Reframe: Shift the Way You Work, Innovate, and Think - Reframe your problems as opportunities

@monapatel Is there one step of "The Reframework” that is more significant than the other steps? If you have to distill the steps down to the most important premise/step, what would it be?

@erictwillis Two answers: the most fun step is asking "What If?" because people get into it and lightbulbs start going off. So people would likely say that's the most important step. To me, the most important one is the Excuse Personas, because if you've invented reasons why you can't get unstuck, you never will actually follow through on those ideas and make any meaningful change.

@kunalslab Hi Kunal! Yes, I agree and will take it one step further--I think anyone can design their way out of any problem! Granted, some ideas will be better than others at first, but “working out that creative muscle” helps you come up with more ideas, making it more probable that the ideas are good!

@jeffumbro Yes, and I love it! Overall, I agree that simplified experiences where the interface essentially disappears are great. The design gets out of the way and the user gets the job done. And, having an app for everything is pretty annoying as well. Clutter anywhere, whether on a screen or in your life can be frustrating and lead to useless interactions. But, always remember to design for the context-- In other cases, reminding people that the interface is there to help them can be just the key to a better experience. We are designing an app for patients to use when they take a pill with a sensor in it, and in that case, the app almost serves as a friend and we are taking extra care to make sure that it’s helpful (and anti-clippy, no offense Microsoft!).

@lexkon Funny enough, we just met with a potential partner, http://www.manmademusic.com/ and adored them! We are talking about new ways of using "sonic branding" to enhance the experiences we design for clients. They had some beautiful examples of not just how small interaction sounds (like swishes and clicks in an app) help with feedback and setting the tone (pun intended) for a specific brand strategy, but also how they've used sound to convey adjectives such as "innovative." Check out the AT&T example on their website--it's really well done. So yes, I definitely think there's a role for sound in UX.

@harrystebbings I have to shamelessly plug here--I think it's the mindset! Where I kept failing before was in trying to change corporate culture through "top-down" methods like teaching training on design thinking. Starting "bottom-up" where we are helping each individual employee see their role in contributing to innovation, user-centricity and beautifully designed brands, products and services has been much more rewarding and (I feel) successful. It's still too early to tell, but getting each individual to feel like it's his/her job to make customers love their company/brand has been a missing ingredient and the one I would propose as most important (for today at least!) :)

@melissajoykong There are so many but I've personally been fascinated with finances and helping people understand more about spending money, learning about wealth, saving and investing. We've been working for years in this space, and I personally have worked on everything from ATMs to some of the newer fintech startups. Helping more people understand how to get out (or stay out) of debt is a passion area of mine. Healthcare, energy, and some of our work in the non-profit sector also have huge impacts in terms of quality of life. Interestingly, this question is part of why I wrote the book. I can't help everyone through consulting, but maybe I can help them if I just made it easy for a driven person to do what I would do on a project! (I talk about this more in the last chapter!)