Apple Doesn’t Design for Yesterday (Eric Karjaluoto)

Last night, I installed OS X Yosemite. After the marathon-length download, I finally saw it in action. My initial reaction wasn’t unlike that of many others. I’ll sum it up with the phrase, “This got hit by the ugly stick.” Now, before you go all fanboi on me, please allow me a moment to explain my reaction. First off, It’s OK if I’m not immediately wowed by the updated GUI. Change works this way. Within a few days I’ll likely grow accustomed to this very flat, very Helvetica, environment. This was my experience when iOS was flattened. Although primitive seeming at first, after a few weeks, it felt fine—and its predecessors looked clumsy. (erickarjaluoto.com)

Designing for Large Screen Smartphones (Luke Wroblewski)

Designing for Thumbs: 
In his analysis of 1,333 observations of smartphones in use, Steven Hoober found about 75% of people rely on their thumb and 49% rely on a one-handed grip to get things done on their phones. On large screens (over four inches) those kinds of behaviors can stretch people’s thumbs well past their comfort zone as they try to reach controls positioned at the top of their device. (lukew.com)

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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)

The Robot in the Cloud: A Conversation With Ken Goldberg (Quentin Hardy)

Ken Goldberg has been thinking hard about robots for almost three decades. His work ranges from over 170 peer-reviewed papers on things like robot algorithms and social information filtering to art projects about the interaction of people and machines. A professor at the University of California, Berkeley, he is establishing a research center to develop medical robots to assist in surgery. That is just the latest development in what he thinks will be one of the great technology breakthroughs of our age: the fusing of robotics and cloud computing. He talks about it in this edited and condensed conversation. (nytimes.com)

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)

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)

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)

How to transform design limitations into design success (Speider Schneider)

Think of design as a road map for consumers, taking them where you want them to go. Design makes an efficient way to get across the message and still make it pretty. That last part is where things start getting sort of weird. (webdesignerdepot.com)

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How to design for thumbs in the era of huge screens (Scott Hurff)

After years of resistance, Apple’s iPhone 6 announcement last week officially signaled the dawn of the Era of Huge Screens. And it’s going to crash into existence in a big way. Just this Monday, Apple announced that they’d sold over four million pre-orders for the phones the opening night of pre-orders. In only one night, they sold almost half of what they sold the entire opening weekend last year for iPhone 5s and 5c. (qz.com)

The Most Hated Design Trend Is Back (John Brownlee)

Whatever the Apple Watch is, it's not a watch. Not really. Nor is any smartwatch: the Moto 360, the Pebble, or the Samsung Gear Live. It's an entirely new class of device. But it doesn't look like a new device. It mostly resembles a watch. That's because Apple (and other gadget makers) are turning to an old frenemy to help wrap their heads around these things: skeuomorphic design. (fastcodesign.com)

How to build websites fast, with the rapid prototyping workflow (Dustin Cartwright )

Startups are notorious for bringing an idea from a concept to a finalized product fast. While there’s certainly something to be said for taking our time and doing in depth research at every milestone, sometimes we just need to get an idea up and running as soon as possible. Rapid prototyping in a startup culture slims the typical design and development process to hit the high points and retouch the lows after the fact. We can learn a lot from this methodology and apply it directly to our own work, even if that work isn’t for a startup. (webdesignerdepot.com)

‘Six Mile Pencil’ Illustrates How Far You Have Drawn, Encouraging Creation (Ross Brooks)

Anyone with established drawing skills will tell you that it took hours and hours of practice to get where they are today. To help encourage more people to draw, and give them a way to track their progress, design agency Lyon&Lyon; has created the Six Mile Pencil. Not only does it have enough graphite to draw for six miles, it’s also got a ruler on the body that tells you how many miles you’ve drawn so far. (psfk.com)

How the Shinkansen bullet train made Tokyo into the monster it is today (Philip Brasor and Masako Tsubuku)

Fifty years ago on Wednesday two Shinkansen bullet trains completed their first journeys, kickstarting a high-speed rail network that would transform Japan. (theguardian.com)