August 31, 2022

“The art of communication is the language of leadership”

James Humes

In 1993, Don Norman was working at Apple and decided to streamline language for his team. They were throwing around phrases like “experience of the user” and other clunky verbiage to describe the experience of those interacting with their product. He decided from that point on they would say and write “UX” so that everyone could quickly and clearly convey the concept of “user experience” (watch Don explain how he came up with the phrase and how it’s misused today). 

This simple shift in language has transformed the computer and design industries and helped them to focus on the UX. For example, Google’s first “Things We Know to be True” is: “Focus on the user and all else will follow”. A simple change in the language caused a widespread revolution in the paradigm.

I propose that education is now at a similar juncture as Apple was in 1993. 

When I was a young administrator, I was lucky enough to have dinner with the Educational Consultant Simon Jeynes. At that point in his career, he had visited over 100 campuses helping schools…