, what they value, and the tools they have in place to build products.
microsoft.com
UX
The user experience of buying NFTs on the Blockchain
The author describes the user experience of creating a wallet, buying some cryptocurrency and then buying NFT artwork (yes, that same type of NFTs described above)
uxdesign.cc
Jared Spool on democratizing research
Perspectives on democratization usually fall into two camps. Camp one believes democratization dilutes the craft and unfairly treats research as a set of activities rather than a profession. This group is decidedly anti-democratization of research. Camp two believes democratization is the way forward for research. By offloading more routine research activities like evaluative testing to stakeholders, camp two argues researchers can focus on more strategic, high-impact activities. This group is pro-democratization.
Spool is in his own camp—he believes both sides are wrong, and he explains it to the author in this article.
dovetailapp.com
INCLUSIVE
Google tests Project Relate, a voice recognition and synthesis app for people with speech impairments
Project Relate is at its core a better voice transcription tool for those with speech impairments. The “Listen” function turns the user’s speech directly into text, so it can be pasted elsewhere or read by others. “Repeat” listens first then repeats what they’ve said in a voice that’s hopefully clearer. “Assistant” basically forwards their transcribed speech directly to Google Assistant for common tasks like playing music or asking about the weather.
ampproject.org
Anti-Defamation League's Social Pattern Library
A handy collection of design patterns and principles for mitigating the presence and spread of online hate and harassment in social platforms.
adl.org
TOOLS
Virtual Design Thinking Workshops Guide
In the free guide "Virtual Design Thinking Workshops" Patrick Link, Larry Leifer and Michael Lewrick share their recent experiences with remote / virtual design thinking workshops.
linkedin.com
5 proven ways to run your best remote design sprint
Five practical tips from Jay Melone, innovation designer at New Haircut, and Richard Banfield, VP of design transformation at InVision, to run a successful remote design sprint.
invisionapp.com
NEWS
Five-week free retreat to help emerging designers improve their portfolios
The Wix Playground Academy is a five-week online program that supports and encourages emerging designers by helping them build a personal portfolio.
The deadline for submissions is 1 December 2021. You can apply if you're 18+, a design school student, a junior freelance designer, a self-taught junior designer or if you work in design-related fields. Relevant applicants will be called for a short interview.
Interested? Give it a shot...
wix.com
UNTIL NEXT TIME
I hope you enjoyed this issue of Being Designerly and the curated articles related to creativity, being customer-driven, the UX of NFTs, democratizing research, reducing online hate and harassment, and guides for remote design sprints and virtual design thinking workshops.
If you think someone would benefit from Being Designerly, please forward it to them.
I'm looking for feedback, of the brutally honest kind, so this can improve over time. You can reach me at lycerejo (at) gmail.com - thank you!