As UX designers, we will be familiar with the need for user research; in gamification, the process is player-research, and we conduct this in a very similar manner. The more analysis you conduct before starting the design process—the better informed you will be to develop gamification that meets the
There comes a time in every entrepreneur and freelancer’s career when they need to stop working with a client. Employees quit their jobs, but entrepreneurs and freelancers aren’t employees; they fire their clients. Learning how to handle this is an important part of freelance and entrepreneur life.F
Angry customers are a fact of life. Even when you do everything right—something goes wrong that’s outside of your control, but, in truth, we all get it wrong sometimes. That means you have to be able to deal with angry customers—and the best entrepreneurs and freelancers go a step further – they lea
Did you know they eat frogs all over the world? From France to China, people tuck into tasty amphibians, and in much of the rest of the world—we flinch about the idea. The good news is that even vegans can learn to “eat their frog”—in a work context—and no real frogs will be harmed during the p
We’ve all got lots of things we want to do in our lives, don’t we? Yet, why is it that so many of them seem so far out of reach even when we’ve been working on them for a long time? It’s because we’ve not set concrete goals or explored how we can move from our current reality to reach that goal. Our
Design can be very subjective. This leads UX practitioners facing criticism and a lack of credibility when dealing with other more scientific disciplines. Fortunately, you can rely on international standards to refer to and easily bridge the gap. The ISO 9241 Standard for the Ergonomics of Human-Sy
Sadly, even experienced freelancers and entrepreneurs (who should know better) struggle with the idea that they are no longer employees. Yet, if you can break your employee mind-set, you can become empowered to be a better freelancer and entrepreneur, one who acts as a partner to their clients rathe
Networking is a strategy that every freelancer and entrepreneur should be implementing to win business and use for professional development. One of the best and easiest ways to market your new business is through networking. Networks can consist of people you know, or they can comprise stranger
A heuristic is a simple principle or “rule of thumb”. A heuristic evaluation is one where an evaluator or group of evaluators walks through the design of an interface and decides whether or not it complies with these “rules of thumb”.There are some advantages and disadvantages to this methodology:Go
Planning a business means planning to succeed in business. A business plan helps you define what you do so that you can explain this clearly and succinctly to customers. It helps you see if your plans are going astray so that you can take corrective action. It helps you think about your position in
The more complex the data set, the more likely it is that a traditional static information visualization is going to struggle to deliver a useful end product for the viewer of the visualization. In order to combat this problem, it is possible to use computer software to develop interactive visualiza
UX, Usability, Interaction Design, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and other design professionals know that in order for their work to be worthwhile – they need to be able to validate it. Ideally, they need to be able to evaluate the effectiveness of their work before it is released to a large num
Have you ever dreamed of breaking away from the 9-to-5 grind and becoming your own boss? Ever wanted to get paid for what you produce and not the endless meetings and corporate politics? Maybe, you’ve even wanted to work from the beach on a tropical island or in a trendy coffee shop in an inspiring
Before you start to implement Porter’s 5 Forces Model, it is important to understand the context in which it is used. It is most valuable when applied to an entire market (either national or global) rather than to a sub-section of a market (e.g. you and a handful of direct competitors). It is very m
It is important to know that while neuroscience has progressed dramatically over the last decades; there is no complete understanding of how human memory works. We know, for example, that data in the brain is stored in clusters of neurons but we don’t know how, precisely, it is stored or even how it
Gamification design works on a player-centred design basis, which places the player (rather than the user, which is standard in UX design) at the heart of the design process. The idea is simple: if you can understand what your players want, you can deliver these wants through gamification.The Design
The term “Design Thinking” dates back to the 1987 book by Peter Rowe; “Design Thinking.” In that book he describes the way that architects and urban planners would approach design problems. However, the idea that there was a specific pattern of problem solving in “design thought” came much earlier i
Legal and ethical issues confront entrepreneurs and freelancers on a regular basis; learning how to handle them is vital to business success. The legal issues can always be explored with a legal representative, but the ethical issues add more nuances to working life, and making ethical decisions is
When you first start as a freelancer or entrepreneur, you should have the skills you need to do good work that adds value to your client’s businesses. Or, you should develop the skills you need in your free time before you quit your current job. However—over time—markets change, technologies ch
There comes a time in many small companies’ and freelancers’ lives when they want to grow their businesses and reach a new level of sales and profitability. There are four tried and tested ways for freelancers to grow their businesses without too much stress. Deciding how you will grow your business
