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Frequently asked questions, and the best answers we've got.

Frequently asked questions, and the best answers we've got.

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How do I submit a reimbursement?

We use Expensify to submit receipts. Be sure to upload your receipt and mark the people who attended the event. If you have questions, you can talk to

@Maria Marquis⁠

You are given 23 minutes to hide a paperclip in your house. Afterwards, a detective will be given an hour to find it. Where do you hide it?

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https://www.quora.com/You-are-given-23-minutes-to-hide-a-paperclip-in-your-house-Afterwards-a-detective-will-be-given-an-hour-to-find-it-Where-do-you-hide-it⁠

I considered stuffing it down my couch; putting it in my cupboards; stowing it under my doormat, or even hiding it under boxes. However, I figured that this detective would know all these tricks beforehand. I realised that hiding this paperclip would be harder than I thought.

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After 23 minutes, I still had not hidden the paperclip and I was starting to get desperate. Every time I hid the paperclip, I always second-guessed it and then rehid it. Now, I had no time left to hide it. Great job Andrew.

At that very moment, my doorbell rang. Without thinking, I put the paperclip in my mouth and ran down to open the door. Thinking quickly, I placed the paperclip underneath my tongue and greeted him.

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The first thing he did was check my pockets for the paperclip. Thankfully, he either forgot to check my mouth or was too embarrassed to do so. Whatever the case, he completely ignored me for the rest of the hour and focused entirely on trying to find the paperclip.

As he was attempting to find the paperclip, I tried to be very talkative. This would throw him off the paperclip as well as hopefully annoying him.

How does a UX designer do research or look for analytics about a completely new product/app?

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https://www.quora.com/q/betterux/How-does-a-UX-designer-do-research-or-look-for-analytics-about-a-completely-new-product-app⁠

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Welcome to the vast grey area where user-experience design overlaps with marketing and product management.

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Some of you may remember a SpongeBob SquarePants episode in which Squidward gets dropped into a future that has no walls, no floor or ceiling, and no directions — just an infinite, colorless void with random, meaningless shapes floating around. Judging from the question, this is where you are right now. (Clarinet optional.) Don’t panic. Feeling this way is perfectly normal.

First, set yourself a direction. This is problem-solving 101, and UX work is problem-solving. The problem is, “research” and “analytics” are vague. They’re means to an end, but what is that end?

If you have no guidance from marketing or product management, or you’re engaged collaboratively with those functions (which, as a UX designer, you should be), you might be looking for absolute fundamentals:

Who is this for?

What need or want does it solve for them?

What value does this give them in return for what cost?

How motivated will they be to solve this need or want?

What alternatives do they have to using our new product or service?

What kinds of reasons will they have not to use our new product or service?

What is the size of this potential market?

Once you have answers to those, then narrow it down to what’s relevant to design decisions. You can spend time researching your customers’ hair color, but it’s not going to affect your design.

In what context will they use this — at their desk at work, juggling three other applications? On the phone at the grocery store with nagging kids in tow, hurrying to get done and get home? With a customer in front of them at a service counter? At a self-service kiosk?

How familiar are they with the space and how specialized is it? An application for doctors or engineers with a depth of domain knowledge and specific vocabularies is vastly different from shopping for umbrellas or cans of corn.

How frequently will they use this? You can optimize for occasional or one-time use, or you can optimize for repeat use — those aren’t always or even usually the same.

What’s the importance? This goes back to context. How urgent and how important is it for your end user to do what your product or service does?

Then you can narrow it down even further to information you can turn into design decisions:

Which is/are the major goal(s) and which are supporting and optional? If I need milk, my major goal is to get milk. Getting in the car to go to the store is one possible supporting goal. Also dropping by the hardware store for some washers is one possible optional goal.

How do your users break down the problem space, and what do they name things? A tomato is two different things to a botanist and a cook. You can’t just lump it under Vegetables and expect that to work for anyone.

What similar products, services, or tasks are they already familiar with? This is your benchmark for expectations. (It does not mean you have to design to mimic what people already know. Your ecommerce site doesn’t have to work like Amazon. It means this previous experience has formed your users’ habits and expectations, and you need to know what they are in order to make an informed choice whether to work with them or break them.)

Where will people be using it? Phone, laptop, kiosk, voice interface … this is rarely as obvious as it may sound. If they will use it on both desktop and phone, are there different needs in those two contexts? Maybe the reason they’re using it on the phone are different from when they log in from their desktop?

What's the difference between a Program Manager and Product Manager?

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https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-a-Program-Manager-and-Product-Manager⁠

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The primary difference, in the product/offering/software development world, is that in most instances the Program Manager is responsible for the delivery of a specific "program" within the broader context of a "product", over which the Product Manager has authority.

That sounds generic, because in practice the lines between Project, Program, and Product Managers (not to mention Market Planners) is often vague and illusory. Here are my personal definitions of these roles:

Project Manager - Tasked with the delivery of a specific requirement or component of a feature. Usually very "in the weeds" and manages time and resources, maintains scope, and reports up the risks and issues that the individual contributing teams encounter. Amount of requirements tweaking is minimal here - they have a set plan and are in charge of realizing it. Likely time horizon: monthly or quarterly. Scrum Masters typically fall into this realm.

Program Manager - Generally oversees multiple Projects that comprise a release or other milestone. Collates, collects, and analyzes the risks and issues reported by the Project Managers, and acts to maintain scope and cost, as well as high-level time and resourcing commitments. Probably in charge of tweaking and changing technical requirements and the like, but unlikely to be tasked with commenting on market or customer conditions. Likely time horizon: 3-6 months.

Product Manager - More strategic view across all of the Programs that comprise a Product (I prefer "Offering" in this day and age, honestly). These include monitoring and ensuring customer satisfaction with work that is being done, proposing and piloting new programs and projects, interfacing with the Executive Teams to ensure that the Product is being driven forward, and collaborating with all teams within the company to ensure that released updates, features, etc. are successful and well-communicated. Primary duties are defining, refining, and communicating the needs of the customer to the organization as a whole, and development specifically. Likely time horizon: 6-12 months.

What are lookup tables in SQL and what are they used for?

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https://www.quora.com/What-are-lookup-tables-in-sql-and-what-are-they-used-for⁠

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Lookup tables are not so much a “SQL thing” as much as they’re used in database design. They’re generally used to help with

Database normalization⁠

for data that’s relatively static, such as tables containing names of countries, states, cities, etc.

I’m not sure if there’s a formal academic definition of “lookup tables” in the database design context, but when I think of them, I usually think of tables with the following properties:

They have configuration or descriptive data in them, versus data relating to individual application events.

They’re small relative to event-related tables.

They are insert-and-read tables, and if updates do take place, they’re rare.

For the most part, joins begin or end in them.

I often think of them as analogs to the “dictionary” in

Dictionary compression algorithms⁠

Some examples of lookup tables:

Application configuration tables.

Geographic (as mentioned above) or other descriptive tables such as a list of vendors and suppliers, a product catalog table for a web store, etc.

Lists of machine names and machine hardware properties for an application managing a data center.

The user list and user profile data (image, user description, etc) for a website. Stuff like the most recently visited page would _not_ be in lookup tables.

What's our office address?

We are located at 151 3rd St, San Francisco, CA 94103

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