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My name is Adil Wali and I nap a lot. I start companies because I get bored easily and because I like doing fun things. I’ve never held what one would call a ‘normal job’ in my life, though I suspect I wouldn’t exactly flourish in that environment.
More about mePublished by adil in Development, UX Reply
So, I have been fortunate enough to be part of a lot of conversations with a lot of smart people recently. A good number of them have been centered around one topic: agile design. For me, it’s sort of funny that this topic has come more and more into the spotlight over the last year. The first time I started talking about ‘Agile Design’ was in 2008, when ModCloth was just starting to build out → Read More
Published by adil in Entrepreneurship 1 comment
Ok, so in my last post on the subject, I outlined the core problem surrounding mentorship and management in most businesses today. This problem is seen everywhere from startups to bigger companies, but is probably most prevalent at larger organizations. The core problem, succinctly summarized, is: management and mentorship are separate things that require different skills and experiences most companies make the mistake of likening the two and assuming they are one growth path companies → Read More
Published by adil in Entrepreneurship 1 comment
A surprising number of companies get management completely wrong. So many companies, in fact, that I hesitate to write this post because I wonder if I am going to be giving away some sort of secret that no one in the ‘corporate world’ seems to know. The problem that I have seen in most organizational structures is what I call a ‘management bias.’ In order to understand the problem, we must examine the ways that → Read More
Published by adil in UX 4 comments
I’ve had the opportunity to sit in on some really interesting sessions here at IASummit 2010. I have never tried to liveblog from a conference before, but why not start now? Here are my notes from the “Designing for Emotion and Flow” talk by Trevor van Gorp (@trevvg) It’s important to take into account emotional states when you are designing a user experience. There are two core dimensions of thinking about emotional states, for the → Read More
Published by adil in Entrepreneurship, UX 6 comments
This past weekend was full of unpleasant customer service surprises for both my wife and myself. While my initial reaction was anger and frustration, I have since calmed down and thought about what I could take away from the experience. The short answer is: quite a lot of learning. What I saw in both of my weekend experiences was an alarming disconnect between what the founders set out to do and what the company was → Read More
Published by adil in Development, UX Reply
Ok, so I have had the opportunity to sink my teeth into workplace design a bit more in recent days. My recap of requirements is as follows: We need collaborative space — so that people who are working on laptops/workstations can work together seamlessly. We also need space that allows people to focus and get work done on their own. The space has to look good and feel good for the employees – because we → Read More
Published by adil in Development, UX 4 comments
I had a remarkably interesting week. First of all, I realized that we needed an office space last month here in San Francisco. (At ModCloth speed, we need everything last month!) With the rate at which we are planning to hire, it’s critical that we find a solid space that suits our needs today and gives us a tiny bit of room to grow. But the more exciting part, of course, is thinking about how → Read More
Published by admin in Development, UX 1 comment
I’ve been in the software development business for a while now. And the lesson that I have learned, and re-learned, more than any other is simple: Usability is WAY MORE important than everyone thinks. Continue reading