Here’s a fun experiment. Show an audience the following photo and ask… “Should this person drive this car?” What you’ll get is a policy discussion. “Of course not! Old people are bad at everything!” “That’s ageist! People should be able to do what they want!” All you will learn at the end of that conversation is who is on what side. Show that same photo to a different audience and ask… “How might this person drive this car?” What you’ll get is a design discussion. “What if we moved the steering wheel?” “What if we had a heads up display … Read more of the post The Content Strategy of Civil Discourse (Part One)

Over the past several years, it’s become apparent to us that the value we provide at Think Company is based not only in the world-class design work we deliver, but equally (if not more so) in the way we interact with our clients. This’ll be obvious to most of you because you’re smart folks who get it. That’s why you’d also be surprised how often we find ourselves in situations where it’s clear that no previous design firms have engaged with our clients in anything resembling a consultative fashion. Stories of firms simply executing on a statement of work or … Read more of the post Seven Consulting Principles

Procurement is deeply embedded within the global economy—touching essentially every industry in one form or another from local mom-and-pops to Fortune 100 conglomerates. Common within procurement itself is that manual, labor-intensive processes and outdated systems can cause decreased productivity, increased errors, data fragmentation, and, ultimately, increased cost and spend. e-Procurement, automation, and modern online processes improve and potentially even solve many of these issues—but when not implemented correctly, an overly-complex or confusing user interface can be worse than the problem it was trying to fix. If you’re rethinking your e-procurement system, here are a couple of things to keep in … Read more of the post Customers Expect More from Your Procurement System

With the release of the newest version of Apple’s iOS, a four-year-old technology called Progressive Web Applications (PWAs) just became an overnight success. Like the term “Ajax” in 2005, the term “Progressive Web Application” is a buzzword applied to a handful of new technologies. Specifically, it’s the way that web browsers on desktop and mobile devices will now grant their native-application powers to websites. Chrome and Firefox users on Android and Windows (yes, on the desktop!) have had access to these features for some time. Now that they’ve been released to iOS, those Progressive Web Application superpowers will quickly be … Read more of the post All Your Dreams Came True Overnight With Progressive Web Applications

A thousand critical details go into making a website secure. But we often overlook the most critical piece of security: usability. “Security at the expense of usability, comes at the expense of security.” – AviD, user on Stack Exchange Think about all the times you’ve seen someone write down their password and stick it on their monitor. If the best security is too hard to use, people will look for ways to bypass it. The best security is the security your users will actually use. Here at Think Company, we spend all day every day thinking about your users’ experience, … Read more of the post The Last Mile in Website Security: Usability