Deadnaming

Posted on February 5, 2020     1 Comment

This week I came across a fantastic commercial from Starbucks related to this topic.  It shows a UK teen being called by his deadname repeatedly, until finally he’s asked for his name at Starbucks, and they write his affirmed name on his cup.

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Chelation Chronicles – 2H 2019

Posted on January 1, 2020     5 Comments

This blog post is focused on my chronic health issues, specifically, learning to detox heavy metals using the Andy Cutler Chelation (ACC) protocol.  You can read about how I found ACC and chose to pursue it in this post.   This is the fourth Chelation Chronicles post, where I am regularly documenting the ups and downs I’m experiencing as I undertake detox from lead and mercury poisoning; you can read the first and second and third chronicles posts, too, if you like.

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They / Them

Posted on December 18, 2019     Leave a Comment

This is cross-posted from the ZS intranet (which we call ZSpace), where I write episodically about issues of interest to the LGBTQ+ community and our allies. It’s been lightly edited for an external audience.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary recently announced that their word of the year is THEY.  You can read their article on the topic here – Word of the Year 2019 | They | Merriam-Webster .  Here is a brief excerpt:

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AI and User Experience: As Always, the User Comes First

Posted on November 20, 2019     Leave a Comment

This article was originally posted on ZS’ blog The Active Ingredient.

This blog post is the sixth in a series on the impact that AI will have on different business aspects of pharma.

While most of us are aware of the importance of user experience, UX goes beyond simply developing a relevant and usable interface for software. UX is a discipline that requires a thorough understanding of users’ needs and the context in which they use technology. Whatever solution you may roll out to users, good UX is about meeting those needs.

With the proliferation of AI-driven solutions and proofs of concept, it’s easy to focus on the data science and forget that what you’re developing eventually needs to serve a person on the job. Within pharma companies, the finished product is often the visualization of complex data that appears in software on a laptop or mobile device. However, if users can’t understand these insights or the insights aren’t valuable to them, then the data science was a wasted effort. That’s where UX comes in. More specifically, that’s why UX should have come in a long time ago.

To better understand the role of UX in developing AI solutions, I spoke with ZS Principal Natalie Hanson, leader of our UX practice, whose team has helped develop multiple AI-driven solutions for clients.

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Closing Keynote: Amplify. Not Optimize.

Posted on October 26, 2019     Leave a Comment

Dave Malouf
Design Consultant, Coach, Educator

From the DesignOps Summit website:

We currently describe, frame, and promote Design Operations as being all about efficiency. While we might not ever say the term “ROI” out loud, we certainly sell DesignOps as means for optimizing our organizations’ investments in their design and research teams and infrastructure.

But if DesignOps is going to truly be the game-changer it can and should be, we need a better framing. We need a new framework, one that emphasizes the topline—the creation of value—over bottomline fixation on resource optimization. We need a framework that accounts for supporting the projects, people, and practice of design over the groupings of pixels and management of components. This new framing is at the root of DesignOps framework that Dave Malouf will share in his closing keynote.

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