Author Archives: Travis Smith

About Travis Smith

Travis was born and raised in a far off land called Nebraska, and after attending college in Missouri, he completed his MBA and Masters of Social Psychology at Ball State University. Travis has been many things, including a cameraman, tutor, disc jockey, underwriting salesman, barista, a nomadic tourist, librarian, sandwich artist, office manager, researcher, research subject, HR lackey, and project manager, all of which have prepared him for the role of User Experience Analyst. At Tuitive, he is in charge of user research, user testing, user modeling, requirements gathering, and keeping the human in human centered design.

Why You Can’t Just Copy Amazon.com

Posted on by Travis Smith
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The Tuitive team is still trying to settle down after this year’s South By South West Interactive (SXSWi) conference in March. We all had a great time and learned a lot about the interactive community and what is coming next. There were loads of interesting sessions from a panel with the Gmail team to Cooking for Nerds, many of which have been popping up online.  I wanted to share one of my favorites with you. Revealing Design Treasures from the Amazon by Jared Spool Jared Spool is a leader in the … Continue reading →

Thanks Google Buzz! Or The Case for User Testing

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On February 9, Google unleashed their newest product, Google Buzz, Google?s first product aimed at real time social media-ish sharing. Buzz is trying to take on Twitter and Facebook, by leveraging Gmail?s existing user base. Buzz?s main competitive advantage is that it is tied directly to an existing Gmail account, so the start-up time for a new user is virtually zero. Once Buzz was released, people were instantly getting real-time updates from their contacts right inside their Gmail. Not long after, the wheels started to come off. Google?s default privacy … Continue reading →

Simplicity is the key to successful living

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bikesimplicity

Artist and illustrator Nick Dewar passed away this week. He worked for many different companies from The Atlantic Monthly to Random House, providing insightful illustrations to the interesting words in an article or book. My favorite Nick Dewar work illustrates both my professional and personal philosophy: Simplicity is the key to successful living. This is a more professional and eloquent rephrasing of the time tested K.I.S.S. method: No, not that KISS – The K.I.S.S. principle – ?Keep It Simple, Stupid.? These are both modern interpretations of Occam?s Razor, which states … Continue reading →

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Side With Your Customers

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On a recent call to a major telecom company, which I won?t mention (their logo looks like a blue death star), I was infatuated with my customer service representative? shocking, I know. Throughout the call she actually listed to what I wanted, and she said things like, ?this is the deal that most of my customers like,? and ?let me talk to the manager to get us a better deal,? and ?I understand your frustration, I don?t know why they do that.? It might not be obvious at first, but … Continue reading →

You Are Not Your User

Posted on by Travis Smith
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If you are an expert in your business, you know more than almost anyone about what you do and about the details of your product. Your product, by the way, can be a service, a website, or a tangible good. Whatever constitutes your product, you can likely see your expertise and genius in every part of it. The problem is ? your customers can?t. Customers need to complete a task with your product so they can move on to other tasks they need to complete.  All your customers see in … Continue reading →