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When you begin to believe you have everything figured out, everything will change. This is a one piece of advice I can give to friends and family when they become innovative families. Simply as you start to get the hang of injections, diapers, and ordinary sleep, it’s time for solid foods, potty training, and nighttime sleep. When those are determined, school and occasional sleeps are in order. The cycle goes on and on.

The same holds true for those of us who are currently employed in design and development. 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. Every day we as developers and designers re-enter a routine music, a brand-new concept or technology emerges to shake things up and completely alter 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 development of online requirements

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 language like PHP, Java, and.NET took Perl as the primary back-end computers, and the cgi-bin was tossed in the garbage bin. With these improved server-side equipment, the first period of internet programs started with content-management methods (especially those used in blogs like Blogger, Grey Matter, Movable Type, and WordPress ) In the mid-2000s, AJAX opened gates for sequential interaction between the front end and back finish. Pages was now revise their content without having to reload it. A grain of Script frameworks like Prototype, YUI, and ruby arose to aid developers develop more credible client-side conversation across browsers that had wildly varying levels of standards support. Techniques like image replacement enable the use of fonts by skilled designers and developers. And technologies like Flash made it possible to add animations, games, and even more interactivity.

These new methods, standards, and technologies greatly reenergized the sector. Web design flourished as designers and developers explored more diverse styles and layouts. However, we still relied heavily on numerous 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 ). All kinds of nested floats or absolute positioning were required for complicated layouts ( 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. Additionally, JavaScript libraries made it simple for anyone to add a dash of interaction to pages, even at the expense of double or even quadrupling the download size of basic websites.

The web as software platform

The interplay between the front end and the back end continued to grow, which led to the development of 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. Along with these tools, there were additional options, such as collaborative build automation, collaborative version control, and shared package libraries. What was once primarily an environment for linked documents became a realm of infinite possibilities.

Mobile devices also increased in their capabilities, and they gave us access to internet in our pockets at the same time. Mobile apps and responsive design opened up opportunities for new interactions anywhere and any time.

The development of social media and other centralized tools for people to connect and use resulted from this combination of potent mobile devices and potent development tools. 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 provided connections on a global scale, with both the positive and negative effects.

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

Where we are now

It seems like we’ve reached yet another significant turning point in the last couple of years. As social-media platforms fracture and wane, there’s been a growing interest in owning our own content again. From the tried-and-true classic of hosting plain HTML files to static site generators and content management systems of all kinds, there are many different ways to create websites. The fracturing of social media also comes with a cost: we lose crucial infrastructure for discovery and connection. The IndieWeb‘s Webmentions, RSS, ActivityPub, and other tools can assist with this, but they’re still largely underdeveloped and difficult to use for the less geeky. 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 standards like web components like CSS, JavaScript, and other standards has increased, particularly with efforts like Interop. New technologies gain support across the board in a fraction of the time that they used to. I frequently find out about a new feature and check its browser support only to discover that its coverage has already exceeded 80 %. 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.

With a few commands and a few lines of code, we can currently prototype almost any concept. All the tools that we now have available make it easier than ever to start something new. However, as we upgrade and maintain these frameworks, we eventually pay the upfront costs that these frameworks may initially save in terms 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 previously made it easier to adopt new techniques sooner, have since evolved into obstacles. 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 frequently, when scripts fail ( whether due to poor code, network problems, or other environmental factors ), users are left with blank or broken pages.

Where do we go from here?

Hacks of today help to shape standards for the future. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with embracing hacks —for now—to move the present forward. Problems only arise when we refuse to acknowledge that they are hacks or when we refuse to take their place. 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 associated with those user-friendly tools. They may make your job a little easier today, but how do they affect everything else? What does each user pay? To future developers? To adoption of standards? Sometimes the convenience may be worth it. Sometimes it’s just a hack that you’ve gotten used to. And sometimes it’s holding you back from even better options.

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

Design with care. Consider the effects of each choice, whether your craft is code, pixels, or processes. 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. Use the time saved by modern tools to think more carefully and make decisions with care rather than rushing to “move fast and break things”

Always be learning. If you’re constantly learning, you’re also developing. Sometimes it may be hard to pinpoint what’s worth learning and what’s just today’s hack. Even if you were to concentrate solely on learning standards, you might end up focusing on something that won’t matter next year. ( Remember XHTML? ) However, ongoing learning opens up new neural connections in your brain, and the techniques you learn in one day may be used to inform different experiments in the future.

Play, experiment, and be weird! The ultimate experiment is this web that we’ve created. It’s the single largest human endeavor in history, and yet each of us can create our own pocket within it. Be brave and try something new. Build a playground for ideas. Create absurd experiments in your own crazy science lab. Start your own small business. There has never been a place where we have more room to be creative, take risks, and discover our potential.

Share and amplify. Share what you think has worked for you as you experiment, play, and learn. 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 ahead and create a masterpiece.

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 give everything we produce a positive vibe by infusing our values into everything we do. Create that thing that only you are uniquely qualified to make. Then share it, improve it, re-use it, or create something new. Learn. Make. Share. grow. Rinse and repeat. Everything will change whenever you believe you have mastered the web.

This is in the photo. You’ve joined a club at your business that’s designing innovative product features with an focus on technology or AI. Or perhaps your business only started using a personalization website. Either way, you’re designing with information. What’s next? When it comes to designing for personalization, there are many warning stories, no immediately achievement, and some guidelines for the baffled.

The personalization gap is real, between the dream of getting it right and the worry of it going wrong ( like when we encounter “persofails” similar to a company’s repeated pleas for more toilet seats from regular people ). It’s an particularly confusing place to be a modern professional without a map, a map, or a strategy.

There are no Lonely Planet and some tour guides for those of you who want to personalize because successful personalization depends so much on each group’s talent, technology, and market position.

But you can ensure that your group has packed its carriers reasonably.

There’s a DIY method to increase your chances for victory. You’ll at least at least disarm your boss ‘ irrational exuberance. Before the group you’ll need to properly plan.

We refer to it as prepersonalization.

Behind the audio

Take into account the DJ have on Spotify, which was introduced last month.

We’re used to seeing the polished final outcome of a personalization have. A personal have had to be developed, budgeted, and given priority before the year-end prize, the making-of-backstory, or the behind-the-scenes success chest. Before any customisation have goes live in your product or service, it lives amid a delay of valuable ideas for expressing consumer experiences more automatically.

How do you decide where to position personalisation wagers? How do you design regular interactions that didn’t journey up users or—worse—breed mistrust? We’ve discovered that several budgeted programs second required one or more workshops to join key stakeholders and domestic customers of the technology in order to justify their continuing investments. Make it matter.

We’ve closely observed the same evolution with our consumers, from major software to young companies. In our experience with working on small and large personalization work, a program’s best monitor record—and its capacity to weather tough questions, work steadily toward shared answers, and manage its design and engineering efforts—turns on how successfully these prepersonalization activities play out.

Successful seminars consistently separate successful future endeavors from ineffective ones, saving many hours of time, resources, and overall well-being.

A personalization training involves a protracted work of testing and function development. Your technical load is not experiencing a switch-flip. It’s ideal managed as a delay that usually evolves through three actions:

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 democratic personalization platform and why we’re field-testing an following deck of cards: we believe that there’s a foundation grammar, a set of “nouns and verbs” that your organization can use to style experiences that are customized, personalized, or automated. These cards are not necessary for you. But we strongly recommend that you create something similar, whether that might be digital or physical.

Set the timer for your kitchen.

How long does it take to cook up a prepersonalization workshop? The activities we suggest including during the assessment can ( and frequently do ) last for weeks. For the core workshop, we recommend aiming for two to three days. Here are a summary of our broad approach and information on the most crucial first-day activities.

The full arc of the wider workshop is threefold:

Kickstart: This specifies the terms of your engagement as you concentrate on both your team’s and your team’s readiness and drive.
1. 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.
2. Work your plan: This stage essentially entails creating a competitive environment in which team members can individually present 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: Apt your appetite

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

Create a conversation by mentioning consumer 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. These cards contain a catalog, which we have. Here’s a list of 142 different interactions to jog your thinking.

It’s all about setting the tone. What are the possible paths for the practice in your organization? Here’s a long-form primer and a strategic framework for a broad perspective.

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 break down connected experiences into five categories: functions, features, experiences, complete products, and portfolios. Size your own build here. This will help to draw attention to the benefits of ongoing investment as well as the difference between what you currently offer and what you intend to offer 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 crucial because it emphasizes how personalization can affect your own ways of working as well as your external customers. 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 decide where their focus should be placed for your product or service. Naturally, you can’t prioritize all of them. Here, the goal is to show how various departments may view their own benefits from the effort, which can vary from one department 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 filling in the personalization gap. Is your customer journey well documented? Will compliance with data and privacy be a significant challenge? Do you have content metadata needs that you have to address? It’s just a matter of acknowledging the magnitude of that need and finding a solution ( we’re fairly certain that you do ). In our cards, we’ve noted a number of program risks, including common team dispositions. For instance, our Detractor card lists six intractable stakeholder attitudes that prevent progress.

Effectively collaborating and managing expectations is critical to your success. Consider the potential obstacles to your upcoming progress. Press the participants to name specific steps to overcome or mitigate those barriers in your organization. As research has shown, personalization initiatives face a number of common obstacles.

At this point, you’ve hopefully discussed sample interactions, emphasized a key area of benefit, and flagged key gaps? Good, you’re all set to go on.

Hit that test kitchen

Next, let’s take a look at what you’ll need to create personalization recipes. Personalization engines, which are robust software suites for automating and expressing dynamic content, can intimidate new customers. They give you a variety of options for how your organization can conduct its activities because of their broad and potent capabilities. This presents the question: Where do you begin when you’re configuring a connected experience?

The key here is to avoid treating the installed software like some imagined kitchen from a fantasy remodeling project ( as one of our client executives humorously 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.

Over the course of the workshop, the ultimate menu of the prioritized backlog will come together. 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.

Recipes have ingredients in them, and those recipes have ingredients.

Verify your ingredients

Like a good product manager, you’ll make sure you have everything you need to make your desired interaction ( or that you can figure out what needs to be added to your pantry ) and that you validate with the right stakeholders present. 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.

Not just discovering requirements, it is. Documenting your personalizations as a series of if-then statements lets the team:

1. compare findings to a common strategy for developing features, similar to how artists paint with the same color palette,
2. specify a consistent set of interactions that users find uniform or familiar,
3. and establish parity between all important performance indicators and performance metrics.

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.

Create a recipe.

What ingredients are important to you? Consider the construct “what-what-when-why”

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

Five years ago, we developed these cards and card categories for the first time. We regularly play-test their fit with conference audiences and clients. And we still come across fresh possibilities. But they all follow an underlying who-what-when-why logic.

In the cards in the accompanying photo below, you can typically follow along with right to left in three examples of subscription-based reading apps.

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: An email is sent when a new user registers to highlight the breadth of the content catalog and convert them to happy subscribers.
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.

We’ve also found that cocreating the recipes themselves can sometimes be the most effective way to start brainstorming about what these cards might be for your organization. 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.

The workshop’s later stages could be characterized as shifting from focusing on a cookbook to 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 architecture is necessary for better kitchens.

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

When a team is overfitting, it’s because they aren’t designing with their best data, which is why personalization turns into a laugh line. Like a sparse pantry, every organization has metadata debt to go along with its technical debt, and this creates a drag on personalization effectiveness. For instance, your AI’s output quality is in fact impacted 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 withstand the heat without a doubt.

Personalization technology opens a doorway into a confounding ocean of possible designs. Only a disciplined and highly collaborative approach will produce the necessary concentration and intention for success. So banish the dream kitchen. Instead, head to the test kitchen to save time, preserve job security, and avoid imagining the creative concepts that come from the doers in your organization. There are meals to serve and mouths to feed.

You have a better chance of lasting success and sound beginnings with this workshop framework. Wiring up your information layer isn’t an overnight affair. However, if you use the same cookbook and the same recipe combination, you’ll have solid ground for success. We designed these activities to make your organization’s needs concrete and clear, long before the hazards pile up.

Although there are associated costs associated with purchasing this kind of technology and product design, your time well spent is on sizing up and confronting your unique situation and digital skills. Don’t squander it. The pudding is the proof, as they say.

Ever since I was a boy, I’ve been fascinated with movies. I loved the characters and the excitement—but most of all the stories. I wanted to be an actor. And I believed that I’d get to do the things that Indiana Jones did and go on exciting adventures. I even dreamed up ideas for movies that my friends and I could make and star in. But they never went any further. I did, however, end up working in user experience (UX). Now, I realize that there’s an element of theater to UX—I hadn’t really considered it before, but user research is storytelling. And to get the most out of user research, you need to tell a good story where you bring stakeholders—the product team and decision makers—along and get them interested in learning more.

Think of your favorite movie. More than likely it follows a three-act structure that’s commonly seen in storytelling: the setup, the conflict, and the resolution. The first act shows what exists today, and it helps you get to know the characters and the challenges and problems that they face. Act two introduces the conflict, where the action is. Here, problems grow or get worse. And the third and final act is the resolution. This is where the issues are resolved and the characters learn and change. I believe that this structure is also a great way to think about user research, and I think that it can be especially helpful in explaining user research to others.

Use storytelling as a structure to do research

It’s sad to say, but many have come to see research as being expendable. If budgets or timelines are tight, research tends to be one of the first things to go. Instead of investing in research, some product managers rely on designers or—worse—their own opinion to make the “right” choices for users based on their experience or accepted best practices. That may get teams some of the way, but that approach can so easily miss out on solving users’ real problems. To remain user-centered, this is something we should avoid. User research elevates design. It keeps it on track, pointing to problems and opportunities. Being aware of the issues with your product and reacting to them can help you stay ahead of your competitors.

In the three-act structure, each act corresponds to a part of the process, and each part is critical to telling the whole story. Let’s look at the different acts and how they align with user research.

Act one: setup

The setup is all about understanding the background, and that’s where foundational research comes in. Foundational research (also called generative, discovery, or initial research) helps you understand users and identify their problems. You’re learning about what exists today, the challenges users have, and how the challenges affect them—just like in the movies. To do foundational research, you can conduct contextual inquiries or diary studies (or both!), which can help you start to identify problems as well as opportunities. It doesn’t need to be a huge investment in time or money.

Erika Hall writes about minimum viable ethnography, which can be as simple as spending 15 minutes with a user and asking them one thing: “‘Walk me through your day yesterday.’ That’s it. Present that one request. Shut up and listen to them for 15 minutes. Do your damndest to keep yourself and your interests out of it. Bam, you’re doing ethnography.” According to Hall, “[This] will probably prove quite illuminating. In the highly unlikely case that you didn’t learn anything new or useful, carry on with enhanced confidence in your direction.”  

This makes total sense to me. And I love that this makes user research so accessible. You don’t need to prepare a lot of documentation; you can just recruit participants and do it! This can yield a wealth of information about your users, and it’ll help you better understand them and what’s going on in their lives. That’s really what act one is all about: understanding where users are coming from. 

Jared Spool talks about the importance of foundational research and how it should form the bulk of your research. If you can draw from any additional user data that you can get your hands on, such as surveys or analytics, that can supplement what you’ve heard in the foundational studies or even point to areas that need further investigation. Together, all this data paints a clearer picture of the state of things and all its shortcomings. And that’s the beginning of a compelling story. It’s the point in the plot where you realize that the main characters—or the users in this case—are facing challenges that they need to overcome. Like in the movies, this is where you start to build empathy for the characters and root for them to succeed. And hopefully stakeholders are now doing the same. Their sympathy may be with their business, which could be losing money because users can’t complete certain tasks. Or maybe they do empathize with users’ struggles. Either way, act one is your initial hook to get the stakeholders interested and invested.

Once stakeholders begin to understand the value of foundational research, that can open doors to more opportunities that involve users in the decision-making process. And that can guide product teams toward being more user-centered. This benefits everyone—users, the product, and stakeholders. It’s like winning an Oscar in movie terms—it often leads to your product being well received and successful. And this can be an incentive for stakeholders to repeat this process with other products. Storytelling is the key to this process, and knowing how to tell a good story is the only way to get stakeholders to really care about doing more research. 

This brings us to act two, where you iteratively evaluate a design or concept to see whether it addresses the issues.

Act two: conflict

Act two is all about digging deeper into the problems that you identified in act one. This usually involves directional research, such as usability tests, where you assess a potential solution (such as a design) to see whether it addresses the issues that you found. The issues could include unmet needs or problems with a flow or process that’s tripping users up. Like act two in a movie, more issues will crop up along the way. It’s here that you learn more about the characters as they grow and develop through this act. 

Usability tests should typically include around five participants according to Jakob Nielsen, who found that that number of users can usually identify most of the problems: “As you add more and more users, you learn less and less because you will keep seeing the same things again and again… After the fifth user, you are wasting your time by observing the same findings repeatedly but not 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. Having fewer participants means that each user’s struggles will be more memorable and easier to relay to other stakeholders when talking about 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.

Researchers have run usability tests in person for decades, but you can also conduct usability tests remotely using tools 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 can think of in-person usability tests like going to a play and remote sessions as more like watching a movie. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. In-person usability research is a much richer experience. Stakeholders can experience the sessions with other stakeholders. You also get real-time reactions—including surprise, agreement, disagreement, and discussions about 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 in-person usability testing is like watching a play—staged and controlled—then conducting usability testing in the field is like immersive theater where any two sessions might 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 go out to meet users at their location to do your research. 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. As researchers, you have less control over how these sessions go, but this can sometimes help you understand users even better. Meeting users where they are can provide clues to the external forces that could be affecting how they use your product. In-person usability tests provide another level of detail that’s often missing from remote usability tests. 

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

The benefit of usability testing, whether remote or in person, is that you get to see real users interact with the designs in real time, and you can ask them questions to understand their thought processes and grasp of the solution. This can help you not only identify problems but also glean why they’re problems in the first place. Furthermore, you can test hypotheses and gauge whether your thinking 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. Act two is the heart of the story—where the excitement is—but there can be surprises too. This is equally true of usability tests. Often, participants will say unexpected things, which change the way that you look at things—and these twists in the story can move things in new directions. 

Unfortunately, user research is sometimes seen as expendable. And too often usability testing is the only research process that some stakeholders think that they ever need. 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. That’s because you’re narrowing the focus of what you’re getting feedback on, without understanding the users’ needs. As a result, there’s no way of knowing whether the designs might solve a problem that users have. It’s only feedback on a particular design in the context of a usability test.  

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 illustrates the importance of doing both foundational and directional 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 help motivate stakeholders to address the issues that come up.

Act three: resolution

While the first two acts are about understanding the background and the tensions that can propel stakeholders into action, the third part is about resolving the problems from the first two acts. 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 means the whole product team, including developers, UX practitioners, business analysts, delivery managers, product managers, and any other stakeholders that have a say in the next steps. It allows the whole team to hear users’ feedback together, ask questions, and discuss what’s possible within the project’s constraints. And it lets the UX research and design teams clarify, suggest alternatives, or give more context behind their decisions. So you can get everyone on the same page and get agreement on the way forward.

This act is mostly told in 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 give the stakeholders their recommendations and their guidance on creating this vision.

Nancy Duarte in the Harvard Business Review offers an approach to structuring presentations that follow a persuasive story. “The most effective presenters use the same techniques as great storytellers: By reminding people of the status quo and then revealing the path to a better way, they set up 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 evidence for “what is”—the problems that you’ve identified. And “what could be”—your recommendations on how to address them. And so on and so 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 mockups of how a new design could look that solves a problem. These can help generate conversation and momentum. And this continues until the end of the session when you’ve wrapped everything up in the conclusion by summarizing the main issues and suggesting a way forward. 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 gives stakeholders the next steps and hopefully the momentum to take those steps!

While we are nearly at the end of this story, let’s reflect on the idea that user research is storytelling. All the elements of a good story are there in the three-act structure of user research: 

• Act one: You meet the protagonists (the users) and the antagonists (the problems affecting users). This is the beginning of the plot. In act one, researchers might use methods including contextual inquiry, ethnography, diary studies, surveys, and analytics. The output of these methods can include personas, empathy maps, user journeys, and analytics dashboards.

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

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

The researcher has multiple roles: they’re the storyteller, the director, and the producer. The participants have a small role, but they are significant characters (in the research). And the stakeholders are the audience. 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 stakeholders should walk away with a purpose and an eagerness to resolve the product’s ills. 

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. Ultimately, user research is a win-win for everyone, and you just need to get stakeholders interested in how the story ends.

How Businesses Can Thrive in Uncertain Times written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Bill Canady In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Bill Canady, seasoned business leader and author of From Panic to Profit. Bill has spent over 30 years driving business growth, leading industrial and consumer companies, and refining strategies that help businesses navigate uncertainty. He founded […]

How Businesses Can Thrive in Uncertain Times written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Bill Canady

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Bill Canady, seasoned business leader and author of From Panic to Profit. Bill has spent over 30 years driving business growth, leading industrial and consumer companies, and refining strategies that help businesses navigate uncertainty. He founded the 80-20 Institute to help organizations maximize efficiency, optimize operations, and scale profitably.

During our conversation, Bill shared invaluable insights on how businesses can not only survive but thrive during uncertain times. We explored the power of the 80/20 principle, the importance of business optimization, and why leaders must embrace change to maintain business efficiency and maximize profits.

Bill’s insights provide a practical roadmap for scaling a business while mitigating risks. By focusing on efficiency, strategic growth, and adaptability, businesses can turn uncertainty into opportunity.

Key Takeaways:

• Embrace the 80/20 Rule – Focus on the 20% of customers, products, and efforts that drive 80% of your revenue growth. This business strategy ensures efficiency and profitability.
• Optimize Before You Scale – Scaling without first improving operational efficiency can amplify inefficiencies. Businesses must earn the right to grow by eliminating waste and focusing on what works.
• Adapt to Market Changes – Interest rates, supply chain disruptions, and economic shifts create uncertainty. Business leadership requires agility and a proactive growth mindset to stay ahead.
• Invest in High-Value Customers – Instead of chasing every lead, customer focus should be on retaining and nurturing the most profitable relationships.
• Leverage AI and Technology – Tools like AI-driven insights and automation can help businesses enhance business efficiency, cut costs, and improve decision-making.
• Lead with Transparency and Strategy – Employees and stakeholders look to CEO tips and leadership for direction. A clear profit strategy backed by data fosters trust and alignment.

Chapters:

• [00:09] Introducing Bill Canady
• [01:01] What is Panic Mode for a Business?
• [03:54] The Stockdale Paradox
• [06:22] The 80/20 Principle
• [10:59] Small Customers that Need Much Attention
• [12:58] Earning the Right to Grow
• [15:11] Where to Start When Fixing Panic Mode
• [16:44] How Will AI Affect Business?

More About Bill Canady: 

• Check out Bill Canady’s Website
• Connect with Bill Canady on LinkedIn
• Read From Panic to Profit – Uncover Value, Boost Revenue, and Grow Your Business with the 80/20 Principle by Bill Canady’

 

Enormously influential video game publisher Electronic Arts has been synonymous with sports games for decades. The success of the Madden NFL and EA Sports FC franchises has led EA to expand its footprint into the realm of esports, regularly hosting tournaments, fan events, and brand activations that both organize and celebrate the communities around these […]

The post Couch to Champions: Behind EA’s Ambitious Esports Expansion appeared first on Den of Geek.

Warning: contains spoilers for Gangs of London series one and two.

Despite the main cast’s remarkable abilities to survive gunshots, torture, and brutal beatings, the life expectancy for a Gangs of London guest character is short. Series one said goodbye to a whole community of Welsh travellers, a Nigerian criminal gang, The Investors’ fixer Jevan, undercover police handler Vicky, new mayor of London Nasir, and any number of anonymous goons who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Series two saw the deaths of Alex Dumani, Finn Wallace’s mistress Floriana, and charismatic psychopath Koba.

All of which means that series three, all episodes of which are available to stream on Sky Go and NOW, is in need of some fresh blood, if only to splatter it all over the camera in one of the show’s expertly choreographed fight scenes. Here are the newcomers this time around, as well as the regular cast and characters you can expect to see.

Richard Dormer as Cornelius Quinn

Cornelius Quinn is a new Irish character with connections to the Wallaces. He’s played by Richard Dormer, an actor with a long and healthy career who’s perhaps best recognised for having played The Brotherhood Without Banners’ Beric Dondarrion in HBO’s Game of Thrones. Recently, you might have seen Dormer in Sky’s assassin-thriller The Day of the Jackal and political drama COBRA, or in BBC One’s excellent crime drama Blue Lights. Before that, he was a regular in Sky’s mystery thriller Fortitude, to name just a few roles.

T’Nia Miller as Simone Thearle, Mayor of London

Nasir Afridi successfully campaigned to become the Mayor of London in series one, but thanks to the vengeful Lale and her razorblade, his time in office was even shorter than that of Liz Truss. Perhaps new mayor Simone Thearle will have better luck? She’s played by T’Nia Miller, a stage and screen actor who gave an acclaimed performance in Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Bly Manor on Netflix, and returned for his The Fall of the House of Usher. Miller has had a fruitful working relationship with Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies, and played roles in his dramas Banana, Cucumber, and Years and Years, as well as appearing in Apple TV+ sci-fi Foundation and The Peripheral.

Andrew Koji as Zeek

Zeek is a mysterious hitman who turns out to have an intimate and tragic connection to one of series three’s main players. He’s played by Andrew Koji, a former stunt man and martial artist-turned-actor, who is best recognised for his central role as Ah Sahm in Cinemax’s Warrior. Koji has also starred alongside Brad Pitt in Bullet Train, in action movie Snake Eyes, played Brilliant Chang in Peaky Blinders, Basho in Boy Kills World, and Jason in Netflix assassin thriller Black Doves.

Phil Daniels as Ronnie Devereux

Phil Daniels joins Gangs of London series three fresh from the role of Maester Gerardys in HBO’s House of the Dragon. Since making his name in 1979 cult feature film Quadrophenia, Daniels has patchworked together a great career of character parts, from movies to television, including a long stint as Kevin Wicks in BBC One’s EastEnders, supporting parts in Channel 4’s Adult Material and Sky’s I Hate Suzie, and a guest role in BBC Two’s Inside No. 9.

Ruth Sheen as Deborah Devereux

Alongside Daniels will be Ruth Sheen in the role of Deborah Devereux. Sheen is a familiar face on British television, with recent roles in BBC One crime drama Strike and Sky fantasy series The Nevers, along with ITV’s Prime Suspect: 1973 and Unforgotten, following on from older parts in the likes of Cracker, Bramwell, The Bill, Accused, Misfits, and Mike Leigh’s Mr Turner.

Janet McTeer as Isobel Vaughn

Ozark and KAOS‘ Janet McTeer, who’s rumoured to be playing Professor Minerva McGonagall in the new Harry Potter TV series, appears in Gangs of London series three as the mysterious Isobel Vaughn.

RETURNING CHARACTERS

Sope Dirisu is back as Elliot Carter, a former undercover police officer who’s now a drug-running gang leader. Joe Cole returns as the incarcerated Sean Wallace, with Michelle Fairley as his mother Marian, and Brian Vernel as his brother Billy. Lucian Msamati and Pippa Bennett-Warner are back as Ed and Shannon Dumani.

Asif Raza Mir is back as Asif Afridi, alongside Narges Rashidi as Lale, and Orli Shuka as Luan. And Jasmine Armando and Fady Elsayed will return as Saba and Faz.

Gangs of London series 3 is streaming now on Sky Go and NOW in the UK.

The post Gangs of London Series 3 Cast: Meet the New Characters appeared first on Den of Geek.

“God has a plan for me and I cannot hide from his plan anymore,” says Yvonne Strahovski’s Serena Joy in the first full trailer for the final season of The Handmaid’s Tale. That plan appears to involve (ding ding) round two of life as the wife of a Gilead Commander. The trailer shows Serena as […]

The post Look Who’s Getting Married In The Handmaid’s Tale Season 6 Trailer appeared first on Den of Geek.

Warning: contains spoilers for Gangs of London series one and two.

Despite the main cast’s remarkable abilities to survive gunshots, torture, and brutal beatings, the life expectancy for a Gangs of London guest character is short. Series one said goodbye to a whole community of Welsh travellers, a Nigerian criminal gang, The Investors’ fixer Jevan, undercover police handler Vicky, new mayor of London Nasir, and any number of anonymous goons who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Series two saw the deaths of Alex Dumani, Finn Wallace’s mistress Floriana, and charismatic psychopath Koba.

All of which means that series three, all episodes of which are available to stream on Sky Go and NOW, is in need of some fresh blood, if only to splatter it all over the camera in one of the show’s expertly choreographed fight scenes. Here are the newcomers this time around, as well as the regular cast and characters you can expect to see.

Richard Dormer as Cornelius Quinn

Cornelius Quinn is a new Irish character with connections to the Wallaces. He’s played by Richard Dormer, an actor with a long and healthy career who’s perhaps best recognised for having played The Brotherhood Without Banners’ Beric Dondarrion in HBO’s Game of Thrones. Recently, you might have seen Dormer in Sky’s assassin-thriller The Day of the Jackal and political drama COBRA, or in BBC One’s excellent crime drama Blue Lights. Before that, he was a regular in Sky’s mystery thriller Fortitude, to name just a few roles.

T’Nia Miller as Simone Thearle, Mayor of London

Nasir Afridi successfully campaigned to become the Mayor of London in series one, but thanks to the vengeful Lale and her razorblade, his time in office was even shorter than that of Liz Truss. Perhaps new mayor Simone Thearle will have better luck? She’s played by T’Nia Miller, a stage and screen actor who gave an acclaimed performance in Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Bly Manor on Netflix, and returned for his The Fall of the House of Usher. Miller has had a fruitful working relationship with Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies, and played roles in his dramas Banana, Cucumber, and Years and Years, as well as appearing in Apple TV+ sci-fi Foundation and The Peripheral.

Andrew Koji as Zeek

Zeek is a mysterious hitman who turns out to have an intimate and tragic connection to one of series three’s main players. He’s played by Andrew Koji, a former stunt man and martial artist-turned-actor, who is best recognised for his central role as Ah Sahm in Cinemax’s Warrior. Koji has also starred alongside Brad Pitt in Bullet Train, in action movie Snake Eyes, played Brilliant Chang in Peaky Blinders, Basho in Boy Kills World, and Jason in Netflix assassin thriller Black Doves.

Phil Daniels as Ronnie Devereux

Phil Daniels joins Gangs of London series three fresh from the role of Maester Gerardys in HBO’s House of the Dragon. Since making his name in 1979 cult feature film Quadrophenia, Daniels has patchworked together a great career of character parts, from movies to television, including a long stint as Kevin Wicks in BBC One’s EastEnders, supporting parts in Channel 4’s Adult Material and Sky’s I Hate Suzie, and a guest role in BBC Two’s Inside No. 9.

Ruth Sheen as Deborah Devereux

Alongside Daniels will be Ruth Sheen in the role of Deborah Devereux. Sheen is a familiar face on British television, with recent roles in BBC One crime drama Strike and Sky fantasy series The Nevers, along with ITV’s Prime Suspect: 1973 and Unforgotten, following on from older parts in the likes of Cracker, Bramwell, The Bill, Accused, Misfits, and Mike Leigh’s Mr Turner.

Janet McTeer as Isobel Vaughn

Ozark and KAOS‘ Janet McTeer, who’s rumoured to be playing Professor Minerva McGonagall in the new Harry Potter TV series, appears in Gangs of London series three as the mysterious Isobel Vaughn.

RETURNING CHARACTERS

Sope Dirisu is back as Elliot Carter, a former undercover police officer who’s now a drug-running gang leader. Joe Cole returns as the incarcerated Sean Wallace, with Michelle Fairley as his mother Marian, and Brian Vernel as his brother Billy. Lucian Msamati and Pippa Bennett-Warner are back as Ed and Shannon Dumani.

Asif Raza Mir is back as Asif Afridi, alongside Narges Rashidi as Lale, and Orli Shuka as Luan. And Jasmine Armando and Fady Elsayed will return as Saba and Faz.

Gangs of London series 3 is streaming now on Sky Go and NOW in the UK.

The post Gangs of London Series 3 Cast: Meet the New Characters appeared first on Den of Geek.

Mortal Kombat 2, directed by Simon McQuoid, is set to hit theaters this October. The previous movie from 2021 ended with three big reasons to stick around for the sequel. First, as the film was itself a “Surf Dracula” narrative, we were finally going to get to that pesky fighting tournament instead of just talking […]

The post How Johnny Cage Rose to Mortal Kombat’s A-List appeared first on Den of Geek.

Warning: contains spoilers for Gangs of London series one and two.

Despite the main cast’s remarkable abilities to survive gunshots, torture, and brutal beatings, the life expectancy for a Gangs of London guest character is short. Series one said goodbye to a whole community of Welsh travellers, a Nigerian criminal gang, The Investors’ fixer Jevan, undercover police handler Vicky, new mayor of London Nasir, and any number of anonymous goons who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Series two saw the deaths of Alex Dumani, Finn Wallace’s mistress Floriana, and charismatic psychopath Koba.

All of which means that series three, all episodes of which are available to stream on Sky Go and NOW, is in need of some fresh blood, if only to splatter it all over the camera in one of the show’s expertly choreographed fight scenes. Here are the newcomers this time around, as well as the regular cast and characters you can expect to see.

Richard Dormer as Cornelius Quinn

Cornelius Quinn is a new Irish character with connections to the Wallaces. He’s played by Richard Dormer, an actor with a long and healthy career who’s perhaps best recognised for having played The Brotherhood Without Banners’ Beric Dondarrion in HBO’s Game of Thrones. Recently, you might have seen Dormer in Sky’s assassin-thriller The Day of the Jackal and political drama COBRA, or in BBC One’s excellent crime drama Blue Lights. Before that, he was a regular in Sky’s mystery thriller Fortitude, to name just a few roles.

T’Nia Miller as Simone Thearle, Mayor of London

Nasir Afridi successfully campaigned to become the Mayor of London in series one, but thanks to the vengeful Lale and her razorblade, his time in office was even shorter than that of Liz Truss. Perhaps new mayor Simone Thearle will have better luck? She’s played by T’Nia Miller, a stage and screen actor who gave an acclaimed performance in Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Bly Manor on Netflix, and returned for his The Fall of the House of Usher. Miller has had a fruitful working relationship with Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies, and played roles in his dramas Banana, Cucumber, and Years and Years, as well as appearing in Apple TV+ sci-fi Foundation and The Peripheral.

Andrew Koji as Zeek

Zeek is a mysterious hitman who turns out to have an intimate and tragic connection to one of series three’s main players. He’s played by Andrew Koji, a former stunt man and martial artist-turned-actor, who is best recognised for his central role as Ah Sahm in Cinemax’s Warrior. Koji has also starred alongside Brad Pitt in Bullet Train, in action movie Snake Eyes, played Brilliant Chang in Peaky Blinders, Basho in Boy Kills World, and Jason in Netflix assassin thriller Black Doves.

Phil Daniels as Ronnie Devereux

Phil Daniels joins Gangs of London series three fresh from the role of Maester Gerardys in HBO’s House of the Dragon. Since making his name in 1979 cult feature film Quadrophenia, Daniels has patchworked together a great career of character parts, from movies to television, including a long stint as Kevin Wicks in BBC One’s EastEnders, supporting parts in Channel 4’s Adult Material and Sky’s I Hate Suzie, and a guest role in BBC Two’s Inside No. 9.

Ruth Sheen as Deborah Devereux

Alongside Daniels will be Ruth Sheen in the role of Deborah Devereux. Sheen is a familiar face on British television, with recent roles in BBC One crime drama Strike and Sky fantasy series The Nevers, along with ITV’s Prime Suspect: 1973 and Unforgotten, following on from older parts in the likes of Cracker, Bramwell, The Bill, Accused, Misfits, and Mike Leigh’s Mr Turner.

Janet McTeer as Isobel Vaughn

Ozark and KAOS‘ Janet McTeer, who’s rumoured to be playing Professor Minerva McGonagall in the new Harry Potter TV series, appears in Gangs of London series three as the mysterious Isobel Vaughn.

RETURNING CHARACTERS

Sope Dirisu is back as Elliot Carter, a former undercover police officer who’s now a drug-running gang leader. Joe Cole returns as the incarcerated Sean Wallace, with Michelle Fairley as his mother Marian, and Brian Vernel as his brother Billy. Lucian Msamati and Pippa Bennett-Warner are back as Ed and Shannon Dumani.

Asif Raza Mir is back as Asif Afridi, alongside Narges Rashidi as Lale, and Orli Shuka as Luan. And Jasmine Armando and Fady Elsayed will return as Saba and Faz.

Gangs of London series 3 is streaming now on Sky Go and NOW in the UK.

The post Gangs of London Series 3 Cast: Meet the New Characters appeared first on Den of Geek.

Amanda Peet is not her character Dianne in Fantasy Life. While the fictional creation bears some similarities of also being an actress and facing the eternal insecurities and foibles of this industry, Peet is not a person so stricken with anxiety that it caused her to be away from the screen. In fact, Peet works […]

The post Amanda Peet and Alessandro Nivola Discover a Fantasy Life with Matthew Shear appeared first on Den of Geek.

Warning: contains spoilers for Gangs of London series one and two.

Despite the main cast’s remarkable abilities to survive gunshots, torture, and brutal beatings, the life expectancy for a Gangs of London guest character is short. Series one said goodbye to a whole community of Welsh travellers, a Nigerian criminal gang, The Investors’ fixer Jevan, undercover police handler Vicky, new mayor of London Nasir, and any number of anonymous goons who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Series two saw the deaths of Alex Dumani, Finn Wallace’s mistress Floriana, and charismatic psychopath Koba.

All of which means that series three, all episodes of which are available to stream on Sky Go and NOW, is in need of some fresh blood, if only to splatter it all over the camera in one of the show’s expertly choreographed fight scenes. Here are the newcomers this time around, as well as the regular cast and characters you can expect to see.

Richard Dormer as Cornelius Quinn

Cornelius Quinn is a new Irish character with connections to the Wallaces. He’s played by Richard Dormer, an actor with a long and healthy career who’s perhaps best recognised for having played The Brotherhood Without Banners’ Beric Dondarrion in HBO’s Game of Thrones. Recently, you might have seen Dormer in Sky’s assassin-thriller The Day of the Jackal and political drama COBRA, or in BBC One’s excellent crime drama Blue Lights. Before that, he was a regular in Sky’s mystery thriller Fortitude, to name just a few roles.

T’Nia Miller as Simone Thearle, Mayor of London

Nasir Afridi successfully campaigned to become the Mayor of London in series one, but thanks to the vengeful Lale and her razorblade, his time in office was even shorter than that of Liz Truss. Perhaps new mayor Simone Thearle will have better luck? She’s played by T’Nia Miller, a stage and screen actor who gave an acclaimed performance in Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Bly Manor on Netflix, and returned for his The Fall of the House of Usher. Miller has had a fruitful working relationship with Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies, and played roles in his dramas Banana, Cucumber, and Years and Years, as well as appearing in Apple TV+ sci-fi Foundation and The Peripheral.

Andrew Koji as Zeek

Zeek is a mysterious hitman who turns out to have an intimate and tragic connection to one of series three’s main players. He’s played by Andrew Koji, a former stunt man and martial artist-turned-actor, who is best recognised for his central role as Ah Sahm in Cinemax’s Warrior. Koji has also starred alongside Brad Pitt in Bullet Train, in action movie Snake Eyes, played Brilliant Chang in Peaky Blinders, Basho in Boy Kills World, and Jason in Netflix assassin thriller Black Doves.

Phil Daniels as Ronnie Devereux

Phil Daniels joins Gangs of London series three fresh from the role of Maester Gerardys in HBO’s House of the Dragon. Since making his name in 1979 cult feature film Quadrophenia, Daniels has patchworked together a great career of character parts, from movies to television, including a long stint as Kevin Wicks in BBC One’s EastEnders, supporting parts in Channel 4’s Adult Material and Sky’s I Hate Suzie, and a guest role in BBC Two’s Inside No. 9.

Ruth Sheen as Deborah Devereux

Alongside Daniels will be Ruth Sheen in the role of Deborah Devereux. Sheen is a familiar face on British television, with recent roles in BBC One crime drama Strike and Sky fantasy series The Nevers, along with ITV’s Prime Suspect: 1973 and Unforgotten, following on from older parts in the likes of Cracker, Bramwell, The Bill, Accused, Misfits, and Mike Leigh’s Mr Turner.

Janet McTeer as Isobel Vaughn

Ozark and KAOS‘ Janet McTeer, who’s rumoured to be playing Professor Minerva McGonagall in the new Harry Potter TV series, appears in Gangs of London series three as the mysterious Isobel Vaughn.

RETURNING CHARACTERS

Sope Dirisu is back as Elliot Carter, a former undercover police officer who’s now a drug-running gang leader. Joe Cole returns as the incarcerated Sean Wallace, with Michelle Fairley as his mother Marian, and Brian Vernel as his brother Billy. Lucian Msamati and Pippa Bennett-Warner are back as Ed and Shannon Dumani.

Asif Raza Mir is back as Asif Afridi, alongside Narges Rashidi as Lale, and Orli Shuka as Luan. And Jasmine Armando and Fady Elsayed will return as Saba and Faz.

Gangs of London series 3 is streaming now on Sky Go and NOW in the UK.

The post Gangs of London Series 3 Cast: Meet the New Characters appeared first on Den of Geek.

The prospect of debuting a film at SXSW would excite any filmmaker, but few can match the energy of director Eli Craig, who premiered his movie Clown in a Cornfield there last week. He was so excited, in fact, that he couldn’t help but shout “I’m effing back, baby!” after walking into the Den of […]

The post Clown in a Cornfield Marks a Homecoming for Tucker and Dale Director appeared first on Den of Geek.

Warning: contains spoilers for Gangs of London series one and two.

Despite the main cast’s remarkable abilities to survive gunshots, torture, and brutal beatings, the life expectancy for a Gangs of London guest character is short. Series one said goodbye to a whole community of Welsh travellers, a Nigerian criminal gang, The Investors’ fixer Jevan, undercover police handler Vicky, new mayor of London Nasir, and any number of anonymous goons who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Series two saw the deaths of Alex Dumani, Finn Wallace’s mistress Floriana, and charismatic psychopath Koba.

All of which means that series three, all episodes of which are available to stream on Sky Go and NOW, is in need of some fresh blood, if only to splatter it all over the camera in one of the show’s expertly choreographed fight scenes. Here are the newcomers this time around, as well as the regular cast and characters you can expect to see.

Richard Dormer as Cornelius Quinn

Cornelius Quinn is a new Irish character with connections to the Wallaces. He’s played by Richard Dormer, an actor with a long and healthy career who’s perhaps best recognised for having played The Brotherhood Without Banners’ Beric Dondarrion in HBO’s Game of Thrones. Recently, you might have seen Dormer in Sky’s assassin-thriller The Day of the Jackal and political drama COBRA, or in BBC One’s excellent crime drama Blue Lights. Before that, he was a regular in Sky’s mystery thriller Fortitude, to name just a few roles.

T’Nia Miller as Simone Thearle, Mayor of London

Nasir Afridi successfully campaigned to become the Mayor of London in series one, but thanks to the vengeful Lale and her razorblade, his time in office was even shorter than that of Liz Truss. Perhaps new mayor Simone Thearle will have better luck? She’s played by T’Nia Miller, a stage and screen actor who gave an acclaimed performance in Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Bly Manor on Netflix, and returned for his The Fall of the House of Usher. Miller has had a fruitful working relationship with Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies, and played roles in his dramas Banana, Cucumber, and Years and Years, as well as appearing in Apple TV+ sci-fi Foundation and The Peripheral.

Andrew Koji as Zeek

Zeek is a mysterious hitman who turns out to have an intimate and tragic connection to one of series three’s main players. He’s played by Andrew Koji, a former stunt man and martial artist-turned-actor, who is best recognised for his central role as Ah Sahm in Cinemax’s Warrior. Koji has also starred alongside Brad Pitt in Bullet Train, in action movie Snake Eyes, played Brilliant Chang in Peaky Blinders, Basho in Boy Kills World, and Jason in Netflix assassin thriller Black Doves.

Phil Daniels as Ronnie Devereux

Phil Daniels joins Gangs of London series three fresh from the role of Maester Gerardys in HBO’s House of the Dragon. Since making his name in 1979 cult feature film Quadrophenia, Daniels has patchworked together a great career of character parts, from movies to television, including a long stint as Kevin Wicks in BBC One’s EastEnders, supporting parts in Channel 4’s Adult Material and Sky’s I Hate Suzie, and a guest role in BBC Two’s Inside No. 9.

Ruth Sheen as Deborah Devereux

Alongside Daniels will be Ruth Sheen in the role of Deborah Devereux. Sheen is a familiar face on British television, with recent roles in BBC One crime drama Strike and Sky fantasy series The Nevers, along with ITV’s Prime Suspect: 1973 and Unforgotten, following on from older parts in the likes of Cracker, Bramwell, The Bill, Accused, Misfits, and Mike Leigh’s Mr Turner.

Janet McTeer as Isobel Vaughn

Ozark and KAOS‘ Janet McTeer, who’s rumoured to be playing Professor Minerva McGonagall in the new Harry Potter TV series, appears in Gangs of London series three as the mysterious Isobel Vaughn.

RETURNING CHARACTERS

Sope Dirisu is back as Elliot Carter, a former undercover police officer who’s now a drug-running gang leader. Joe Cole returns as the incarcerated Sean Wallace, with Michelle Fairley as his mother Marian, and Brian Vernel as his brother Billy. Lucian Msamati and Pippa Bennett-Warner are back as Ed and Shannon Dumani.

Asif Raza Mir is back as Asif Afridi, alongside Narges Rashidi as Lale, and Orli Shuka as Luan. And Jasmine Armando and Fady Elsayed will return as Saba and Faz.

Gangs of London series 3 is streaming now on Sky Go and NOW in the UK.

The post Gangs of London Series 3 Cast: Meet the New Characters appeared first on Den of Geek.

This article contains spoilers for The Wheel of Time season 3 episode 4. There’s a foundational principle of narrative writing that is particularly important in television storytelling; that of “show, don’t tell.” Prime Video’s adaptation of The Wheel of Time has the huge burden of bringing pages and pages of the expansive Robert Jordan series to life, […]

The post The Wheel of Time Season 3 Turns Treehuggers Into Soldiers appeared first on Den of Geek.

Warning: contains spoilers for Gangs of London series one and two.

Despite the main cast’s remarkable abilities to survive gunshots, torture, and brutal beatings, the life expectancy for a Gangs of London guest character is short. Series one said goodbye to a whole community of Welsh travellers, a Nigerian criminal gang, The Investors’ fixer Jevan, undercover police handler Vicky, new mayor of London Nasir, and any number of anonymous goons who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Series two saw the deaths of Alex Dumani, Finn Wallace’s mistress Floriana, and charismatic psychopath Koba.

All of which means that series three, all episodes of which are available to stream on Sky Go and NOW, is in need of some fresh blood, if only to splatter it all over the camera in one of the show’s expertly choreographed fight scenes. Here are the newcomers this time around, as well as the regular cast and characters you can expect to see.

Richard Dormer as Cornelius Quinn

Cornelius Quinn is a new Irish character with connections to the Wallaces. He’s played by Richard Dormer, an actor with a long and healthy career who’s perhaps best recognised for having played The Brotherhood Without Banners’ Beric Dondarrion in HBO’s Game of Thrones. Recently, you might have seen Dormer in Sky’s assassin-thriller The Day of the Jackal and political drama COBRA, or in BBC One’s excellent crime drama Blue Lights. Before that, he was a regular in Sky’s mystery thriller Fortitude, to name just a few roles.

T’Nia Miller as Simone Thearle, Mayor of London

Nasir Afridi successfully campaigned to become the Mayor of London in series one, but thanks to the vengeful Lale and her razorblade, his time in office was even shorter than that of Liz Truss. Perhaps new mayor Simone Thearle will have better luck? She’s played by T’Nia Miller, a stage and screen actor who gave an acclaimed performance in Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Bly Manor on Netflix, and returned for his The Fall of the House of Usher. Miller has had a fruitful working relationship with Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies, and played roles in his dramas Banana, Cucumber, and Years and Years, as well as appearing in Apple TV+ sci-fi Foundation and The Peripheral.

Andrew Koji as Zeek

Zeek is a mysterious hitman who turns out to have an intimate and tragic connection to one of series three’s main players. He’s played by Andrew Koji, a former stunt man and martial artist-turned-actor, who is best recognised for his central role as Ah Sahm in Cinemax’s Warrior. Koji has also starred alongside Brad Pitt in Bullet Train, in action movie Snake Eyes, played Brilliant Chang in Peaky Blinders, Basho in Boy Kills World, and Jason in Netflix assassin thriller Black Doves.

Phil Daniels as Ronnie Devereux

Phil Daniels joins Gangs of London series three fresh from the role of Maester Gerardys in HBO’s House of the Dragon. Since making his name in 1979 cult feature film Quadrophenia, Daniels has patchworked together a great career of character parts, from movies to television, including a long stint as Kevin Wicks in BBC One’s EastEnders, supporting parts in Channel 4’s Adult Material and Sky’s I Hate Suzie, and a guest role in BBC Two’s Inside No. 9.

Ruth Sheen as Deborah Devereux

Alongside Daniels will be Ruth Sheen in the role of Deborah Devereux. Sheen is a familiar face on British television, with recent roles in BBC One crime drama Strike and Sky fantasy series The Nevers, along with ITV’s Prime Suspect: 1973 and Unforgotten, following on from older parts in the likes of Cracker, Bramwell, The Bill, Accused, Misfits, and Mike Leigh’s Mr Turner.

Janet McTeer as Isobel Vaughn

Ozark and KAOS‘ Janet McTeer, who’s rumoured to be playing Professor Minerva McGonagall in the new Harry Potter TV series, appears in Gangs of London series three as the mysterious Isobel Vaughn.

RETURNING CHARACTERS

Sope Dirisu is back as Elliot Carter, a former undercover police officer who’s now a drug-running gang leader. Joe Cole returns as the incarcerated Sean Wallace, with Michelle Fairley as his mother Marian, and Brian Vernel as his brother Billy. Lucian Msamati and Pippa Bennett-Warner are back as Ed and Shannon Dumani.

Asif Raza Mir is back as Asif Afridi, alongside Narges Rashidi as Lale, and Orli Shuka as Luan. And Jasmine Armando and Fady Elsayed will return as Saba and Faz.

Gangs of London series 3 is streaming now on Sky Go and NOW in the UK.

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