This week, we’re reading about user stories vs. "job" stories, design thinking, responsive web design, creative ways to visualize and personalize information. What are you reading?

Replacing The User Story With The Job Story

Every user experience practitioner is familiar with using personas to create user stories that should guide product design. This article contends that rather than relying on user stories, which bring with them plenty of assumptions, a better way is to look at the “job” users need to do in order to create “job stories.” Designing with these specific tasks in mind will result in better, more easy to use products. 

The Problem With Design Thinking Is That I Still Don't Know What Design Thinking Is

“Design thinking” is trendy. But as the author of this piece, who worked with leaders in the design thinking movement at Stanford, writes, it’s a “broad term with no specific directives.” Moreover, in his view it’s “too big and too lofty for most businesses to embrace.” Rather than throw the thinking out with the bathwater, though, he makes the case for focusing on the practical application of design thinking. As he writes, “Design Thinking is actually less about thinking and more about doing. It's not something you have, it's something you do.”

3 Fundamentals of Responsive Design You Have to Master

Regular readers of our weekly "What We’re Reading" posts will know that we’ve covered responsive design and development in the past (here and here). We even offer a course in responsive design! Still, there’s always something new to learn and this article presents code snippets for media queries, fluid grids, and flexible images, all critical techniques for producing websites that work well across devices.

Your Life On Earth

Personalization has been a next big thing and holy grail for marketers for a while now. Delivering on its promise has been difficult, though, because getting the systems, technologies, and especially the content to work together seamlessly has proved challenging. In that light, this personalized visualization by the BBC is both an achievement and a really fun exercise.

Bandstand

Whether you are a designer or a coder, a team lead or a department head, you’re probably also a fan of live music. With an elegant yet simple idea, the designer of this infographic shows the stage setup for a variety of bands when they perform live.

Image Source (Creative Commons): Sal Taylor Kidd