Ever wonder what your colleagues are doing on conference calls while they are muted? Chances are they are going to the bathroom, online shopping, or eating. In other news, cartographers are cool, the UX process is just like science, doodling is highly recommended, and the Holderness family is back with more awesomeness.

Making Better Digital Maps in an Era of Standardization

Using pre-digital techniques as inspiration, three cartographers lead the charge against cookie-cutter digital maps.

UX = Science

Think back to elementary school when you first learned about the scientific method. This is exactly what we do as user experience professionals. We build hypotheses, test hypotheses, analyze results, and draw conclusions. It’s how we prove whether our design solutions are achieving their goals. All of these steps are absolutely necessary in a successful UX process.

Here’s Why, How, and What You Should Doodle to Boost Your Memory and Creativity

Did your boss ever catch you covering an important memo with Escher-like scribbles? In high school, did your teacher call you out for drawing on the desk, your sneakers, your skin? Today, the doodle nay-sayers are being drowned out by a growing body of research and opinion that indicates that connects that seemingly distracted scribbling with greater info retention and creativity. Companies like Dell, and Zappos, and Disney are eager for employees to doodle on the job–they even pay consultants to help them.

What People Are Really Doing When They’re on a Conference Call

If you’re reading this while on a conference call — perhaps even in the loo — you’re not alone. It turns out many U.S. employees would rather do just about anything rather than listen intently to their coworkers from a remote location.

8 Design Masterpieces From Everyday Life

Every day we use dozens of objects automatically, without special recognition of their existence — that’s mainly because they work so well — that’s what makes them the modest masterpieces of thought and design.

Off To The Races: Getting Started With Design Sprints

Many modern software development best practices draw on influences from the industrial era and concepts like specialization, where individuals with specialized skills worked in an assembly line to mass-produce physical products. These practices from the world of manufacturing have come to influence how things are done when designing and building software products as well.

‘Baby Got Class’: Viral video family returns with back-to-school song

The Holderness family, who went viral in December with their hit “#Xmas Jammies” video, has returned with a back-to-school parody called “Baby Got Class.”