Organizing and simplifying, one illumination at a time
I survived National Novel Writing Month and I hit my goal of finishing my book!
And it’s also not total junk!
So this month I dedicate my post on The Pastry Box to the “word sprints” and pomodoro technique that got me through the grind of writing 85,000 words in 30 days. Read Lessons from the Word Trenches to put word count misery to bed.
My post on The Pastry Box this month is a bit more personal than most of the others. Sure, the others were about things I’d learned or experienced in UX, but this one’s about being a writer — a dream of mine since I was very small.
Ironically, it’s a dream I’ve already achieved by being published on The Pastry Box. Still, there’s a very specific goal that I’ve set out to reach this month, National Novel Writer’s Month, and I’m going to get there if it kills me.
…By the way, I’m officially on track, in fact slightly better than on track, in reaching the goal :)
Continuing the trend of back to basics posts, I wrote on The Pastry Box about handling negative feedback. Really this one could be entitled “It’s not about you, even when it’s about you”.
Enjoy!
Ugh. I spent seven years providing technical support to a major website. For seven years people called me up and said, “this isn’t working” (or more frequently “your website sucks”) and it was not only my job to care, it was my job to fix it if I could.
I would have lasted 10 minutes if my stock answer was “It works for me.”
Of course it works for me. If it didn’t work when we tested it, it wouldn’t have been elevated to production. That doesn’t mean it’s flawless. It means it passed our tests.
Anyway, I ranted about exactly this problem in A Small Rant Courtesy of Your Users over on The Pastry Box this month.
…I really should get around to writing more posts here instead of “just” publishing there.
My regular column is up on The Pastry Box.
One of the things I sometimes see lacking in UX columns or posts is where the newcomer is supposed to start. How do you learn to identify strategy, or survive a peer review, or use design heuristics? So I’m tackling one close to my heart this month — Back to Basics: Peer Reviews. Hopefully it will give you the confidence and thick skin needed to get through tough reviews. And if you’ve already got those things, hey, pass it on.