In product management, there’s a classic image that almost everyone in tech knows: the Venn diagram where the […]
King of the Mountain, er, Middle
Using Ikigai with Personal OKRs
Finding and achieving the right goals in life isn’t easy. You may feel pulled in multiple directions and […]
Diagrams for Thinking Through a Digital Products’ Architecture
I’m sharing this out in case some educator benefits from it. If you want to go a little […]
Design’s Unsexy Middle Bits
While Design Thinking gets all the attention, it is not the same as (Digital) Product Design. In How I […]
Five Habits of Design Thinking
There are three thinking styles that have transformed how we develop new products today: Agile, Lean (Startup) and […]
Five Habits of Design Thinking
There are three thinking styles that have transformed how we develop new products today: Agile, Lean (Startup) and […]
The Intuitive and the Unlearnable
Why some designs won’t ever stop sucking Again, it starts on ze twitters Intuitive is one of the most […]
What I’d Rather Talk About When You’re Talking About UX
I blame Alan Cooper. This time. In a moment of pique (or boredom, or if he’s like me, […]
Keynote for WIAD Boston
Miss me while I’m heads down working on my current book (and beginning my teaching practice at Stanford?) […]
What testing do I do when, and why?
I’ve been too busy to post, but I just tripped over this “Golden Oldie:” CarbonIQ UCD Methods . […]
Tweaking the Persona
This is another “half baked” post. Hope it’s useful! Personas have been around for a long time in […]
A Unified Theory for Designing Just About Anything
A few years back I was obsessed with the question of why some companies rocked at one thing, and […]
How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Design Thinking
If you like this article, you probably want to sign up to be notified when my new book on […]
Draw Me a Picture!
OMG, it’s getting real, people! Pencil Me In is almost ready for print… sign up to find out […]
Foundations of Interaction Design
I teach a number of classes at CCA, including Creative Founder, Story and Play. One year I tried on […]
Bad Advice
I was thinking about advice the other day, and thinking about when it doesn’t help. I was at […]
A Visual Vocabulary for Concept Models
Part One: Rendering Relationships Sign up to be alerted when Pencil Me In, my book on visual thinking, […]
Pencil Me In
Working with Pictures was so well received, I decided to do a “real” book. Eight months later (a.k.a. […]
Five Models for Making Sense of Complex Systems
In one of the classes I teach at CCA, students were confused by mental models, conceptual models, concept […]
Feedback for Teams
This is a write-up of a key learning from my fall class “The Creative Founder,” open to Juniors […]
Alphabets and Logographs
When I first got into Visual Thinking, I came across a core concept that no one agreed on: […]
How to Make a Concept Model
Originally published in Boxes and Arrows May 6th, 2014. I realized recently I never published this here, on my […]
Design All the Things! UX Lausanne Talk
Opening keynote, Lausanne, Switzerland. Christina Wodtke – Design All the Things! from UX Lausanne on Vimeo. Designers fall […]
Story in Space
This is a post for my Story class students, posted here in case it’s interesting to my readers. […]
Product as Hero Storyboard
Long time readers know I am completely obsessed with story architecture, and use it in many things: writing (of […]
The Myths of UX Design/ Product Design/Whatever They Call It This Week
As with my other “myth” article, it starts with me reading an essay, frothing at the mouth a […]
A Library of Visual Thinking
Over the last two years, I’ve deeply committed to working visually. I’ve sketchnoted talks, used visual stories to […]
Your Portfolio Probably Sucks
I used to hire a lot of designers. Most portfolios tortured me. Not because the work was bad. […]
The Sunday Report
Because I’m teaching Story and about do do a unit on Interactive Fiction, this is the bulk of […]
Why Design Needs Entrepreneurship (and Entrepreneurship Needs Design)
In my opinion, there are two conversations that are a waste of time. One is “should designers learn […]