Better Designed

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Apple's new HomePods still don't go far enough
There is no there there with this product line
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Patrick Thornton

February 2023

Paper prototyping: A primer
Many great designs, products, websites, and projects begin with paper. Your ideas should begin with paper too. Yes, it’s nice to start building a…
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Patrick Thornton
Nothing survives first contact with users
Users can find many ways to use a product as you don't intend. Research, observation, and testing can help prevent this. But no idea or product survives…
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Patrick Thornton
Better Designed Explains: How to conduct user interviews
User interviews are a core user experience method. They are a great way to gain foundational knowledge about the problems your users are facing. And a…
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Patrick Thornton
When will phone camera bumps stop growing?
Welcome to the first weekly Better Design roundup, where we look at the most interesting stuff in design, product development, tech, and policy over the…
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Patrick Thornton
The Homer Simpson car is an invaluable lesson in building products
One of the first things I do in all of my classes is show this clip of Homer Simpson trying to design a car. I’m serious. It’s a great lesson in how not…
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Patrick Thornton
UX is more than just usability or look and feel
The Five Areas of UX
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Patrick Thornton

August 2022

Let's not discourage focus with this quiet quitting talk
Quit quitting is the latest hot-take trend that news orgs and social media are discussing. What is it? As best I can tell it is doing your job as you…
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Patrick Thornton
Better Designed Explains: What is an affordance
An affordance is not a feature.
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Patrick Thornton
Tony Fadell on the pitfalls of A/B testing and how it's not product design
While A/B testing can be a powerful tool in the right hands, it can also be an incredibly dangerous tool in the wrong hands. Your hands are probably the…
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Patrick Thornton
It’s important to get the survey responses/scales correct when doing a survey
Surveys can be a powerful tool when building and refining products and services, but they can also yield bad data and insights if they aren’t done well…
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Patrick Thornton
You can't A/B test yourself to product transformation
How does a product as big as Gmail from a company as big as Google come out looking like this?
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Patrick Thornton
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