Blog

The same applies for those of us working in design and development these times. Having worked on the web for about three years at this point, I’ve seen the typical wax and wane of concepts, strategies, and systems. Each day that we as developers and designers get into a regular rhythm, some innovative idea or technology comes down to shake things up and copy our world.

How we got below

I built my first website in the mid-’90s. Design and development on the web back then was a free-for-all, with few established norms. For any layout aside from a single column, we used table elements, often with empty cells containing a single pixel spacer GIF to add empty space. We styled text with numerous font tags, nesting the tags every time we wanted to vary the font style. And we had only three or four typefaces to choose from: Arial, Courier, or Times New Roman. When Verdana and Georgia came out in 1996, we rejoiced because our options had nearly doubled. The only safe colors to choose from were the 216 “web safe” colors known to work across platforms. The few interactive elements (like contact forms, guest books, and counters) were mostly powered by CGI scripts (predominantly written in Perl at the time). Achieving any kind of unique look involved a pile of hacks all the way down. Interaction was often limited to specific pages in a site.

The beginning of website standards

At the turn of the century, a new cycle started. Crufty code littered with table layouts and font tags waned, and a push for web standards waxed. Newer technologies like CSS got more widespread adoption by browsers makers, developers, and designers. This shift toward standards didn’t happen accidentally or overnight. It took active engagement between the W3C and browser vendors and heavy evangelism from folks like the Web Standards Project to build standards. A List Apart and books like Designing with Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman played key roles in teaching developers and designers why standards are important, how to implement them, and how to sell them to their organizations. And approaches like progressive enhancement introduced the idea that content should be available for all browsers—with additional enhancements available for more advanced browsers. Meanwhile, sites like the CSS Zen Garden showcased just how powerful and versatile CSS can be when combined with a solid semantic HTML structure.

Server-side languages like PHP, Java, and.NET overtook Perl as the predominant back-end processors, and the cgi-bin was tossed in the trash bin. With these better server-side tools came the first era of web applications, starting with content-management systems ( particularly in the blogging space with tools like Blogger, Grey Matter, Movable Type, and WordPress ). In the mid-2000s, AJAX opened doors for asynchronous interaction between the front end and back end. Suddenly, pages could update their content without needing to reload. A crop of JavaScript frameworks like Prototype, YUI, and jQuery arose to help developers build more reliable client-side interaction across browsers that had wildly varying levels of standards support. Techniques like image replacement let crafty designers and developers display fonts of their choosing. And technologies like Flash made it possible to add animations, games, and even more interactivity.

These new technologies, standards, and techniques reinvigorated the industry in many ways. Web design flourished as designers and developers explored more diverse styles and layouts. But we still relied on tons of hacks. Early CSS was a huge improvement over table-based layouts when it came to basic layout and text styling, but its limitations at the time meant that designers and developers still relied heavily on images for complex shapes ( such as rounded or angled corners ) and tiled backgrounds for the appearance of full-length columns (among other hacks ). Complicated layouts required all manner of nested floats or absolute positioning ( or both ). Flash and image replacement for custom fonts was a great start toward varying the typefaces from the big five, but both hacks introduced accessibility and performance problems. And JavaScript libraries made it easy for anyone to add a dash of interaction to pages, although at the cost of doubling or even quadrupling the download size of simple websites.

The web as software platform

The symbiosis between the front end and back end continued to improve, and that led to the current era of modern web applications. Between expanded server-side programming languages ( which kept growing to include Ruby, Python, Go, and others ) and newer front-end tools like React, Vue, and Angular, we could build fully capable software on the web. Alongside these tools came others, including collaborative version control, build automation, and shared package libraries. What was once primarily an environment for linked documents became a realm of infinite possibilities.

At the same time, mobile devices became more capable, and they gave us internet access in our pockets. Mobile apps and responsive design opened up opportunities for new interactions anywhere and any time.

This combination of capable mobile devices and powerful development tools contributed to the waxing of social media and other centralized tools for people to connect and consume. As it became easier and more common to connect with others directly on Twitter, Facebook, and even Slack, the desire for hosted personal sites waned. Social media offered connections on a global scale, with both the good and bad that that entails.

Want a much more extensive history of how we got here, with some other takes on ways that we can improve? Jeremy Keith wrote” Of Time and the Web“. Or check out the” Web Design History Timeline” at the Web Design Museum. Neal Agarwal also has a fun tour through” Internet Artifacts“.

Where we are now

In the last couple of years, it’s felt like we’ve begun to reach another major inflection point. As social-media platforms fracture and wane, there’s been a growing interest in owning our own content again. There are many different ways to make a website, from the tried-and-true classic of hosting plain HTML files to static site generators to content management systems of all flavors. The fracturing of social media also comes with a cost: we lose crucial infrastructure for discovery and connection. Webmentions, RSS, ActivityPub, and other tools of the IndieWeb can help with this, but they’re still relatively underimplemented and hard to use for the less nerdy. We can build amazing personal websites and add to them regularly, but without discovery and connection, it can sometimes feel like we may as well be shouting into the void.

Browser support for CSS, JavaScript, and other standards like web components has accelerated, especially through efforts like Interop. New technologies gain support across the board in a fraction of the time that they used to. I often learn about a new feature and check its browser support only to find that its coverage is already above 80 percent. Nowadays, the barrier to using newer techniques often isn’t browser support but simply the limits of how quickly designers and developers can learn what’s available and how to adopt it.

Today, with a few commands and a couple of lines of code, we can prototype almost any idea. All the tools that we now have available make it easier than ever to start something new. But the upfront cost that these frameworks may save in initial delivery eventually comes due as upgrading and maintaining them becomes a part of our technical debt.

If we rely on third-party frameworks, adopting new standards can sometimes take longer since we may have to wait for those frameworks to adopt those standards. These frameworks—which used to let us adopt new techniques sooner—have now become hindrances instead. These same frameworks often come with performance costs too, forcing users to wait for scripts to load before they can read or interact with pages. And when scripts fail ( whether through poor code, network issues, or other environmental factors ), there’s often no alternative, leaving users with blank or broken pages.

Where do we go from here?

Today’s hacks help to shape tomorrow’s standards. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with embracing hacks —for now—to move the present forward. Problems only arise when we’re unwilling to admit that they’re hacks or we hesitate to replace them. So what can we do to create the future we want for the web?

Build for the long haul. Optimize for performance, for accessibility, and for the user. Weigh the costs of those developer-friendly tools. They may make your job a little easier today, but how do they affect everything else? What’s the cost to users? To future developers? To standards adoption? Sometimes the convenience may be worth it. Sometimes it’s just a hack that you’ve grown accustomed to. And sometimes it’s holding you back from even better options.

Start from standards. Standards continue to evolve over time, but browsers have done a remarkably good job of continuing to support older standards. The same isn’t always true of third-party frameworks. Sites built with even the hackiest of HTML from the’ 90s still work just fine today. The same can’t always be said of sites built with frameworks even after just a couple years.

Design with care. Whether your craft is code, pixels, or processes, consider the impacts of each decision. The convenience of many a modern tool comes at the cost of not always understanding the underlying decisions that have led to its design and not always considering the impact that those decisions can have. Rather than rushing headlong to “move fast and break things”, use the time saved by modern tools to consider more carefully and design with deliberation.

Always be learning. If you’re always learning, you’re also growing. Sometimes it may be hard to pinpoint what’s worth learning and what’s just today’s hack. You might end up focusing on something that won’t matter next year, even if you were to focus solely on learning standards. ( Remember XHTML? ) But constant learning opens up new connections in your brain, and the hacks that you learn one day may help to inform different experiments another day.

Play, experiment, and be weird! This web that we’ve built is the ultimate experiment. It’s the single largest human endeavor in history, and yet each of us can create our own pocket within it. Be courageous and try new things. Build a playground for ideas. Make goofy experiments in your own mad science lab. Start your own small business. There has never been a more empowering place to be creative, take risks, and explore what we’re capable of.

Share and amplify. As you experiment, play, and learn, share what’s worked for you. Write on your own website, post on whichever social media site you prefer, or shout it from a TikTok. Write something for A List Apart! But take the time to amplify others too: find new voices, learn from them, and share what they’ve taught you.

Go forth and make

As designers and developers for the web ( and beyond ), we’re responsible for building the future every day, whether that may take the shape of personal websites, social media tools used by billions, or anything in between. Let’s imbue our values into the things that we create, and let’s make the web a better place for everyone. Create that thing that only you are uniquely qualified to make. Then share it, make it better, make it again, or make something new. Learn. Make. Share. Grow. Rinse and repeat. Every time you think that you’ve mastered the web, everything will change.

Picture this. You’ve joined a squad at your company that’s designing new product features with an emphasis on automation or AI. Or your company has just implemented a personalization engine. Either way, you’re designing with data. Now what? When it comes to designing for personalization, there are many cautionary tales, no overnight successes, and few guides for the perplexed. 

Between the fantasy of getting it right and the fear of it going wrong—like when we encounter “persofails” in the vein of a company repeatedly imploring everyday consumers to buy additional toilet seats—the personalization gap is real. It’s an especially confounding place to be a digital professional without a map, a compass, or a plan.

For those of you venturing into personalization, there’s no Lonely Planet and few tour guides because effective personalization is so specific to each organization’s talent, technology, and market position. 

But you can ensure that your team has packed its bags sensibly.

There’s a DIY formula to increase your chances for success. At minimum, you’ll defuse your boss’s irrational exuberance. Before the party you’ll need to effectively prepare.

We call it prepersonalization.

Behind the music

Consider Spotify’s DJ feature, which debuted this past year.

We’re used to seeing the polished final result of a personalization feature. Before the year-end award, the making-of backstory, or the behind-the-scenes victory lap, a personalized feature had to be conceived, budgeted, and prioritized. Before any personalization feature goes live in your product or service, it lives amid a backlog of worthy ideas for expressing customer experiences more dynamically.

So how do you know where to place your personalization bets? How do you design consistent interactions that won’t trip up users or—worse—breed mistrust? We’ve found that for many budgeted programs to justify their ongoing investments, they first needed one or more workshops to convene key stakeholders and internal customers of the technology. Make yours count.

​From Big Tech to fledgling startups, we’ve seen the same evolution up close with our clients. In our experiences with working on small and large personalization efforts, a program’s ultimate track record—and its ability to weather tough questions, work steadily toward shared answers, and organize its design and technology efforts—turns on how effectively these prepersonalization activities play out.

Time and again, we’ve seen effective workshops separate future success stories from unsuccessful efforts, saving countless time, resources, and collective well-being in the process.

A personalization practice involves a multiyear effort of testing and feature development. It’s not a switch-flip moment in your tech stack. It’s best managed as a backlog that often evolves through three steps: 

1. customer experience optimization (CXO, also known as A/B testing or experimentation)
2. always-on automations (whether rules-based or machine-generated)
3. mature features or standalone product development (such as Spotify’s DJ experience)

This is why we created our progressive personalization framework and why we’re field-testing an accompanying deck of cards: we believe that there’s a base grammar, a set of “nouns and verbs” that your organization can use to design experiences that are customized, personalized, or automated. You won’t need these cards. But we strongly recommend that you create something similar, whether that might be digital or physical.

Set your kitchen timer

How long does it take to cook up a prepersonalization workshop? The surrounding assessment activities that we recommend including can (and often do) span weeks. For the core workshop, we recommend aiming for two to three days. Here’s a summary of our broader approach along with details on the essential first-day activities.

The full arc of the wider workshop is threefold:

1. Kickstart: This sets the terms of engagement as you focus on the opportunity as well as the readiness and drive of your team and your leadership. .
2. Plan your work: This is the heart of the card-based workshop activities where you specify a plan of attack and the scope of work.
3. Work your plan: This phase is all about creating a competitive environment for team participants to individually pitch their own pilots that each contain a proof-of-concept project, its business case, and its operating model.

Give yourself at least a day, split into two large time blocks, to power through a concentrated version of those first two phases.

Kickstart: Whet your appetite

We call the first lesson the “landscape of connected experience.” It explores the personalization possibilities in your organization. A connected experience, in our parlance, is any UX requiring the orchestration of multiple systems of record on the backend. This could be a content-management system combined with a marketing-automation platform. It could be a digital-asset manager combined with a customer-data platform.

Spark conversation by naming consumer examples and business-to-business examples of connected experience interactions that you admire, find familiar, or even dislike. This should cover a representative range of personalization patterns, including automated app-based interactions (such as onboarding sequences or wizards), notifications, and recommenders. We have a catalog of these in the cards. Here’s a list of 142 different interactions to jog your thinking.

This is all about setting the table. What are the possible paths for the practice in your organization? If you want a broader view, here’s a long-form primer and a strategic framework.

Assess each example that you discuss for its complexity and the level of effort that you estimate that it would take for your team to deliver that feature (or something similar). In our cards, we divide connected experiences into five levels: functions, features, experiences, complete products, and portfolios. Size your own build here. This will help to focus the conversation on the merits of ongoing investment as well as the gap between what you deliver today and what you want to deliver in the future.

Next, have your team plot each idea on the following 2×2 grid, which lays out the four enduring arguments for a personalized experience. This is critical because it emphasizes how personalization can not only help your external customers but also affect your own ways of working. It’s also a reminder (which is why we used the word argument earlier) of the broader effort beyond these tactical interventions.

Each team member should vote on where they see your product or service putting its emphasis. Naturally, you can’t prioritize all of them. The intention here is to flesh out how different departments may view their own upsides to the effort, which can vary from one to the next. Documenting your desired outcomes lets you know how the team internally aligns across representatives from different departments or functional areas.

The third and final kickstart activity is about naming your personalization gap. Is your customer journey well documented? Will data and privacy compliance be too big of a challenge? Do you have content metadata needs that you have to address? (We’re pretty sure that you do: it’s just a matter of recognizing the relative size of that need and its remedy.) In our cards, we’ve noted a number of program risks, including common team dispositions. Our Detractor card, for example, lists six stakeholder behaviors that hinder progress.

Effectively collaborating and managing expectations is critical to your success. Consider the potential barriers to your future progress. Press the participants to name specific steps to overcome or mitigate those barriers in your organization. As studies have shown, personalization efforts face many common barriers.

At this point, you’ve hopefully discussed sample interactions, emphasized a key area of benefit, and flagged key gaps? Good—you’re ready to continue.

Hit that test kitchen

Next, let’s look at what you’ll need to bring your personalization recipes to life. Personalization engines, which are robust software suites for automating and expressing dynamic content, can intimidate new customers. Their capabilities are sweeping and powerful, and they present broad options for how your organization can conduct its activities. This presents the question: Where do you begin when you’re configuring a connected experience?

What’s important here is to avoid treating the installed software like it were a dream kitchen from some fantasy remodeling project (as one of our client executives memorably put it). These software engines are more like test kitchens where your team can begin devising, tasting, and refining the snacks and meals that will become a part of your personalization program’s regularly evolving menu.

The ultimate menu of the prioritized backlog will come together over the course of the workshop. And creating “dishes” is the way that you’ll have individual team stakeholders construct personalized interactions that serve their needs or the needs of others.

The dishes will come from recipes, and those recipes have set ingredients.

Verify your ingredients

Like a good product manager, you’ll make sure—andyou’ll validate with the right stakeholders present—that you have all the ingredients on hand to cook up your desired interaction (or that you can work out what needs to be added to your pantry). These ingredients include the audience that you’re targeting, content and design elements, the context for the interaction, and your measure for how it’ll come together. 

This isn’t just about discovering requirements. Documenting your personalizations as a series of if-then statements lets the team: 

1. compare findings toward a unified approach for developing features, not unlike when artists paint with the same palette; 
2. specify a consistent set of interactions that users find uniform or familiar; 
3. and develop parity across performance measurements and key performance indicators too. 

This helps you streamline your designs and your technical efforts while you deliver a shared palette of core motifs of your personalized or automated experience.

Compose your recipe

What ingredients are important to you? Think of a who-what-when-why construct: 

• Who are your key audience segments or groups?
• What kind of content will you give them, in what design elements, and under what circumstances?
• And for which business and user benefits?

We first developed these cards and card categories five years ago. We regularly play-test their fit with conference audiences and clients. And we still encounter new possibilities. But they all follow an underlying who-what-when-why logic.

Here are three examples for a subscription-based reading app, which you can generally follow along with right to left in the cards in the accompanying photo below. 

1. Nurture personalization: When a guest or an unknown visitor interacts with  a product title, a banner or alert bar appears that makes it easier for them to encounter a related title they may want to read, saving them time.
2. Welcome automation: When there’s a newly registered user, an email is generated to call out the breadth of the content catalog and to make them a happier subscriber.
3. Winback automation: Before their subscription lapses or after a recent failed renewal, a user is sent an email that gives them a promotional offer to suggest that they reconsider renewing or to remind them to renew.

A useful preworkshop activity may be to think through a first draft of what these cards might be for your organization, although we’ve also found that this process sometimes flows best through cocreating the recipes themselves. Start with a set of blank cards, and begin labeling and grouping them through the design process, eventually distilling them to a refined subset of highly useful candidate cards.

You can think of the later stages of the workshop as moving from recipes toward a cookbook in focus—like a more nuanced customer-journey mapping. Individual “cooks” will pitch their recipes to the team, using a common jobs-to-be-done format so that measurability and results are baked in, and from there, the resulting collection will be prioritized for finished design and delivery to production.

Better kitchens require better architecture

Simplifying a customer experience is a complicated effort for those who are inside delivering it. Beware anyone who says otherwise. With that being said,  “Complicated problems can be hard to solve, but they are addressable with rules and recipes.”

When personalization becomes a laugh line, it’s because a team is overfitting: they aren’t designing with their best data. Like a sparse pantry, every organization has metadata debt to go along with its technical debt, and this creates a drag on personalization effectiveness. Your AI’s output quality, for example, is indeed limited by your IA. Spotify’s poster-child prowess today was unfathomable before they acquired a seemingly modest metadata startup that now powers its underlying information architecture.

You can definitely stand the heat…

Personalization technology opens a doorway into a confounding ocean of possible designs. Only a disciplined and highly collaborative approach will bring about the necessary focus and intention to succeed. So banish the dream kitchen. Instead, hit the test kitchen to save time, preserve job satisfaction and security, and safely dispense with the fanciful ideas that originate upstairs of the doers in your organization. There are meals to serve and mouths to feed.

This workshop framework gives you a fighting shot at lasting success as well as sound beginnings. Wiring up your information layer isn’t an overnight affair. But if you use the same cookbook and shared recipes, you’ll have solid footing for success. We designed these activities to make your organization’s needs concrete and clear, long before the hazards pile up.

While there are associated costs toward investing in this kind of technology and product design, your ability to size up and confront your unique situation and your digital capabilities is time well spent. Don’t squander it. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding.

I’ve been fascinated by shows since I was a child. I loved the figures and the excitement—but most of all the reports. I aspired to be an artist. And I believed that I’d get to do the things that Indiana Jones did and go on interesting activities. Perhaps my friends and I had movie ideas to make and sun in. But they never went any farther. However, I did end up working in user experience ( UI). Today, I realize that there’s an element of drama to UX— I hadn’t actually considered it before, but consumer analysis is story. And to get the most out of customer studies, you must tell a compelling story that involves stakeholders, including the product team and decision-makers, and piques their interest in learning more.

Think of your favorite film. It probably follows a three-act narrative architecture: the installation, the conflict, and the resolution, which is prevalent in literature. The second act shows what exists now, and it helps you get to understand the characters and the challenges and problems that they face. Act two sets the scene for the fight and the action begins. Here, issues grow or get worse. The solution is the third and final work. This is where the issues are resolved and the figures learn and change. This structure, in my opinion, is also a fantastic way to think about customer research, and it might be particularly useful for explaining user research to others.

Use story as a framework when conducting study.

It’s sad to say, but many have come to view studies as being inconsequential. Research is typically one of the first things to go when finances or deadlines are tight. Instead of investing in study, some goods professionals rely on manufacturers or—worse—their personal judgment to make the “right” options for users based on their experience or accepted best practices. That may get groups a little bit out of the way, but that approach is therefore easily miss out on resolving people ‘ real issues. To be user-centered, this is something we really avoid. User study improves pattern. It keeps it on record, pointing to problems and opportunities. You can keep back of your competition by being aware of the problems with your goods and fixing them.

In the three-act structure, each action corresponds to a part of the process, and each part is important to telling the whole story. Let’s take a look at the various functions and how they relate to consumer study.

Act one: installation

Fundamental analysis comes in handy because the setup is all about comprehending the background. Basic research ( also called conceptual, discovery, or preliminary research ) helps you understand people and identify their problems. Just like in the movies, you’re learning about the problems users face, what options are available, and how those challenges impact them. To do basic research, you may conduct cultural inquiries or journal studies ( or both! ), which may assist you in identifying both problems and opportunities. It doesn’t need to be a great investment in time or money.

What is the least practical ethnography that Erika Hall can do is spend fifteen minutes with a consumer and say,” Walk me through your day yesterday. That’s it. Give that one demand. Opened up and listen to them for 15 days. Do everything in your power to protect both your objectives and yourself. Bam, you’re doing ethnography”. According to Hall, “[This ] will definitely prove quite fascinating. In the very unlikely event that you didn’t learn anything new or helpful, carry on with increased confidence in your way”.

This makes sense to me in all its entirety. And I love that this makes consumer studies so visible. You can simply attract participants and carry out the recruitment process without having to make a lot of paperwork! This can offer a wealth of knowledge about your customers, and it’ll help you better understand them and what’s going on in their life. Understanding where people are coming from is what action one is really all about.

Maybe Spool talks about the importance of basic research and how it may type the bulk of your research. If you can supplement what you’ve heard in the fundamental studies by using any more user data that you can obtain, such as surveys or analytics, to make recommendations that may need to be investigated further, you might as well use those that can be drawn from those that you can obtain. Together, all this information creates a clearer picture of the state of things and all its deficiencies. And that’s the start of a gripping tale. It’s the place in the story where you realize that the principal characters—or the people in this case—are facing issues that they need to conquer. This is where you begin to develop compassion for the characters and support their success, much like in films. And finally partners are now doing the same. Their business may lose money because users can’t finish specific tasks, which may be their love. Or probably they do connect with customers ‘ problems. In either case, work one serves as your main strategy to pique the interest and interest of the participants.

When partners begin to understand the value of basic research, that is open doors to more opportunities that involve users in the decision-making approach. And that can influence product team ‘ focus on improving. This gains everyone—users, the goods, and partners. It’s similar to winning an Oscar for a film because it frequently results in a favorable and productive outcome for your item. And this can be an opportunity for participants to repeat this process with different products. Knowing how to show a good story is the only way to convince partners to worry about doing more research, and story is the key to this method.

This brings us to work two, where you incrementally review a design or idea to see whether it addresses the problems.

Act two: issue

Act two is all about digging deeper into the problems that you identified in operate one. This typically involves conducting vertical study, such as accessibility tests, where you evaluate a potential solution ( such as a design ) to see if it addresses the problems you identified. The issues may include unfulfilled needs or problems with a circulation or procedure that’s tripping users off. Additional problems will arise in the course of work two of a film. It’s here that you learn more about the figures as they grow and develop through this work.

According to Jakob Nielsen, five users should be normally in usability tests, which means that this number of users can generally identify the majority of the issues:” You learn less and less as you add more and more users because you will keep seeing the same things over and over again… After the second user, you are wasting your time by constantly observing the similar findings but no learning much new.”

There are parallels with storytelling here too, if you try to tell a story with too many characters, the plot may get lost. With fewer participants, each user’s struggles will be more memorable and accessible to other stakeholders when presenting the research. This can help convey the issues that need to be addressed while also highlighting the value of doing the research in the first place.

Usability tests have been conducted in person for decades, but you can also conduct them remotely using software like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or other teleconferencing software. This approach has become increasingly popular since the beginning of the pandemic, and it works well. You might consider in-person usability tests like watching a movie as opposed to remote testing like attending a play. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. Usability research in person is a much more extensive experience. Stakeholders can experience the sessions with other stakeholders. Additionally, you’ll also hear their reactions in real-time, including surprises, disagreements, and discussions of what they’re seeing. Much like going to a play, where audiences get to take in the stage, the costumes, the lighting, and the actors ‘ interactions, in-person research lets you see users up close, including their body language, how they interact with the moderator, and how the scene is set up.

If conducting usability testing in the field is like watching a play that is staged and controlled, where any two sessions may be very different from one another. You can take usability testing into the field by creating a replica of the space where users interact with the product and then conduct your research there. Or you can conduct your research by meeting users at their locations. With either option, you get to see how things work in context, things come up that wouldn’t have in a lab environment—and conversion can shift in entirely different directions. You have less control over how these sessions run as researchers, but this can occasionally improve your understanding of users. Meeting users where they are can provide clues to the external forces that could be affecting how they use your product. Usability tests in person offer a level of detail that is frequently absent from remote testing.

That’s not to say that the “movies” —remote sessions—aren’t a good option. A wider audience can be reached through remote sessions. They allow a lot more stakeholders to be involved in the research and to see what’s going on. And they make access to a much wider range of users in their own country. But with any remote session there is the potential of time wasted if participants can’t log in or get their microphone working.

The advantage of usability testing, whether conducted remotely or in person, is that you can ask real users questions to understand their reasoning and understanding of the problem. This can help you not only identify problems but also glean why they’re problems in the first place. Additionally, you can test your own hypotheses and determine whether your reasoning is correct. By the end of the sessions, you’ll have a much clearer picture of how usable the designs are and whether they work for their intended purposes. The excitement is in the second act, but there are also potential surprises in the third. This is equally true of usability tests. Unexpected things that are said by participants frequently alter how you view things, and these unexpected developments in the story can lead to unexpected turns in your perception.

Unfortunately, user research is sometimes seen as expendable. Usability testing is frequently the only method of research that some stakeholders believe they ever need, and it’s too frequently the case. In fact, if the designs that you’re evaluating in the usability test aren’t grounded in a solid understanding of your users ( foundational research ), there’s not much to be gained by doing usability testing in the first place. Because you narrow down the subject matter of your feedback without understanding the needs of the users. As a result, there’s no way of knowing whether the designs might solve a problem that users have. In the context of a usability test, it’s just feedback on a particular design.

On the other hand, if you only do foundational research, while you might have set out to solve the right problem, you won’t know whether the thing that you’re building will actually solve that. This demonstrates the value of conducting both directional and foundational research.

In act two, stakeholders will—hopefully—get to watch the story unfold in the user sessions, which creates the conflict and tension in the current design by surfacing their highs and lows. And in turn, this can encourage stakeholders to take action on the issues that arise.

Act three: resolution

The third act is about resolving the issues raised by the first two acts, whereas the first two are about comprehending the context and the tensions that can compel action. While it’s important to have an audience for the first two acts, it’s crucial that they stick around for the final act. That includes all members of the product team, including developers, UX experts, business analysts, delivery managers, product managers, and any other parties who have a say in the coming development. It allows the whole team to hear users ‘ feedback together, ask questions, and discuss what’s possible within the project’s constraints. And it gives the UX design and research teams more time to clarify, suggest alternatives, or provide more context for their choices. So you can get everyone on the same page and get agreement on the way forward.

This act is primarily told through voiceover with some audience participation. The researcher is the narrator, who paints a picture of the issues and what the future of the product could look like given the things that the team has learned. They provide the stakeholders with their suggestions and direction for developing this vision.

Nancy Duarte in the Harvard Business Review offers an approach to structuring presentations that follow a persuasive story. The most effective presenters employ the same methods as great storytellers: By reaffirming the status quo and then revealing a better way, they create a conflict that needs to be resolved, writes Duarte. ” That tension helps them persuade the audience to adopt a new mindset or behave differently”.

This type of structure aligns well with research results, and particularly results from usability tests. It provides proof for “what is “—the issues you’ve identified. And “what could be “—your recommendations on how to address them. And so forth and forth.

You can reinforce your recommendations with examples of things that competitors are doing that could address these issues or with examples where competitors are gaining an edge. Or they can be visual, like quick sketches of how a new design could function to solve a problem. These can help generate conversation and momentum. And this continues until the session is over when you’ve concluded everything by summarizing the key points and offering suggestions for a solution. This is the part where you reiterate the main themes or problems and what they mean for the product—the denouement of the story. This stage provides stakeholders with the next steps, and hopefully, the motivation to take those steps as well!

While we are nearly at the end of this story, let’s reflect on the idea that user research is storytelling. The three-act structure of user research contains all the components of a good story:

Act one: You meet the protagonists ( the users ) and the antagonists ( the problems affecting users ). This is the plot’s beginning. In act one, researchers might use methods including contextual inquiry, ethnography, diary studies, surveys, and analytics. These techniques can produce personas, empathy maps, user journeys, and analytics dashboards.

Act two: Next, there’s character development. The protagonists encounter problems and challenges, which they must overcome, and there is conflict and tension. In act two, researchers might use methods including usability testing, competitive benchmarking, and heuristics evaluation. Usability findings reports, UX strategy documents, usability guidelines, and best practices can be included in the output of these.

Act three: The protagonists triumph and you see what a better future looks like. Researchers may use techniques like presentation decks, storytelling, and digital media in act three. The output of these can be: presentation decks, video clips, audio clips, and pictures.

The researcher performs a number of tasks: they are the producer, the director, and the storyteller. The participants have a small role, but they are significant characters ( in the research ). And the audience are the stakeholders. But the most important thing is to get the story right and to use storytelling to tell users ‘ stories through research. By the end, the parties should have a goal and a desire to solve the product’s flaws.

So the next time that you’re planning research with clients or you’re speaking to stakeholders about research that you’ve done, think about how you can weave in some storytelling. In the end, user research is beneficial to everyone, and all parties must be interested in the conclusion.

I’ve lost count of the times when promising ideas go from being useless in a few days to being useless after working as a solution designer for too long to explain.

Financial items, which is the area of my specialization, are no exception. It’s tempting to put as many features at the ceiling as possible and hope someone sticks because people’s true, hard-earned money is on the line, user expectations are high, and a crammed market. However, this strategy is a formula for disaster. Why? How’s why:

The perils of feature-first creation

It’s easy to get swept up in the enthusiasm of developing innovative features when you start developing a financial product from scratch or are migrating existing client journeys from papers or telephony channels to online bank or mobile applications. They may think,” If I may only add one more thing that solves this particular person problem, they’ll enjoy me”! What happens, however, when you eventually encounter a roadblock caused by your security team? not like it? When a difficult-fought film fails to win over viewers or fails owing to unanticipated difficulty?

The concept of Minimum Viable Product ( MVP ) comes into play in this context. Even though Jason Fried doesn’t usually refer to it that way, his podcast Rework and his book Getting Real frequently address this concept. An MVP is a product that offers only enough significance to your users to keep them interested, but not so much that it becomes difficult to keep up. Although it seems like an easy idea, it requires a razor-sharp eye, a ruthless edge, and the courage to stand up for your position because it is easy to fall for” the Columbo Effect” when there is always” just one more thing …” to add.

The issue with most funding apps is that they frequently turn out to be reflections of the company’s internal politics rather than an experience created exclusively for the customer. This implies that the priority should be given to delivering as many features and functionalities as possible in order to satisfy the requirements and wishes of competing internal departments as opposed to crafting a compelling value statement that is focused on what people in the real world actually want. As a result, these products can very quickly became a mixed bag of misleading, related, and finally unhappy customer experiences—a feature salad, you might say.

The significance of the foundation

What is a better strategy, then? How may we create products that are user-friendly, firm, and, most importantly, stick?

The concept of “bedrock” comes into play in this context. Rock is the main feature of your item that really matters to customers. It’s the fundamental building block that creates price and maintains relevance over time.

The rock has got to be in and around the standard servicing journeys in the world of retail bank, which is where I work. People only look at their existing account once every blue moon, but they do so every day. They purchase a credit card every year or every other year, but they at least once a month assess their stability and pay their bills.

The key is in identifying the main tasks that individuals want to complete and therefore persistently striving to make them simple, reliable, and trustworthy.

But how do you reach the foundation? By focusing on the” MVP” strategy, giving clarity the top priority, and working toward a distinct value proposition. This entails removing unwanted functions and putting the emphasis on providing genuine value to your users.

It also requires some nerve, as your coworkers might not always agree on your eyesight at first. And dubiously, occasionally it can even suggest making it clear to customers that you won’t be coming to their house and making their breakfast. Sometimes you need to use the sporadic “opinionated user interface design” ( i .e. clunky workaround for edge cases ) to test a concept or to give yourself some more time to work on something more crucial.

Functional methods for creating stick-like economic items

What are the main learnings I’ve made from my own research and practice, then?

1. What issue are you attempting to resolve first, and why? Whom? Before beginning any construction, make sure your goal is completely clear. Make certain it also complies with the goals of your business.
2. Avoid the temptation to put too many characteristics at once by focusing on one, key feature and focusing on getting that right before moving on to something else. Choose one that actually adds price, and work from that.
3. When it comes to financial items, clarity is often more important than complexity. Eliminate unwanted details and concentrate solely on what matters most.
4. Accept ongoing iteration as Bedrock is a powerful process rather than a fixed destination. Continuously collect customer feedback, improve your product, and work toward that foundational position.
5. Halt, look, and listen: You don’t just have to test your product during the delivery process; you must also test it consistently in the field. Use it for yourself. Work A/B testing. User comments on Gear. Speak to users and make adjustments accordingly.

The foundational conundrum

This is an intriguing conundrum: sacrificing some of the potential for short-term growth in favor of long-term stability. But the reward is worthwhile because products created with a concentrate on core will outlive and outperform their competitors and provide people with ongoing value over time.

How do you begin your quest for core, then? Take it slowly. Start by identifying the essential components that your customers actually care about. Focus on developing and improving a second, potent function that delivers real value. And most importantly, check constantly because, whatever you think, Abraham Lincoln, Alan Kay, or Peter Drucker are all in the same boat! The best way to foretell the future is to build it, he said.

The Anti-Agency Model: A Bold New Future for Marketing Services with Sara Nay, by John Jantsch, is available online.

Summary of the Episode Host John Jantsch and Sara Nay, CEO of Duct Tape Marketing, chat about what they call the Anti-Agency Model in this game-changing season of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Sara and John’s more than 15 years of working together uncover the causes of the failing traditional advertising company models.

The Anti-Agency Model: A Bold New Future for Marketing Services with Sara Nay, by John Jantsch, is available online.

Doom not merely established first-person shooters when the company first launched in 1993, but also had a significant impact on the gaming industry thanks to its unwaveringly violent gameplay and hellfire aesthetics. And despite its success, once you consider the seemingly ]…] [ …] there are surprisingly few games in the core series.

The first article on Den of Geek was Doom: Ranking Every Glorious Game in the Hellbound Series.

“Won’t you do better than that?” This is one of the many famous snares that Victory TV in 1991’s Street Fighter II produced, this time by E. Honda, a samurai fighter who proves to be a remarkably fine boxer, but it definitely speaks to the thoughts of a lot of players about the two live-action Street Fighter films that have so far been released. Hollywood has struggled to make a great movie out of the company despite the classic fighting video game series being one of the pinnacles of &#8217, 90s game traditions, and one that also produces genre-shaping hits as indicated by 2023’s Street Fighter 6.

If Legendary Pictures has anything to do with it, that may change. The studio behind the” MonsterVerse” movies starring American Godzilla and Kong Kong” MonsterVerse” clearly has a new direction in Street Fighter, and Deadline first reported that they have the expanding cast to back it up.

According to the business site, Jason Momoa, Noah Centineo, and Andre Koji have been cast in unknown roles in the movie. Additionally, the movie is slated to become helmed by Bad Trip director Kitao Sakurai. Although the original and still most popular Street Fighter II sport only has 12 characters in its most basic version, this will undoubtedly mark the start of a group that has plenty of room to grow, but already from these four male leads we can determine who might serve as the line ‘ main characters and what path the series might be heading.

Andrew Koji

Let’s get right to the most visible cast point: Ryu, the most recognizable character in the Street Fighter franchise, is almost undoubtedly going to be Andrew Koji’s main character. Koji is most well-known to video gamers for playing the wicked Storm Shadow opposite Henry Golding in the Snake Eyes film in 2021, but after starring in Cinemax’s Warrior, Koji portrayed Ah Sahm, a figure that Bruce Lee when envisioned playing as his dream role, is a European Koji has some actual martial arts prowess. In Bullet Train, he likewise appeared as an assassin opposite Brad Pitt.

After Hollywood had previously strangely sidelined the fan-favorable character in past adaptations, Koji’s casting as Ryu makes sense. Some also complain that Capcom made the primary character all-American soldier Col. William Guile, a film that has a whimsical tent classic in some circles ( which is likely to have influenced the film’s appeal at the time ). Ryu was portrayed by Byron Mann in the Steven E. de Souza film, as well as as a sidekick for Guile and the other American character, Ken Masters ( Damian Chapa ).

And none of the characters from the previous Hollywood Street Fighter film, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li ( 2009 ), even made an appearance. This is a chance to put the Hollywood camera where it’s always been…

Noah Centineo

However, you can’t have one without the other. Speaking of Ryu and Ken, These particular Japanese and American accessible characters act as doppelgängers with many of the same movements and abilities, including the adored hadouken, as are typically depicted in fighting activities as BFFs ( though not always ). So the youthful American Centineo makes perfect sense as Ken, who is perhaps best known for his roles as Austin & Ally on the Disney Channel and as the hero Atom Smasher in Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam.

Ken offers a true yankeee foil to the philosophical warrior of the story and a chance for a writer to actually play up some bromance dynamics, unlike Ryu and who is more impetuous and haughty than Ryu.

Jason Momoa

Then comes the biggest brand cast in the movie, and this is where rumors start to get a little bit more stale. Who will Jason Momoa, the once and upcoming DC artist with Aquaman and Lobo on his profile, perform?

Jimmy Blanka appears to be an obvious think, though we’re not sure for sure. Blanka was a supposedly human character in the games until a plane crashed in the Brazilian rainforest in some strange way (! )! resulted in a gene that made Blanka’s teeth turn into fangs, his hair peach, and his skin lime natural. The impact of thunder has now reloaded his heart!

Look…. in the early 1990s, people took video game stories and mythology a lot less significantly. And Blanka’s incredibly cruel aesthetics were a favorite back in the days of vibrant colors and extreme sports. Momoa who enjoys leaning occasionally in savage pictures, whether it be in Game of Thrones or, more recently, Lobo, seems like a normal fit for the wild man. We believe that because of his recent promotion to the family-friendly face of another video game franchise for all ages via Minecraft, he will have a chance to make a more familiar face for a younger generation of budding action aficionados.

Roman Reigns

Finally, we have the most difficult casting decision: Roman Reigns, a former football player and wrestler from WWE. The Georgia Tech graduate has been cast in an undisclosed role that has a lot of potential, and it’s worth noting that the initial casting process did not include any obvious choice for M. Bison and Viktor Sagat, two of the biggest villains in the Street Fighter franchise.

Reigns could easily turn into a Bison with no residue. However, we assume that the American entertainer will instead be cast as the all-American Col. Guile. Guile is still a fan favorite despite the speculation that the new Street Fighter will try to avoid the mistakes of the reputation of the 1994 film, including by replacing the Japanese Ryu with the American Guile ( and then strangely insisting on casting a Belgian in the role ). Reigns could undoubtedly pass for a square-jawed hero once he shaves the beard and trades in long locks for a platinum mane. And who knows, maybe Guile might take a beating from Ken and Ryu if the new Street Fighter follows the setup of the original games’ fighting tournament? This would make this action film not more Jean-Claude Van Damme’s…

Reigns is reportedly cast as Akuma, a hidden final boss from a later iteration of Street Fighter II, despite the fact that casting is not confirmed after press time. Reigns would make sense as a villain, but it is important to point out that Akuma is Japanese in the video game.

The newest Street Fighter film has no release date right now.

Who Is Playing Who in the New Street Fighter Movie? first appeared on Den of Geek.

Sunny California is a part of the white Hungarian Alps, where Sunny California is currently a member of the Hulu book series Nine Perfect Strangers, which returns for another season. Masha Dmitrichenko, Nicole Kidman’s healthcare expert, is the only figure from season 1 scheduled to return. The rest of the cast is comprised of [ ]new characters that Masha has invited to…

The first episode of Nine Perfect Strangers Season 2 Toss: Meet the Actors Joining Nicole Kidman was posted on Den of Geek.

“Won’t you do better than that?” This is one of the many famous snares that Victory TV in 1991’s Street Fighter II produced, this time by E. Honda, a samurai fighter who proves to be a remarkably fine boxer, but it definitely speaks to the thoughts of a lot of players about the two live-action Street Fighter films that have so far been released. Hollywood has struggled to make a great movie out of the company despite the classic fighting video game series being one of the pinnacles of &#8217, 90s game traditions, and one that also generates genre-shaping hits like 2023’s Street Fighter 6.

If Legendary Pictures is involved in it, that may change. The studio behind the” MonsterVerse” movies starring American Godzilla and Kong Kong” MonsterVerse” clearly has a new direction in Street Fighter, and Deadline first reported that they have the expanding cast to back it up.

According to the business site, Jason Momoa, Noah Centineo, and Andre Koji have been cast in unknown roles in the movie. Additionally, the movie is slated to become helmed by Bad Trip director Kitao Sakurai. Although the original and still most popular Street Fighter II game only features 12 figures in its most basic version, this will undoubtedly serve as the beginning of an outfit that has plenty of room to grow, but already from these four male leads we can determine who might be the line ‘ main characters for the new cinematic view as well as what direction the line might be heading.

Andrew Koji

Let’s get right to the most obvious casting point: Ryu, the most recognizable character in the Street Fighter franchise, is almost certainly going to be Andrew Koji’s main character. Koji is most well-known to video gamers for playing the villainous Storm Shadow opposite Henry Golding in the Snake Eyes movie in 2021, but after starring in Cinemax’s Warrior, Koji portrayed Ah Sahm, a character that Bruce Lee once envisioned playing as his dream role, is a British Koji has some real martial arts prowess. In Bullet Train, he also appeared as an assassin opposite Brad Pitt.

After Hollywood had previously bizarrely sidelined the fan-favorable character in previous adaptations, Koji’s casting as Ryu makes sense. Although the 1994 movie is a kitschy camp classic in some circles, many still complain that Capcom made the main character Col. William Guile, who was most likely to win over the American box office at the time. Byron Mann made a similar role for Ryu in the Steven E. de Souza film, as well as as a sidekick for Guile and the other American character, Ken Masters ( Damian Chapa ).

And none of the characters from the other Hollywood Street Fighter film, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li ( 2009 ), even showed up in it. This is a chance to put the Hollywood lens where it has always been…

Noah Centineo

However, you can’t have either without Ryu and Ken without them. These respective Japanese and American playable characters act as doppelgängers with many of the same moves and power sets, including the beloved hadouken, as are typically depicted in the fighting games as BFFs ( though not always ). So the young American Centineo makes perfect sense as Ken, who is perhaps best known for his roles as Austin & Ally on the Disney Channel and as the superhero Atom Smasher in Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam.

Ken is a proper yankeee foil for the stoic hero of the story, giving the screenwriter the chance to really play up some bromance dynamics. He is more headstrong and haughty than Ryu.

Jason Momoa

Now comes the biggest name casting in the movie, and this is where rumors start to get a little bit more stale. Who will Jason Momoa, a former DC actor with a cast that includes Lobo and Aquaman, play?

Jimmy Blanka appears to be an obvious guess, though we don’t know for sure. Blanka was a supposedly human character in the video games until a plane crashed in the Brazilian rainforest… resulted in a mutation that made Blanka’s teeth fangs, his hair orange, and skin lime green. Even his blood is now being charged by lightning’s shock!

Look…. in the early 1990s, people took video game storylines and lore a lot less seriously. And when Blanka’s extremely wicked aesthetics were popular in the days of bright colors and extreme sports, Momoa who enjoys leaning occasionally in barbaric imagery, whether it be on Game of Thrones or, more recently, Lobo, seems a natural fit for the feral fella. We believe that because of his recent promotion to the family-friendly face of another video game franchise for all ages via Minecraft, he will have a chance to make a more familiar face for a younger generation of budding action aficionados.

Roman Reigns

Finally, Roman Reigns, a WWE wrestler and former football player, becomes the most difficult casting decision. The Georgia Tech graduate has been cast in an undisclosed role that offers a lot of potential, and it’s worth noting that M. Bison and Viktor Sagat, two of the biggest villains in the Street Fighter franchise, weren’t the only ones in the first casting cast.

Reigns could very well turn into a clean-shaven Bison. However, we assume that the American entertainer will instead be cast as the all-American Col. Guile. Guile is still a fan favorite despite the reputation-damaging efforts of the new Street Fighter, including replacing the Japanese Ryu with the American Guile ( and then strangely insisting on hiring a Belgian in the role ). Reigns could undoubtedly pass for a square-jawed hero once he shaves the beard and trades in long locks for a platinum mane. And who knows, maybe Guile might take a beating from Ken and Ryu if the new Street Fighter follows the setup of the original games’ fighting tournament? This would make this action film not more Jean-Claude Van Damme’s…

Although casting is not confirmed after press time, Jeff Sneider has confirmed that Reigns is actually cast as Akuma, a hidden final boss from a later iteration of Street Fighter II. Reigns would make sense as a villain, but it is important to point out that Akuma is Japanese in the video game.

There is no current release date for the new Street Fighter film.

Who Is Playing Who in the New Street Fighter Movie? first appeared on Den of Geek.

This article contains season 2 clues for Arcane. With the unique animated series Arcane, which is set in the League of Legends world, Netflix and Riot Games created one of the most acclaimed film game alterations of all time. The series wrapped up its flaming second season in 2024, which it premiered in 2021.

The first article on Den of Geek was titled Arcane Production Team Displays on Closing a League of Legends Classic.

“Can’t you perform better than that?” This is one of the many famous snares that Victory TV in 1991’s Street Fighter II produced, this time by E. Honda, a samurai fighter who proves to be a remarkably fine boxer, but it definitely speaks to the thoughts of a lot of players about the two live-action Street Fighter films that have so far been released. Hollywood has struggled to make a great movie out of the company despite the classic fighting video game series being one of the pinnacles of &#8217, 90s game traditions, and one that also produces genre-shaping hits as indicated by 2023’s Street Fighter 6.

If Legendary Pictures has anything to do with it, that may change. The studio behind the” MonsterVerse” movies starring American Godzilla and Kong Kong” MonsterVerse” clearly moving forward with their latest take on a big-screen Street Fighter, and Deadline first reported that they have the expanding cast to back it up.

According to the business site, Jason Momoa, Noah Centineo, Roman Eras, and Andre Koji have been cast in unidentified jobs in the movie. Additionally, the movie is slated to become directed by Bad Trip director Kitao Sakurai. Although the original and still most popular Street Fighter II sport only has 12 characters in its most basic version, this will undoubtedly mark the start of a group that has plenty of room to grow, but already from these four male leads we can determine who might serve as the line ‘ main characters and what path the series might be heading.

Andrew Koji

Let’s get right to the most visible cast point: Ryu, the most recognizable character in the Street Fighter franchise, is almost certainly going to be played by Andrew Koji. Koji is most well-known for playing the wicked Storm Shadow opposite Henry Golding in the Snake Eyes film, but after starring in Cinemax’s Warrior, Koji portrayed Ah Sahm, a figure that Bruce Lee when envisioned playing. In Bullet Train, he likewise appeared as an assassin opposite Brad Pitt.

After Hollywood had strangely sidelined the fan favourite character in earlier adaptations, Koji’s casting as Ryu makes sense in addition to his Japanese heritage. Although the 1994 movie is a whimsical camp vintage in some circles, several also complain that Capcom made the main personality Col. William Guile, who was most likely to win over the British box office at the time. Byron Mann made a similar role for Ryu in the Steven E. de Souza film, as well as as a sidekick for Guile and the other American character, Ken Masters ( Damian Chapa ).

And neither of the figures from Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, a previous Hollywood Street Fighter film, ever appeared. This is a chance to put the Hollywood camera where it has always been…

Noah Centineo

However, you can’t own either without the other, referring to Ryu and Ken. These particular Japanese and American accessible characters act as doppelgängers with many of the same movements and abilities, including the adored hadouken, as are typically depicted in fighting game as BFFs ( though not always ). So the young American Centineo makes perfect sense as Ken, who is perhaps best known for his roles as Austin & Ally on the Disney Channel and as the hero Atom Smasher in Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam.

Ken is a suitable yankeee foil for the philosophical warrior of the story, giving the screenwriter the chance to actually execute up some bromance dynamics. He is more stubborn and haughty than Ryu.

Jason Momoa

Then comes the biggest name cast in the movie, and this is where rumors get a little bit more stale. Who will Jason Momoa, a former DC professional with a cast that includes Lobo and Aquaman, play?

Jimmy Blanka appears to be an obvious think, though we’re not sure for sure. Blanka was a supposedly people figure in the video games until a plane crashed in the Brazilian forests… resulted in a gene that made Blanka’s teeth fangs, his mane peach, and skin lime natural. Also his blood is now being charged by lightning’s shock!

Look…. in the early 1990s, people took video game stories and legend a lot less really. And when Blanka’s incredibly cruel aesthetics were popular in the days of brilliant colors and extreme sports, Momoa who enjoys leaning occasionally in savage pictures, whether it be on Game of Thrones or, more lately, Lobo, seems a natural fit for the stray fella. We believe that because of his recent promotion to the family-friendly mouth of another video game franchise for all ages via Minecraft, Street Fighter will be a chance for him to returning to his more well-known style to a new generation of budding activity aficionados.

Roman Eras

Finally we come to the most difficult piece of casting to wrap our heads around: WWE wrestler and former footballer Roman Eras. The Georgia Tech alumni has been cast in an undisclosed role which offers a lot of possibilities, and it’s worth noting that the first wave of casting has not included any obvious choice for one of the Street Fighter franchise’s biggest villains: M. Bison and Viktor Sagat.

Eras could very well turn into a clean-shaven Bison. However, we assume that the American artist will instead be cast as the all-American Col. Guile. Guile is still a fan favorite despite the speculation that the new Street Fighter will try to avoid the mistakes of the reputation of the 1994 film, including by replacing the Japanese Ryu with the American Guile ( and then strangely insisting on casting a Belgian in the role ). Reigns was undoubtedly complete for a square-jawed hero once he shaves the hair and trades in long locks for a silver mane. And who knows, maybe Guile may take a pounding from Ken and Ryu if the fresh Street Fighter follows the layout of the original game’ fighting event? This may make this a non-action film of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s caliber.

Reigns is reportedly cast as Akuma, a hidden ultimate manager from a later generation of Street Fighter II, despite the fact that cast is not confirmed after click time. Reigns would make sense as a villain, but it is important to note that Akuma is Japanese in the video game.

The newest Street Fighter film has no release date right now.

Who Is Playing Who in the New Street Fighter Movie? first appeared on Den of Geek.

“Can’t you do better than that?” This is one of the many legendary taunts offered up by victory screens in 1991’s Street Fighter II—in this case by E. Honda, a sumo wrestler who proves to be a surprisingly good boxer—but it probably refers to the opinions of a lot of gamers about the two live-action […]

The post New Street Fighter Movie: Who Is Playing Who? appeared first on Den of Geek.

“Can’t you do better than that?” This is one of the many legendary taunts offered up by victory screens in 1991’s Street Fighter II—in this case by E. Honda, a sumo wrestler who proves to be a surprisingly good boxer—but it probably refers to the opinions of a lot of gamers about the two live-action Street Fighter movies that have so far been made. Despite the iconic fighting video game series being one of the touchstones of ’90s gaming culture, and one which still produces genre-shaping hits as indicated by 2023’s Street Fighter 6, Hollywood has struggled to make a good movie out of the franchise.

That might be changing if Legendary Pictures has anything to do with it. The studio behind the American Godzilla and Kong “MonsterVerse” movies is visibly moving forward with their new take on a big screen Street Fighter, and as first reported by Deadline, they have the growing cast to prove it.

As per the trade site, Andre Koji, Noah Centineo, Roman Reigns, and no less than Jason Momoa have been cast in undisclosed roles in the film. Furthermore, the film is slated to be directed by Kitao Sakurai (Bad Trip). Obviously this will prove to be just the beginning of an ensemble that has plenty of space to grow—the original and still most influential Street Fighter II game features 12 characters alone in its most base version—but already from these four male leads, we get an idea of who might be the main characters for the new cinematic interpretation… as well as perhaps what direction the series could be taking.

Andrew Koji

Let’s start with the most obvious bit of casting: Andrew Koji is almost certainly intended to play Ryu, the Street Fighter franchise’s closest thing to a protagonist and hero. Video gamers might be most familiar with Koji from playing the villainous Storm Shadow opposite Henry Golding in 2021’s Snake Eyes movie, but the British Koji has some real martial arts bonafides in his career after starring in Cinemax’s Warrior where Koji portrayed Ah Sahm, a character that was once the dream role of Bruce Lee. He also appeared as an assassin opposite Brad Pitt in Bullet Train.

In addition to Koji’s Japanese heritage, his casting as Ryu makes sense after Hollywood bizarrely sidelined the fan favorite character in previous adaptations. While the 1994 film is a kitschy camp classic in some circles, many still have frustration over Capcom choosing to make the main character all-American soldier Col. William Guile (likely to appeal to the American box office at the time). Ryu was played in that Steven E. de Souza movie by Byron Mann, but also as something of a sidekick to not only Guile but also the other American character, Ken Masters (Damian Chapa).

And none of the above characters appeared at all in the other Hollywood Street Fighter movie, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009). So this is a chance to put the Hollywood lens where it always belonged…

Noah Centineo

Speaking of Ryu and Ken though, you cannot have one without the other. Usually depicted in the fighting games as BFFs (though not always), these respective Japanese and American playable characters act as doppelgängers with many of the same moves and power sets, including the beloved hadouken. So the young American Centineo, who is perhaps best known for appearing in Netflix’s To All the Boys I Love trilogy—as well as the Disney Channel’s Austin & Ally and as the superhero Atom Smasher in Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam—makes perfect sense as Ken.

More headstrong and arrogant than Ryu, Ken is a proper yankee foil to the stoic hero of the story, and the opportunity for a screenwriter to really play up some bromance dynamics.

Jason Momoa

Now we come to what is obviously the biggest name casting in the film, and where speculation gets a little harder. Who is Jason Momoa, the once and future DC actor with both Aquaman and Lobo on his resume, going to play?

We don’t know for certain, but Jimmy Blanka seems like an obviously good guess. In the games, Blanka was a nominally human character until a plane crash in the Brazil rainforest somehow(!) resulted in a mutation that turned Blanka’s skin lime green, his hair orange, and his teeth into fangs. Even his blood is now charged by the shock of lightning!

Look…. folks took video game storylines and lore a lot less seriously in the early ‘90s. And back in the day of bright colors and extreme sports, Blanka’s extremely wicked aesthetics were a fan favorite. The feral fella also seems like a natural fit for Momoa who enjoys leaning from time to time in barbaric imagery, be it Game of Thrones or more recently Lobo. Granted, he also is now the family friendly face of another video game franchise for all ages via Minecraft, but we think Street Fighter will be a chance for him to return to his more familiar well with a new generation of budding action aficionados.

Roman Reigns

Finally we come to the most difficult piece of casting to wrap our heads around: WWE wrestler and former footballer Roman Reigns. The Georgia Tech alumni has been cast in an undisclosed role which offers a lot of possibilities, and it’s worth noting that the first wave of casting has not included any obvious choice for one of the Street Fighter franchise’s biggest villains: M. Bison and Viktor Sagat.

Reigns could easily become a clean shaven Bison. But we suspect the American entertainer will be cast as the all-American Col. Guile instead. While it seems likely the new Street Fighter will seek to avoid the mistakes of the 1994 movie’s reputation, including by supplanting the Japanese Ryu with the American Guile (and then strangely insisting on casting a Belgian in the role), Guile is still a fan favorite. And again, once Reigns shaves the beard and trades in long locks for a platinum mane, he could certainly pass for a square-jawed hero. And who knows, maybe if the new Street Fighter follows the original games’ fighting tournament setup, the film might even begin with Guile taking a beating from Ken and Ryu? That would establish this no longer Jean-Claude Van Damme’s kind of action movie…

*Editor’s Note: While no casting is confirmed after press time Jeff Sneider has reported that Reigns is actually cast as Akuma, a hidden final boss from a later iteration of Street Fighter II. It would make sense to cast Reigns as a villain, however it is worth noting Akuma is Japanese in the video game.

The new Street Fighter movie does not currently have a release date.

The post New Street Fighter Movie: Who Is Playing Who? appeared first on Den of Geek.

But what on earth is a passionate burnout?

Envision a person determined to do it all. She is homeschooling two wonderful children while her father, who works remotely, is furthermore working remotely. She has a demanding customer weight at work—all of whom she loves. She wakes up early to get some movement in ( or frequently catch up on work ), prepares dinner while the kids are having breakfast, and works while positioning herself near the end of her “fourth grade” to watch as she balances clients, tasks, and budgets. Sound like a bit? Yet with a supportive group both at home and at work, it is.

Sounds like this person needs self-care because she has too much on her disk. But no, she doesn’t have occasion for that. She begins to feel as though she’s dropping pellets. No accomplishing enough. There’s not enough of her to be here and that, she is trying to divide her head in two all the time, all day, every day. She begins to question herself. And as those thoughts creep in more and more, her domestic tale becomes more and more important.

She KNOWS what she needs to complete right away! She may DO MORE.

This is a challenging and dangerous period. Know the reason. Because when she doesn’t end that new purpose, that storyline will get worse. She immediately starts failing. She isn’t doing much. SHE is not enough. She may fail, she might refuse her family, but she’ll discover more to do. She doesn’t nap as much, proceed because much, all in the attempts to do more. Not succeeds in any objective target despite constantly trying to prove herself to herself. Not feeling “enough”.

But, yeah, that’s what zealous burnout looks like for me. It doesn’t develop immediately in a magnificent sign; it develops gradually over the course of several weeks and months. My burning out procedure looks like speeding up, not a man losing focus. I move up and up and up, and therefore I simply quit.

I am the one who was

It’s amusing the things that shape us. Through the camera of my own childhood, I witnessed the battles, sacrifices, and concerns of someone who had to make it all work without having much. I was happy that my mom was so competent and my dad sympathetic, I never went without and also got an extra here or there.

When my mother gave me food stamps as a child, I didn’t think shame; rather, I would have good started any debates about the subject, orally eviscerating anyone who dared to criticize the handicapped girl who was attempting to ensure all of our needs were met with so little. As a child, I watched the way the worry of not making those ends meet impacted persons I love. As the non-disabled people in my home, I did take on many of the real things because I was” the one who was” make our lives a little easier. I soon realized that putting more of myself into it was linked to fears or confusion; I am the one who does. I learned first that when something frightens me, I can double down and work harder to make it better. I am capable of taking on the problem. When people have seen this in me as an child, I’ve been told I seem brave, but make no mistake, I’m not. If I seem courageous, it’s because this conduct was forged from other people’s worries.

And here I am, more than 30 years afterward, despite the overwhelming pressures that come with putting my mind to work on them when I have many things to do and that I may. I find myself driven to prove that I may make things happen if I work longer hours, taking on more responsibility, and do more.

Because I have seen how powerful a fiscally challenged person can be, I don’t think they are failures because they are pulled down by that flood. I really get that I have been privileged to be able to prevent many of the issues that were current in my children. That said, I am also” the one who can” who feels she does, but if I were faced with not having much to make ends meet for my own home, I do see myself as having failed. Despite my best efforts and education, the majority of this is due to chance. I will, but, permit myself the pride of saying I have been cautious with my options to have encouraged that chance. My sense of identity comes from the notion that I am” the one who can” and feel compelled to accomplish the most. I can choose to halt, and with some pretty precise warm water splashed in my experience, I’ve made the choice to previously. But that choosing to stop is not my go-to, I move forward, driven by a concern that is so a part of me that I hardly notice it’s it until I’m feeling absolutely worn away.

Why the long story, then? You see, stress is a volatile thing. Over the years, I have read and heard a lot about stress. Stress is true. Especially today, with COVID, many of us are balancing more than we ever have before—all at once! It’s difficult, and the evasion, shutting down, and procrastination have an impact on so many wonderful experts. There are significant articles that relate to what I imagine must get the majority of people out there, but not me. That’s not how my fatigue appears.

The harmful darkness of passionate burnout

A lot of labor conditions see the more time, more energy, and general focused responsibility as an asset ( and sometimes that’s all it is ). They see anyone attempting to overcome obstacles, not a person who is ensnared in fear. Some well-meaning companies have safeguards in place to protect their clubs from stress. However, in situations like this, alarms don’t usually ring, and some business members are surprised and depressed when the inevitable prevent occurs. And maybe even actually betrayed.

Parents—more but mother, mathematically speaking—are praised as being so on bottom of it all when they can work, get involved in the after-school activities, exercise self-care in the form of diet and exercise, and also meet friends for coffee or wine. Many of us watched endless streaming COVID episodes to see how challenging the female protagonist is, but she is strong, funny, and capable of doing it. It’s a “very special episode” when she breaks down, cries in the bathroom, woefully admits she needs help, and just stops for a bit. Truth be told, countless people are hidden in tears or doom-scrolling to escape. We know that the media is a lie to amuse us, but often the perception that it’s what we should strive for has penetrated much of society.

Women and burnout

I cherish men. And though I don’t love every man ( heads up, I don’t love every woman or nonbinary person either ), I think there is a beautiful spectrum of individuals who represent that particular binary gender.

Despite this, especially in these COVID stressed out times, women are still more likely than their male counterparts to be burnout vulnerable. Mothers in the workplace feel the pressure to do all the “mom” things while giving 110 %. Mothers not in the workplace feel they need to do more to” justify” their lack of traditional employment. Women who are not mothers frequently feel the need to work even more because they aren’t under that much pressure at home. It’s vicious and systemic and so a part of our culture that we’re often not even aware of the enormity of the pressures we put on ourselves and each other.

And there are costs that go beyond happiness. Harvard Health Publishing released a study a decade ago that “uncovered strong links between women’s job stress and cardiovascular disease”. The CDC noted,” Heart disease is the leading cause of death for women in the United States, killing 299, 578 women in 2017—or about 1 in every 5 female deaths”.

According to what I’ve read, this connection between work stress and health is more dangerous for women than it is for their non-female counterparts.

But what if your burnout isn’t like that either?

That might not be you either. After all, each of us is so different and how we respond to stressors is too. It’s part of what makes us human. Don’t put too much emphasis on how burnout manifests; rather, learn to recognize it in yourself. Here are a few questions I sometimes ask friends if I am concerned about them.

Are you content? This simple question should be the first thing you ask yourself. Chances are, even if you’re burning out doing all the things you love, as you approach burnout you’ll just stop taking as much joy from it all.

Do you feel like you have the authority to decline? I have observed in myself and others that when someone is burning out, they no longer feel they can say no to things. Even those who don’t” speed up” feel pressured to say yes to not let the people around them be disappointed.

What are three things you’ve done for yourself? Another observance is that we all tend to stop doing things for ourselves. anything from avoiding conversations with friends to skipping showers and eating poorly. These can be red flags.

Are you using justifications? Many of us try to disregard feelings of burnout. Over and over I have heard,” It’s just crunch time”,” As soon as I do this one thing, it will all be better”, and” Well I should be able to handle this, so I’ll figure it out”. And it could be just one more thing you need to learn, or it might just be crunch time. That happens—life happens. BUT if all of this doesn’t stop, be open to yourself. If you’ve worked more 50-hour weeks since January than not, maybe it’s not crunch time—maybe it’s a bad situation that you’re burning out from.

Do you have a plan to stop feeling this way? If something has an exit route with a pause button if it is only temporary and you have to push through it.
defined end.

Take the time to listen to yourself like you would a friend. Be honest, allow yourself to be uncomfortable, and break the thought cycles that prevent you from healing.

So now what?

What I just described has a different path to burnout, but it’s still burnout. There are well-established approaches to working through burnout:

• Get enough sleep.
• Eat healthy.
• Work out.
• Go outside.
• Take a break.
• Practice self-care in general.

Those are hard for me because they feel like more tasks. If I’m in the burnout cycle, doing any of the above for me feels like a waste. Why would I take care of myself when I’m dropping all those other balls, according to the narrative? People need me, right?

Your inner voice might be pretty bad by now if you’re deeply in the cycle. If you need to, tell yourself you need to take care of the person your people depend on. If your roles are pushing you toward burnout, use them to help make healing easier by justifying the time spent working on you.

I have come up with a few things that I do when I start to feel like I’m going into a zealous burnout to help remind myself of the airline attendant advice to put the mask on yourself first.

Cook an elaborate meal for someone!

Okay, since I’m a “food-focused” person, cooking for someone always comes naturally to my mind. There are countless tales in my home of someone walking into the kitchen and turning right around and walking out when they noticed I was” chopping angrily”. But it’s more than that, and you should give it a try. Seriously. It’s the perfect go-to if you don’t feel worthy of taking time for yourself—do it for someone else. Because the majority of us work in a digital world, cooking can pique all of your senses and make you feel present in the moment in all your ways of seeing the world. It can break you out of your head and help you gain a better perspective. In my house, I’ve been known to pick a place on the map and cook food that comes from wherever that is ( thank you, Pinterest ). I enjoy making Indian food because it’s warm and the bread needs just enough kneading to keep my hands busy, and the process requires real attention because it’s not what I was raised to do. And in the end, we all win!

Vent like a sniveling jerk.

Be careful with this one!

I have been making an effort to practice more gratitude over the past few years, and I recognize the true benefits of that. Having said that, sometimes you just need to let it all out, even the ugly ones. Hell, I’m a big fan of not sugarcoating our lives, and that sometimes means that to get past the big pile of poop, you’re gonna wanna complain about it a bit.

When that is required, approach a trusted friend and express your concerns verbally. You need to trust this friend not to judge, to see your pain, and, most importantly, to tell you to remove your cranium from your own rectal cavity. Seriously, it’s about getting a reality check here! One of the things that I admire most about my husband is how he manages to simplify things down to the simplest. ” We’re spending our lives together, of course you’re going to disappoint me from time to time, so get over it” has been his way of speaking his dedication, love, and acceptance of me—and I could not be more grateful. Of course, it also required that I take my head out of that rectal cavity. So, again, usually those moments are appreciated in hindsight.

Pick up a book!

There are many books out there that are more like you sharing their stories and how they’ve come to find greater balance than they are self-help. Maybe you’ll find something that speaks to you. Among the titles that have stood out to me are:

• Thrive by Arianna Huffington
• Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss
• Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis
• Dare to Lead by Brené Brown

Or, if I love to read or listen to a book that doesn’t have anything to do with my work-life balance, I can use another tactic. I’ve read the following books and found they helped balance me out because my mind was pondering their interesting topics instead of running in circles:

• The Drunken Botanist by Amy Stewart
• Darin Olien’s Superlife
• A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived by Adam Rutherford
• Toby Hemenway’s Gaia’s Garden

If you’re not into reading, pick up a topic on YouTube or choose a podcast to subscribe to. I’ve watched countless permaculture and gardening topics in addition to how to raise chickens and ducks. For the record, I don’t currently have a particularly large food garden or raise any kind of livestock. I just find the topic interesting, and it has nothing to do with any aspect of my life that needs anything from me.

Give yourself a break.

You are never going to be perfect—hell, it would be boring if you were. It’s OK to be broken and flawed. It’s human nature to be depressed, anxious, and tired. It’s OK to not do it all. You can’t be brave without being imperfect, which is scary, but you can’t be brave without being imperfect.

This last one is the most important: allow yourself permission to NOT do it all. You never promised to be everything to everyone at all times. Our fears determine our strength, not ours.

This is hard. It is challenging for me. It’s what’s driven me to write this—that it’s OK to stop. It’s OK that your unhealthy habit that might even benefit those around you needs to end. You can still succeed in life.

I recently read that we are all writing our eulogy in how we live. What will your professional accomplishments say, knowing that yours won’t be mentioned in that speech? What do you want it to say?

Look, I get that none of these ideas will “fix it”, and that’s not their purpose. None of us has complete control over what happens in our environment, but only how we react to it. These suggestions are to help stop the spiral effect so that you are empowered to address the underlying issues and choose your response. Most of the time, I find these to be effective. Maybe they’ll work for you.

Does this sound familiar?

If something sounds familiar, you are not alone. Don’t let your negative self-talk tell you that you “even burn out wrong”. It is not improper. Even if rooted in fear like my own drivers, I believe that this need to do more comes from a place of love, determination, motivation, and other wonderful attributes that make you the amazing person you are. We’re going to be OK, ya know. The lives that come before us might never have the same meaning as the one we’re striving for, which is acceptable because the only way to judge is in the mirror when we stop and look around.

Do you remember that Winnie the Pooh sketch that had Pooh eat so much at Rabbit’s house that his buttocks couldn’t fit through the door? It came as no surprise when he abruptly declared that this was unacceptable because I already associate a lot with Rabbit. But do you recall what happened next? He put a shelf across poor Pooh’s ankles and decorations on his back, and made the best of the big butt in his kitchen.

We are resourceful and aware that we can push ourselves when we are needed, even when we are exhausted to the core or have a ton of clutter in our room. None of us has to be afraid, as we can manage any obstacle put in front of us. And maybe that means we need to redefine success in order to make room for comfort in human nature, but that doesn’t really sound so bad either.

So, wherever you are right now, please breathe. Do what you need to do to get out of your head. Give thanks and be considerate.