26. Dezember 2014

It's Time For Industrial Design To Grow Up (Gadi Amit)

I am an industrial designer by training, but it’s been a while since I called myself one. Industrial design has changed, and what I do has changed, too. The kinds of projects I work on require skills beyond those taught in any conventional industrial design curriculum, and the people I hire are typically proficient in areas that borrow from technical fields rather than classical design disciplines. (fastcodesign.com)

2014 Retrospective (Luke Wroblewski)

As the year comes to a close, it's time for my annual round-up of the most read articles I published this year. In order of popularity, the top five articles from 2014 are... (lukew.com)

A Designer’s Guide to Gift Giving (Steve Selzer)

The best gift I’ve ever given was a 1940s Parker 51 fountain pen. It was a birthday present to my best friend Taylor, a PhD student with a professorial look — round tortoise shell spectacles, elbow-patched blazer, a leather briefcase and loafers. The pen not only rounds out his look, but it's one of his favorite gifts of all time. (frogdesign.com)

40 Settings Page Interfaces for Mobile App UI Design (Jake Rocheleau)

This gallery includes a handful of brilliant settings page interfaces for mobile designers. Both Android and iOS applications are featured in the gallery including some older styles like iOS 6. You’ll find a hodgepodge of ideas from profile settings to notifications and account details. Most applications will require a settings page and this gallery is perfect for generating new ideas. (dzineblog.com)

UX Lessons Learned from Santa Claus (Mario Sakata)

This is a Christmas story recreated from the actual experiences I had spending most of my childhood living in the US. While mostly just a guess, thinking back on it now, I realize that Santa Claus himself may be one the best User Experience Designers there is. (medium.com)

25. Dezember 2014

Slow is Fast: Why Startups Should Make Time to Design for Customer Goals (Ryan Bloom)

If there is one word to describe a startup, it would be “busy.” At a growing company, there are always more things to do than people to do them, and often times those who are most successful are the ones who can be decisive and execute on a given objective efficiently. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, after all the old saying “time is money” has never been truer in the fast paced world of internet startups. However, this approach can lead to trouble when employees begin to jump to solutions before truly understanding their customer’s problems. Often, companies will line up a slew of customer interviews and soon after, product teams will have a list of features and screen-shots ready to go into production. Thoroughly defining your user’s goals can feel like a step backwards; why think about the problem when you’ve already got the solution? (cooper.com)

Has flat design gone too far? (Marc Schenker)

These days, it seems, you can’t turn anywhere on the web without hearing about or directly encountering flat design in some way, shape or form. What started out as a mere design trend just a couple of years ago is now clearly a mainstream design aesthetic that’s a force to be reckoned with. (webdesignerdepot.com)

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Treating Users Like Adults: Incorporating Six Principles of Andragogy into UX Design (Victor Yocco)

Most digital experiences require users to learn something new. Sometimes the purpose of an app is to learn, such as in an e-class. More often, the user needs to learn how to use the app itself, be it an updated word processing program or a redesigned online banking experience. We call it the onboarding process, and done poorly it can turn users away, which makes it critical that design teams incorporate sound learning principles into their designs. These principles, or “laws of learning” ensure that the experience will be smooth and intuitive. (uxbooth.com)

How Bad UX Makes Users Blame Themselves (Ivana McConnell)

We don’t do well with uncertainty. When things go wrong, we want to know why as quickly and easily (but maybe not truthfully) as possible. But when technology is thrown into the mix, the problems are more complex. Our perceptions change. When something goes wrong with a user interface, the questions don’t always have easy answers. It’s the designer’s job to connect and empathize with the user, to teach them the language of design, to put MVPs in their hand, test, talk, and arrive at a solution. (uxpin.com)

20. Dezember 2014

Designing a UI to Generate Real Business Value (Pavel Kostychev)

In the IT world, today’s organizations are looking to evolve their company’s IT department from a cost center to an employee-centric strategic partner capable of generating ROI. That’s a mouthful. Where do we designers come into play? One way we can help organizations accomplish this goal is by giving their IT help desk an easy-to-use IT service management solution (ITSM). (uxmag.com)

Becoming a More Thoughtful User Experience Designer (Jake Lee Haugen)

A simple experience that opened my eyes to new possibilities took the form of a 170px smiley face. After a stressful day, I attempted to clear my inbox as a last-ditch effort to ease my mind. I had just downloaded the Gmail app and decided to use it instead of the standard Apple Mail app I had been using for years. I sifted through my emails and when the last one was archived, a little smiley face sun appeared with the text, “You’re all done! Please enjoy your day.” It was so unexpected, I couldn’t help but smile. (medium.com)

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The Point Of Creativity In Business (Mitch Joel)

For some reason, the statement above is seen (by many) as some kind of defamation of creativity. A bastardization of the what art is. The proverbial selling of the soul. That's stupid. And, it's wrong. Let's set the table first: creativity for the sake of being creative is fine. It's a right. Anyone can do oil painting in their garage, or pluck away at their guitar in their basement for the pure love of the activity. The arts are marvellous at curing what ails you. On the other hand, great creativity does inspire on other levels. Great creativity makes human beings curious, it makes them yearn to hear more, and it makes them take action. Creativity isn't just something for the pre-Internet era, either. It's profoundly linked to what makes one business more successful than another. Creativity drives our economy like never before. (twistimage.com)

16. Dezember 2014

UX Leadership, Part 1: The Nature of Great Leaders (Jim Nieters, Pabini Gabriel-Petit)

This column is the second in our series that highlights our insights on what it would take for companies to go from producing dreary, overly complex user experiences to producing truly great user experiences that differentiate their products from those of competitors in their marketplace. In our first column, we stated that producing great, highly differentiated user experiences should be the goal of every UX leader. But in many companies, UX leaders face challenges that force them to approach leading User Experience in a less than optimal way. If, as a UX leader, you find yourself stuck in a situation where you and your team cannot do great work—that is, you are unable to produce user experiences that solve people’s problems, inspire, and delight—you’re working for the wrong organization and should find a better job. In that column, we also discussed how to position User Experience for optimal impact. (uxmatters.com)

Implementing Customer Experience as an Organizational Value (Pete Kinser)

Bringing customer-centered thinking into an organization is about more than just proclaiming that you’re focused on customer experience. It’s about changing your process, sure, but it goes even deeper: It’s about changing attitudes. It’s about making your customers a central organizational value that guides behaviors and decision making. Valuing customer experience is no longer a secret to success. A focus on CX is quickly becoming the way to do business. A common problem I hear from CX (and UX) practitioners is that they’re being asked to “do CX” within an organization that isn’t changing their processes or thinking. Many companies are maintaining the same processes and strategic approaches while trying to “staple on” this CX thing. (uxmag.com)

How To Measure Customer Loyalty (Jeff Sauro)

Customer loyalty is often a better predictor of future company growth than customer satisfaction alone. While customer satisfaction is an important measure of customers' expectation, customers can be satisfied but not loyal. To measure customer loyalty, you need to use a mix of behavioral and attitudinal metrics. Here's a synopsis of this mix of metrics as described in the chapter on measuring loyalty in my upcoming book, Customer Analytics for Dummies. (measuringu.com)

Don’t blame the designer (Justin Jackson)

“When is the design for the new site going to be done?” As managers, it’s easy for us to blame our design team for missing deadlines. But are your designers really slowing down the project? What’s really slowing down your team If it’s not your designers, why didn’t your project launch on time? Not giving enough time for exploration Design isn’t a simple A → B process. It looks more like this... (medium.com)

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6. Dezember 2014

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Google Can Now Tell You’re Not a Robot With Just One Click (Andy Greenberg)

When Alan Turing first conceived of the Turing Test in 1947, he suggested that a computer program’s resemblance to a human mind could be gauged by making it answer a series of questions written by an interrogator in another room. Jump forward about seven decades, and Google says it’s now developed a Turing Test that can spot a bot by requiring it to do something far simpler: Click on a checkbox. (wired.com)

The 5 Most Common Design Mistakes (Julie Zhuo)

There’s no learning without mistakes. And I’ve done the following (as well as seen the following done) too many times to count. Luckily, there’s this thing called the “Internet” and this medium called an “article” that lets us point at and talk about these mistakes behind their backs, in the hopes that by bullying them into the spotlight, it’ll be harder for them to slink around, wasting our time and steering us towards no-good solutions. (medium.com)

Fractal Coevolution (Scott Jenson)

In doing product design for nearly 30 years, I’ve witnessed several waves of innovation. Some were obviously successful like personal computers and the internet. But others were much less so, such as MultiMedia CDROMs, and open document formats. What people don’t appreciate is that great ideas, before they are great, tend to look remarkably similar to stupid ones. Few are willing to take a chance on a new, seemingly crazy product idea. This is why the technology industry tends to be so incremental. Most companies, truth be told, wait for others to make the mistakes. (jenson.org)

The 7 Deadly Sins of User Research (David Travis)

Most companies would claim to design products and services that are simple to use. But when you ask customers to actually use these products and services, they often find them far from simple. Why is there a disconnect between what organisations think of as "simple" and what users actually experience? (userfocus.co.uk)

UX vs. Marketing: Can These Opposites Attract? (Anthony Franco)

The first volume of The SoDA Report revealed a disturbing survey result earlier this year. When asked about talent gaps, and 77%of agency respondents identified user experience (UX) as the biggest shortfall on the client side. One possible explanation is that the UX discipline is still a “field in evolution." While the report suggests UX infancy might be the cause for this glaring talent gap, another could be that UX and marketing have fundamental core values that are in direct opposition to one another. (hubspot.com)

3. Dezember 2014

A 6-Hour Usability Test In An Agile Environment (Jeff Sauro)

In the fast-paced world of Agile development, where it's difficult to find time to get data from users, unmoderated remote testing gives us a way to quickly collect feedback on interface design. For example, I recently worked with a web-app product team to determine whether users find their new file manager easier to use than the previous one. (measuringu.com)

The Real World Guide to Responsive Design (Kenny Van Sittert)

Responsive design has been one of the cornerstones of 2014 digital strategies. Getting ‘it’ right across all devices is now critical to success with as much as 60% of traffic now coming from mobile. The question is how to do you ensure you create the right ‘experience’ for your customers and visitors? With an ever-evolving rule book it’s important you truly understand the basics and, critically, how to test? Let’s dive into that in a little more detail now. (zazzlemedia.co.uk)

The Only Constant is Change: A Q&A with Ethan Marcotte (Sara Wachter-Boettcher, Ethan Marcotte)

It’s here: a new edition of Responsive Web Design is now available from A Book Apart! Our editor-in-chief, Sara Wachter-Boettcher, sat down with Ethan Marcotte—who first introduced the world to RWD right here in A List Apart back in 2010—to talk about what’s new in the second edition, what he’s been working on lately, and where our industry is going next. The first edition of Responsive Web Design came out in the summer of 2011. What projects have you been working on for the past three years? (alistapart.com)

Wire wants to be Skype for the modern age, launches with the backing of Skype cofounder Janus Friis (Paul Sawers)

Wire is promising to bring “simple, beautiful conversations” to your mobile, tablet, and desktop. While it may sound like yet another messaging app, a deeper dig behind the scenes of the Swiss startup reveals some impressive hires among the 50-strong team, who hail from 23 countries between them. (venturebeat.com)

29. November 2014

Emotion As A Framework For Design (Matthew Deal)

The beginning of any web design project is the hardest part. As a web designer, I sometimes get lucky and have some really solid inspiration that feels like it’ll be enough; it’s the kind of inspiration that’s strong enough to help you get started on a new project and enough to sustain you through all the mistakes, self-doubt, and second guessing that comes with the territory. (despreneur.com)

Can Split Testing Wreck Your Google Ranking? (Sherice Jacob)

Put down your pitchforks and torches… I’m not saying you should stop split testing. But I am saying that there are a few “red flags” that a split test can inadvertently throw up if you’re not managing or monitoring it correctly. It’s a fine line you have to walk if you do both conversion optimization and search engine optimization. Most people think the two can’t co-exist peacefully, since you’re either writing for people, or you’re writing for robots. But you have to ask yourself – what’s more important? Convincing customers to order or appeasing an algorithm? (kissmetrics.com)

Where Brand Journalism and Native Advertising Can Fit Within Content Marketing (Lee Odden)

Over the past year the discussions about what content marketing is and isn’t as well as the role of content within marketing and PR functions of a business have been interesting to watch. Especially the discussions around whether brand journalism and native advertising fits in the content marketing mix. Here’s my take on it. (toprankblog.com)

Web apps deserve sexy transitions too! (Cemre Güngör)

Our design process was a little different this time. We wanted to change the core interaction of Potluck, without relying on intrusive overlays or pop-outs to explain new behavior to our users. Instead, we wanted to use motion to infer how the site worked, inspired by the physicality of iOS’s user interface. We had been meaning to add motion to Potluck for a while, unfortunately without much success. (medium.com)

6 Simple Landing Pages That Perform Like Charm (Simon Horton)

Like mac and cheese. Or gin and tonic. Or crisp white shirts with classic blue jeans. Some things are beautiful in their simplicity. What ups their fab quotient a notch higher is that these are things that combine their undisputable beauty with great functionality. Landing pages have their version of the PB&Js as well. Here’s a look at some landing pages that take care of all the key principles of a good landing page and yet manage to pack a punch aesthetically and functionally. (usabilitygeek.com)

24. November 2014

The ultimate guide to design meetings (Cameron Chapman)

The basic idea of a meeting is simple: it’s when two or more people get together to discuss one or multiple topics. It can be in a formal or informal setting. It can be among people within an organization or between people in more than one organization. The concept of the meeting is ancient. At their most basic level, meetings are held to bring people together to talk about things. There can be good reasons to have meetings and bad reasons to have meetings, both of which we’ll discuss. (webdesignerdepot.com)

The Making of a UX Designer (Traci Lepore)

My background is in graphic design, and I’m an artist by nature. I learned the basics of user experience on the ground, in the early days. While those experiences gave me the fundamental skills that I needed to do my work, they didn’t make me the empathetic and insightful designer I am today. I firmly believe that it is my training in acting and theater that has given me the ability to be, not just a good UX designer, but also a successful one. (uxmatters.com)

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23. November 2014

5-Steps For Getting Started Measuring The Customer Experience (Jeff Sauro)

Most companies have more bug lists and requests for product features than they can realistically address. In an earlier post, I present ways to help you prioritize those features; now let's figure out where to start. This post describes an approach that works in many situations, beginning with a survey of your customers or prospects, or a representative set thereof, with the following objectives... (measuringu.com)

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20. November 2014

Are Web Design Schools Losing Their Magic? (Rudolph Musngi)

Now that online education is becoming more and more popular, is it still relevant to go to web design schools these days? This question is perfectly normal to ask. With the advent of web design blogs that teach beginners and experts alike, some people may feel that going to a web design school might no longer be relevant at all. (1stwebdesigner.com)

Destroying Your Enemies Through the Magic of Design (Jenny Lam, Hillel Cooperman)

Hierarchical organizations large and small are rife with politics. In fact, the smaller the stakes, the more vicious they can be. Political organizations are ones where what things look like are just as, or more, important as what you actually do. Dealing with perceptions as well as ego and insecurity is part of dealing with human beings. This is who we are. And as soon as we create situations where there are winners and losers we create politics. And fighting. In some organizations, regardless of how brilliant your design may be, the politics will kill your plans before they have a chance to really blossom. And that’s a shame. (alistapart.com)

Facebook takes another step backwards with a new Groups apps (Cynthia Boris)

About seven years ago, Facebook convinced the denizens of the internet that it was not only safe to come out of the IRC chat rooms, it was actually a good thing. No more hiding behind fake names while you discuss a singular topic with a room full of people, half of whom are there just to annoy you. Facebook was a social network – a place to be yourself, show off your photos, reconnect with old friends and make new ones. (marketingpilgrim.com)

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17. November 2014

10 Responsive Design Problems and Fixes (Kirill Strelchenko)

The Internet is changing, with responsive websites quickly adapting to any device and screen size to bring the user the most dynamic experience possible. From multinational corporations like Sony, Microsoft, and Nokia to global tech stars like Salesforce to online travel giants like Expedia, serious players are turning to responsive web design to march in step with the current trends in and reach an even wider audience of customers. (uxmag.com)

Creating a Good Design Brief for Your Mobile App (Egle Karalyte)

Understanding well what a client has in mind for his/her mobile app can be a slippery process. As a designer, you surely want to deliver to the best of your abilities and make the client happy. But when it comes to ensuring the success of a mobile app design project (or any other design project to that matter) just having good design skills is not sufficient. (speckyboy.com)

Why Japanese Web Design is NOT so different (Mario Sakata)

As a UX (User Experience) Designer, many times I found myself caught between improving the value of customer experience and contributing to business profits. As someone who extols the user-centeredness, when I saw the web design at the time—which does not differ greatly from the way it looks now, I didn’t think it delivered a user-centered experience at all. (medium.com)

The Interface Layer: Where Design Commoditizes Tech (Scott Belsky)

A new cohort of design-driven companies are adding a layer of convenience between us and the underlying services and utilities that improve our lives. This could change everything. (medium.com)

11. November 2014

Progressive Reduction: Evolving the Experience for Your Most Frequent Users (Dan Birman)

I’m a big fan of minimalist design, so whenever I have the opportunity to reduce the information presented on a screen to just the bare essentials, I’m happy. With that in mind, I realize that certain patterns that we (designers) want users to execute require learned behaviors. For this, we often use labels, tooltips, etc. so that users know where to go and what to do. However, this can often lead to visual clutter, especially when we start looking at mobile screens or applications with a shit ton of icons. (dtelepathy.com)

Frankendesign – When Re-Using Old Designs Makes Sense (Addison Duvall)

Do you all know the story of Frankenstein’s monster? A mad scientist attempts to create a living creature using parts from a myriad of individuals. Designers often have a lot in common with this classic tale, using elements from their old designs to create new ones for completely different clients. (hongkiat.com)

Master the Core: Web Design Code of Ethics (Rudolph Musngi)

Web design, like any other profession, should always be ethical. It should always adhere to a set ­­­of norms set by the whole community. These codes guide designers to perform their tasks in the most honest and professional way possible. (1stwebdesigner.com)

Billions of interaction designers (Eli Blevis, Kenny Chow, Ilpo Koskinen, Sharon Poggenpohl, Christine Tsin )

In this article we focus on interaction design education and share a vision for its future based on our combined years of teaching in design schools, in HCI-oriented programs, and in hybrids of the two [1]. Our larger goal is to overcome the guild-like thinking in much of design pedagogy in order to make design learning a foundational form of learning education and mode of being for everyone, in the interest of broader society. Our more modest goal is to present our ideas on curriculum, with the intention of creating a shared understanding of how best to teach interaction design. (acm.org)

The Must-Have Mobile App Metrics Your Business Cannot Do Without (Natasha Starkell)

The way people interact with an app is different from the way they use websites. Mobile app analytics is about converting ad budgets to installs, and installs to repeated app usage and in-app purchases. Ultimately, the objective of a mobile app developer is to evaluate user lifetime value, retention, and the frequency of usage. (kissmetrics.com)

How Your Brand Should Tell A Beautiful Story (Mitch Joel)

The stuff that true case studies are made of. People who know me, know how much I laothe case studies and white papers. Most of them (if not all) are just trumped up stories about how great a brand performed on some kind of platform or campaign. Sure, it's nice to get a peek behind the curtain, but it doesn't add much value if everything written (or being produced) is just another way to trump up the brand. Where are the mistakes, the foibles, the struggles... and the true challenges? (twistimage.com)

9. November 2014

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Google’s Quest to Write the Rulebook for Interactive Design (Kyle Vanhemert)

Google’s new design language, material design, makes its debut this week in Lollipop, the latest version of Android. It brings a bright new look to phones and tablets. But to hear Google’s designers explain it, material design is something far more ambitious than a new coat of pixels. By combining relevant rules from the world of graphic design with new ideas about interfaces and input, Google is aiming to establish some best practices for the fledgling field of interactive design at large. (wired.com)

Check Out The Earliest Work Of Apple's Design God, Jony Ive (Jay Yarow)

Jony Ive wasn't always Jony Ive, Apple design God. At one point, he was just a young British designer trying to get by. However, Ive was a precocious design talent, and from a young age, he was racking up awards for his design work. (businessinsider.com)

How Google’s Material Design is changing things (Daniel de la Cruz)

During Apple’s recent conference we were introduced to Yosemite and their decision to move further forward in their flat design 2.0 direction. Having caught ear of the trend earlier on and seeing Microsoft’s success with it over multiple platforms, Apple took it and made it very much their own, introducing opaque windows, clever little transitions among a plethora of other things. (cl23.com)

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Ex-Googler Builds A Github For Designers (Mark Wilson)

For the past two years, Pixelapse—backed by venture capital from Y Combinator and Designer Fund—has been evolving into what you might call a Dropbox for designers. Through a free or premium paid account, it will automatically sync Photoshop files (along with more than 40 other file types) with a team of your choosing online, allowing you to juggle complicated design projects more easily. (fastcodesign.com)

1. November 2014

Best Practices for Medical App Development Go Beyond Standard UX (Mithun Sridharan)

Mobile healthcare app development poses a set of challenges very different from mainstream apps. Not only is security an area that requires a considerable attention, compliance with regulatory standards is also absolutely crucial. Here are things app developers should pay close attention to during the development process. (uxmag.com)

Effective Techniques For Rapid Prototyping (Ekta Srivastava)

The “Aardvark Theory” of product – “Fake it till you make it” could be well followed as a design guideline for organizations. To develop a successful product or an app, we first create a prototype and keep improving on it till the time we get what we expect. An idea has no value unless it can be communicated and the value of a prototype is the vision of what the final outcome would be. Eventually, the goal of effective rapid prototyping is to convince oneself and others of an idea. (usabilitygeek.com)

Finding New Solutions in Old Philosophy (David Helman)

Since completing my doctorate in philosophy, I have been a professional programmer for more than twenty years, and I have learned a lot about applying philosophical thinking to design and development. Philosophy offers deep and profound insights about subjects like knowledge, meaning and justice. Insofar as computer programs concern these subjects, philosophy can be a fantastic source of ideas – and often is. Reading philosophy books has given me ideas for writing useful computer programs that span multiple industries, from healthcare to business, which contradicts Wittgenstein’s belief. After all, if philosophy can guide the design of profitable products, it must be meaningful. (uxbooth.com)

Show Your Work: Demonstrating Progress on Your Projects (Eileen Webb)

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how actual progress on a project doesn’t always match the impression of progress—sometimes a lot of code has changed but nothing looks very different, while other times a small change in code gives the sense that the whole project has moved leaps and bounds. (alistapart.com)

28. Oktober 2014

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Google Chrome DevTools Tutorials (Jacob Gube)

Chrome Developer Tools (also known as DevTools) is an essential component of any front-end developer’s toolkit. Mastering this useful in-browser tool will substantially enhance your coding workflow. DevTools has a great deal of features, and to take advantage of them, it’s wise to invest some time learning the ins-and-outs of the tool in order to unlock its true potential. (sixrevisions.com)

Becoming a UX Unicorn in 5 Easy Steps (Jared M. Spool)

We call them unicorns because they are supposed to be mythical creatures-something that doesn’t exist in the real world. That’s how the nickname came about. Yet, over the past couple of years, we’ve started meeting people who fit the description of a UX unicorn. They are very real and they are amongst us. We know because we’ve met and studied several dozen of these multi-skilled designers over the past two years. (uie.com)

Resources for Mapping the Experience with Alignment Diagrams (James Kalbach)

All too often companies are focused on their own processes, wrapped up in a type of organizational navel gazing. They simply don’t know what their customers actually go through. And, even if they can identify root causes of problems, logical solutions can cross departmental lines. Fixes may require crossing those boundaries. An organization’s rigid decision-making makes that difficult. (experiencinginformation)

Going Pro – What it takes to be a lead designer at a top startup (designerfund)

Over the past couple years at Designer Fund we’ve worked closely with many top startups to grow and develop their design teams. These startups build world-class products, value design, and invest heavily in their designers. (designerfund.com)

25. Oktober 2014

Brilliant Design Thinking: Boyan Slat's Solution for Ridding the Ocean of Plastic Waste (Rain Noe)

We all know the oceans are filled with plastic waste, and we've seen the horrific photos of dead animals that have ingested the stuff. It is up to activists, responsible corporate citizens and lawmakers to stop these plastic garbage patches from growing. But that won't solve the problem of how to get rid of the stuff that's already floating around in there. (core77.com)

Strategy as a Creative Act – Making Space for Radical Ideas (Timothy Morey)

Sometimes I envision this scenario: a meeting room at Google a few years back and someone raising their hand during a brainstorming session to say “I think we should take photographs of every street in the world.” I can imagine the initial reactions of others in the room, particularly smart, rational, MBA-trained strategists who would instantly see the problems with this idea. How on earth does that fit with search? We would need a fleet of cars with cameras and a large labor force to drive them! How would this create value anyway? Won’t the public freak out? (frogdesign.com)

Best Resources For Creating and Prototyping a Mobile App (Julian)

As web designers and web developers, we spend our days wireframing and making prototypes for websites, web apps, and mobile apps. What are the tools you normally work with to deliver your projects on time? Are you curious about what else is out there? If you generally like to keep an eye on the rapidly evolving industry standards, then you have come to the right place. Read on, because here you will find an updated list containing the best creative resources for app building and prototyping. (dzineblog.com)

24. Oktober 2014

The Fine Art of Creating Experience Maps (Kathryn Kitchen)

At Blink we create experience maps as an instrument to articulate user engagement with a product. Experience maps are a visual representation of the users’ journey over time, and they provide a handy communication tool for teams to inform product direction. The benefit is that it tells a visual story in one-page that can be easily shared to communicate a product’s current state and opportunities. Many types of research can be used to inform the experience map including longitudinal studies, retrospective interviews, ethnographic research, and observational studies. (blinkux.com)

Usability: "What Does Statistically Significant Mean?" (Jeff Sauro)

Statistically significant. It's a phrase that's packed with both meaning, and syllables. It's hard to say and harder to understand. Yet it's one of the most common phrases heard when dealing with quantitative methods. While the phrase statistically significant represents the result of a rational exercise with numbers, it has a way of evoking as much emotion. (measuringu.com)

Social Proof in the User Experience (Jennifer Cardello)

Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people reference the behavior of others to guide their own behavior. This tendency is driven by our natural desire to behave “correctly” under most circumstances—whether making a purchase, deciding where to dine, determining where we should go, what we say, who we say it to, and so on. One of the best examples of social proof, in real life, is the long line in front of an Apple Store on the day a new iPhone is released. The fact that a group of people find the new phone so desirable as to invest considerable time standing (or sleeping!) in line impacts our perception of the phone value (and makes us covet one, too). (nngroup.com)

Form Usability: The Pitfalls of Inline Accordion and Tab Designs (Jamie Appleseed)

During our e-commerce research studies, particularly on checkout usability, we’ve found that tab-style and inline accordion form layouts can inadvertently confuse users, or even flat out violate their expectations. The issue arises when users can’t figure out which form fields will be submitted – whether it is only the fields in the currently active inline accordion or tab “sheet”, or whether the collapsed “sheets” will be submitted as well. (baymard.com)

21. Oktober 2014

Usability Testing Is Undermining UX Design (Peter Hornsby)

... although I’ve never before considered usability testing as something that falls into the large—and growing—list of things that undermine effective UX design work, I’ve recently had a number of conversations with designers that suggest their perception of usability testing is fundamentally wrong. I’ve heard both junior and senior designers express their perception of usability testing in different ways, but the core message is the same: They believe that nothing can be known about a design that a team is going to implement unless that design has been tested with the target audience. That no knowledge is possible and nothing can be said about a design with any degree of confidence, unless its usability has been validated for specific use cases, in specific circumstances, with a specific set of users, and for a specific combination of browser and device. (uxmatters.com)

Five Movements in Design That We Should Pay Attention To (Amy Cueva)

Design is helping governments, organizations, and businesses improve the quality of interactions with the people they serve, leading to experiences that are more meaningful and effective. Business leaders understand now more than ever that continued focus on improving the customer journey is an imperative to designing products that win, satisfy their customers, and empower their employees. Savvy planners will consider these emerging movements as they look to the future. (uxmag.com)

A Hands-On Guide To Data-Driven Design (Andrew Smith)

In world where analytics rules, design is becoming evermore data-driven. Is it something worth paying attention to and are the bonuses of it worth the effort? (usabilla.com)

The complete guide to Apple Pay (Dan Frommer)

Apple launched its mobile payments service, Apple Pay, today in the US. It has the chance—if successful—to become the first mainstream mobile payments service in many markets. We’ve assembled what we think will be common questions (with answers) about Apple Pay—and its potential implications for Apple, its users, and the world of payments. (qz.com)

Brandshare: Is The Value Exchange Between Brands and Consumers a Myth? (David Armano)

Imagine taking a trip to New York city. As always, it's crowded and bustling but it's also a nice day. You want to get around and see the sights but the idea of waiting on a corner to land a taxi or spending a portion of your day underground don't appeal to you. You're active and enjoy finding ways to incorporate e exercise in your day. You come across a bike sharing station with blue bikes and an interactive kiosk that helps you decide where you should go next. You use your credit card to obtain a bike and you're off and running, feeling a sense of empowerment that you've taken matters into your own hands and maybe even a little satisfaction that you're not contributing to the noise or other pollution as you pedal through the streets. Your needs get met, but you're also meeting the needs of the brand (*Citi) who helped put the bikes there in the first place. You've entered a value exchange with that brand whether you know it or not. (darmano)

28. September 2014

8 Major Design Festivals You Should Hear About (Anamaria)

Being a web designer implies staying in front of a computer almost the entire day. The Internet, this modern tool of trade, keeps all web designers connected to the latest devices, design news, inspirational info and other designers. With the Internet, sharing your projects, thoughts and new ideas is only a few clicks away. But it’s even more exciting when you can share your projects and ideas with your peers within a festival specially tailor for this purpose. International design festivals are no longer a new thing. They gather thousands of people who share common interests and enable them to communicate, exchange thoughts on their work and further develop partnerships. (topdesignmag.com)

Building Minimum Viable Products at Spotify (Chris Bank)

Many companies face the paradox of wanting to build a delightful product without knowing if people actually want the product until it’s released. Spotify’s vision was to give people the right music at the right time while incentivizing artists by paying them based on number of shares their music received. A tall order, no doubt, when you consider how hard it is to build out such a platform, let alone make it profitable. Yet Spotify defied the odds and grew from zero to over 1 million paying subscribers in the US — a market foreign to Spotify’s native Swedish team and one already teeming with competitors. (speckyboy.com)

Balancing Product UX and Lean Execution (Chris Bank)

What matters more: killer UX that makes people want to use your product, or shipping the things people want quickly and staking down a huge share of the market? If the UX is bad, people won't want to use it. On the other hand, if someone else gets it there first, people are happy to use what is available and help to improve it with feedback as it grows. People have been struggling with these opposing interests long enough that we thought it important to outline a better way to think about the problem, depending on what stage your company is in. (uxmag.com)

27. September 2014

What people DON'T GET about MVP (Jan Jursa)

What people DON'T GET about MVP. I want a car, not a bloody scooter! (img via http://bit.ly/Yq0fI1) #mvp https://twitter.com/IATV/status/515873729063436288

Environmental Communications: How Understanding Experiences in Virtual Space Can Influence the Design of Experiences in Physical Space (Laura Keller)

UX professionals are accustomed to thinking about how people interact with digital user interfaces. Whether we’re designing a mobile application or a marketing Web site, it’s in our DNA to consider what would be the optimal experience for people. But digital user interfaces are not the only elements of an experience with which people interact. In services, people may also interact with each other, with processes, with communications, and with physical spaces, and it’s the responsibility of the service designer to understand their needs and create an optimal experience that considers all of these diverse elements. Plus, while the goal of a service designer is to think holistically about how these elements work together in a service experience, each element has its own discreet set of design considerations. (uxmatters.com)

"CUBI: A User Experience Model for Project Success" (Corey Stern)

We all want to be a part of compelling creative projects—projects that solve business problems and engage users through meaningful and valuable experiences. However, given tight budgets and timelines it's challenging to create genuinely innovative design, identify gaps in the process, and consider the variety of factors for effective user experience. To solve these common challenges, I researched existing user experience models or frameworks and found that most UX diagrams are confusing, unorganized, complex, or antiquated, making them useless for designers and clients. That’s why I decided to create my own model. (uxmag.com)

The Culinary Model of Web Design (Antoine Lefeuvre)

We call ourselves information architects, web designers or content strategists, among other job titles in the industry, including the occasional PHP ninja or SEO rockstar. The web does owe a lot to fields like architecture, industrial design, or marketing. I still haven’t met an interaction cook or maitre d’optimization, though. No web makers turn to chefs for inspiration, one might say. (alistapart.com)

22. September 2014

YOU SAVE $375: "Learn Photoshop, Web Design & Profitable Freelancing" (Barin Cristian Doru)

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Freelance Vs. In-House: Which Produces The Best Designers? (Addison Duvall)

One of my favorite things, besides design, food, and writing about design and food, is perturbing my fellow designers with strange questions. You guys should try it sometime; it’s really fun. Anyway, today I was thinking about the dynamic of an in-house work environment, and how it compares to freelancing. I’ve done both, and I definitely have some thoughts on the matter. (hongkiat.com)

Does Originality Matter in Web Design? (Ezequiel Bruni)

My memory isn’t perfect, but I can say with some certainty that I’ve never actually copied a design. Not pixel-for-pixel, at any rate. I’ve stolen ideas, to be sure. (Don’t look at me like that. Everyone does it.) I’ve replicated cool concepts just to see if I could. (medium.com)

The Perils and Perks of Designing with Parallax (Diana MacDonald)

How many times has a client, manager, or colleague from a different department asked you to deliver something because it’s trendy? They’ve seen it, they want it. Relevance, be damned. How often has this trend been completely unsuitable for your website project? Saying “no” and explaining why a trend makes no sense for your website can be a challenge, so it’s helpful to understand what value a trend can add, and how to apply it effectively in your circumstances. (sitepoint.com)

17. September 2014

Don't let team politics get in the way of shipping great design (Daniel Burka)

Shipping great design work is a struggle. You can have expert-level knowledge of Photoshop, color theory, copywriting, grid systems, and branding — and still consistently ship crap products. Things happen: colleagues meddle with your work, interfaces get implemented poorly, compromises cut to the bone, and great ideas fall to the cutting room floor. (gv.com)

How Flat Design Increases Conversion Rates (Giles Thomas)

There are many arguments for and against flat design, so in this article I wanted to take a quick look at how flat design can actually affect your bottom line. When it comes to arguments, nothing speaks louder than actual dollars. (speckyboy.com)

The Role of Iterative Usability Evaluation in Agile Development: A Case Study (Yanfei Ma, Yunhui Lu, and Dinara Saparova)

The agile approach to software development has significant impacts on the practice of user-centered design (UCD), including usability evaluation. To better understand the role of iterative usability evaluation during agile development, we recently conducted a study whose focus was the usability evaluation of a personal health–management system. The complexities of healthcare systems require thoughtful and well-structured usability evaluations—especially when the design process occurs within the context of an agile development process. (uxmatters.com)

4 User Experience Fails That Impact The Conversion Of E-Commerce Sites (Stan Roach)

There are plenty of reasons why some e-commerce sites rake in the big bucks, while others do not. The reasons could be anything ranging from bad quality products to an unbearably long registration process and from lack of responsiveness to an inability of the web property to exude trust and credibility. (usabilitygeek.com)

14. September 2014

15 Must-Read Guides for UX Professionals: Written or Praised by Industry Leaders (Chris Bank)

The field of UX is daunting without the right guidance. So many subjective questions pop up on a daily basis. How do we provide access to secondary navigation without cluttering the interface? What UI patterns are the most intuitive? How do we fulfill the logical and emotional needs of users? Answer one of them, and five more will inevitably pop up to take their place. (onextrapixel.com)

A to Z of example UX docs and deliverables (Neil Turner)

Following on from my article about how to create great UX documents, I thought that it would be useful to collate some example UX documents and deliverables together. This should hopefully provide a bit of inspiration and assist when it comes to choosing the type of document(s) to produce. For each document / deliverable I’ve included examples, together with a quick outline and links to more information. (uxforthemasses.com)

A history of iOS design from iOS 1 to iOS 8 (marie)

With Apple releasing the iPhone 6 tomorrow. We thought it would be great to go through the history of the iOS design, from iOS 1 to the most recent iOS 8. Throughout the years Apple has brought us everything from Copy Paste, to Siri and the App Store. (designreviver.com)

4 Web Design Elements That Help You Sell the Products on Your Online Store (alexbu)

All eCommerce store owners know sales are the key to business growth. The best way to increase sales for your store is to have the right marketing strategies. There are basically two key elements of online marketing. The first is to drive traffic to your website and the second is converting this traffic into customers. (designfloat.com)

7. September 2014

Improving Mobile Interfaces with Rich-Touch Interactions (Chris Harrison)

Today’s mobile devices are incredibly sophisticated computers with multi-gigahertz, multi-core, hardware accelerated graphics, network connectivity, and many gigabytes of high-speed memory. Indeed, the smartphones we carry in our pockets today would have been deemed supercomputers just twenty years ago. (uxmag.com)

How to create great UX documents (Neil Turner)

Like it or not the UX profession is very much in the documents game. From personas to wireframes and from user journeys to sitemaps, UX is knee deep in documentation. Even with the Agile UX drive to keep documentation to a minimum (which I whole heartedly agree with), in the same way that a football team can’t score goals without a bit of passing (unless you have Maradona on your team); a design team can’t create great designs without a bit of documentation. Sure it’s scoring goals that everyone is working towards but the passing is a necessary step on the way (even if it often gets forgotten about). (uxforthemasses.com)

UX vs. Product? (Christian Reiter)

There are many apps out there with either a great user experience and are fun to use or on the other hand solve a real problem with so much value in it but with a really bad design. But what we need is more stuff which does both great. Every product needs to solve a real problem, or more generally, be of value for the user, and to communicate the solution to that problem in a clear and concise way. (mobxcon.com)

6. September 2014

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The Ethics of UX Research ( Nicholas Bowman)

As a UX researcher for a social media operation, Ute considers different interface designs that might allow users to make more social contacts. Ute gets a radical idea to test her hunches: What if we manipulated some of our current users’ profile pictures and measured the impact of those changes on their friends list? If successful, her research would provide valuable insight into the social media design elements most likely to result in sociability online. Of course, a successful study would also diminish the experiences of thousands already using her company’s service. In Ute’s mind, this is a simple A/B test, yet in the wake of recent controversy surrounding social media research, she’s starting to wonder if she should be concerned about the ethics of her work. (uxbooth.com)

6 Tips for Creating an Effective Survey (Erin Hogg)

There’s a good time, and a not-so-good time, for everything. This rule of life applies to surveys as well. In surveys, situations may exist for you that make it a good idea to field a survey, Diana explained. This could include scenarios of when you want to understand your customers’ motivations or characteristics. Maybe you’re looking to expand your product lines and want to know what your customers would like to see offered. (marketingsherpa.com)

In praise of beautiful advertising (John Collins)

News – both the written word and video – has never been more widely consumed but the traditional business model that has supported its production is busted. (insideintercom.io)