I was thinking about advice the other day, and thinking about when it doesn’t help. I was at […]
Bad Advice
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 […]
I’d like to be a better visual designer. Assume I’m ~ new. Can you recommend an overall approach or strategy?
Reminder: if you love these blog posts, buy my essay collection. Keep me writing! I went a little […]
Time Travel by Book
A twitter conversation prompted me to look up a booklist I kept in 2001. Kinda awesome. Via […]
Workshop Design
I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand. ~ Confucius, 450 […]
Places Make Us
My Keynote from Midwest UX is available. it is about how, as we make places, places make us […]
The Sunday Report
This week has mostly been about writing. I’m revising my book, and I needed a way to make […]
The Sunday Report
I’m going to try something new here, and round-up the cool stuff I found each week while doing […]
The Extra-Chunky Internet
When I first read Malcolm Gladwell’s Ketchup Conundrum in 2004, I knew it was important to the work […]
Never Take The Package Deal
If you have met Richard Saul Wurman, you have a Richard Saul Wurman story. Even 37 signals’s Jason […]
Learning from MySpace
Originally published in The Journal of Information Architecture The joy of the city is its diversity. A great city […]
Resources for Drawing Ideas
A few months back, I started a journey. As a painter, I was confident in my ability to […]
Dave Gray Makes a Concept Model
I am currently obsessed with how people diagram and make concept models. I asked Dave Gray, who is […]
101 Theses on the Design of Digital Things
101 disordered theses on design. Originally tweeted and numbering 95, it has been edited for clarity as well […]
Customer Development with Participatory Roadmaps
When we talk about Minimum Viable Product, we often forget to discuss what it means to be viable. […]
Designer as Founder Week Five
The big win of the week was an exercise we did together. Students went through the user research […]
For the Nerd People TL;DR
Abstract The paper maintains that in the epistemological shift from postmodernism to pseudo-modernism, technological, economic, social, and cultural […]