Why Design Students Should Freelance (Austin Price)

One of the most valuable things I learned fairly early in my college career was the importance of freelancing as a design student. The value of this became more obvious every year until I graduated by seeing the work done by students who freelanced versus students who did no more work than they were assigned to do for class. (thenuschool.com)

The ultimate guide to information architecture (Cameron Chapman)

Information architecture is equal parts art and science. Whether you hire a dedicated IA professional, or just sort of let IA happen on your projects, if you’re designing things with content, you’re using IA. (webdesignerdepot.com)

Degrees don’t matter anymore, skills do (Miles Kimball)

If I were to make a nomination for the most destructive belief in our culture, it would be the belief that some people are born smart and others are born dumb. This belief is not only badly off target as a shorthand description of reality, it is the source of many social pathologies and lost opportunities. (qz.com)

Why Design Needs Entrepreneurship (and Entrepreneurship Needs Design) (Christina Wodtke)

In my opinion, there are two conversations that are a waste of time. One is “should designers learn to code”. The other is, “should designers learn the language of business.” The first is easy to answer. Architects learn to pour concrete. Painters learn to stretch canvas. You just have to know your medium to design well for it. Getting an understanding of code will make you better at Interaction design, and getting an understanding of databases will make you better at information architecture. And then you do not need to do it again, until your medium shifts. Which it does. (eleganthack.com)

6 Lessons from an Unemployed Designer (Jessica Phan)

Growing up I was taught not to talk strangers, but I totally disagree. Go, get out there. Have the courage to meet and chat with strangers. Make use of your Twitter and LinkedIn, and connect with people. You will be surprised with how much you can learn from strangers and be inspired by their stories. (ohjessica.com)

My Concerns about Value Pricing (Andy Budd)

While I think the argument for value pricing has a logical constancy, and sounds great in theory, I worry how it will end up being applied in practice. My main concern is the effect this approach will have on the practice of design and our relationship with clients, although I have a number of practical concerns as well. (andybudd.com)

What Will Save Us from the Dark Side of CSS Pre-Processors? (Lyza Danger Gardner)

Writing CSS by hand for a site or app of any considerable size seems quaint these days, in the way that shaping a piece of wood with an adze seems quaint. Admirable, perhaps, but even if it gives you a tangible connection to the exact outcome, the vestigial quirks, limitations, and tedium of that workflow make it feel archaic. (alistapart.com)

The Fold Manifesto: Why the Page Fold Still Matters (Amy Schade)

What appears at the top of the page vs. what’s hidden will always influence the user experience—regardless of screen size. The average difference in how users treat info above vs. below the fold is 84%. (nngroup.com)

Strategy Versus Tactics (Liam Friedland)

The idea behind my new UXmatters column, 3 x 5 UX is an idea that formed several years ago when I was preparing for a Pecha Kucha event. I wanted to document a handful of key UX concepts and share them with the UX team that I lead. Simple visualizations seemed like a promising approach. To constrain my slideware exuberance, I hit upon the idea of using 3 x 5-inch note cards and simple, hand-drawn visualizations as an expressive medium for this content. To keep my drawing skills intact, I typically use 3 x 5 cards to capture ideas, manage my daily to-do lists, and dash out quick sketches. Creating visualizations at that size for my presentation required a minimalist approach and was both challenging and fun. My team enjoyed the presentation, and I thought these cards might have value for a broader audience. Pabini Gabriel-Petit, publisher of UXmatters, agreed and 3 x 5 UX was born. (uxmatters.com)

How to avoid ux design trends and why you should (Lars Damgaard)

As digital designers we make design decisions all the time, but sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we just imitate trends in order to make something look cool instead of reflecting or thinking. (larsdamgaard.com)

UX Design Techniques Or What Mobile App Design Is All About (Kate Abrosimova)

If you think that digital design is that shaded part delineated by the Photoshop frame, I am afraid you are wrong. We have already talked about the job of a product designer, and judging from works and talks of our designers I’m saying that there can be no successful project without talented folks employed in the position of a designer. Correct me if I am wrong. (yalantis.com)

User Flow Patterns

You'll find interesting user flow patterns at http://userflowpatterns.com (userflowpatterns.com)

The Independent Discovery of TCP/IP, By Ants (Rosie Cima)

What does the internet have in common with an ant colony? More than you might think. It doesn’t have much in common with the common ant, of course. As the anteater in Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel Escher Bach puts it, “Just as you would never confuse an individual tree with a forest, so here you must not take an ant for the colony.” (priceonomics.com)

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Iterative Sketching (Roxy Koranda)

Photoshop is a pretty sophisticated piece of software, but let’s face it — it’s not super speedy and presents a handful of limitations when it comes to getting your ideas out. I don’t even want to mention how the general tidiness of my layers suffers when I’m in serious idea-barf mode. Luckily, there’s another, less complicated option: sketching. (atendesigngroup.com)

Enterprise Productivity Apps for Remote Teams (Megan Gallagher)

It’s an exciting time to be a designer. With almost unlimited connectivity, designers and firms can work together without needing to inhabit the same space. Many designers and web professionals love the ability to be mobile, and luckily for them, more and more companies, particularly startups, are starting to embrace a remote workforce. (speckyboy.com)

The When, Why and How of Designing in Browser (Brooke Kao)

If you’re a designer in the tech industry, you’ve probably been exposed to or read articles about a hot topic in design today: designing in browser. The concept is as simple as it sounds. Rather than spending hours, days, weeks and months designing those pixel-perfect comps in Photoshop, a mainstay in a waterfall-oriented development process, designing in browser allows you to take whatever sketches and preliminary work you’ve conducted and enables you to jump right into the text editor and emerge with shippable code. (medium.com)

How Not to Commit This Awful Landing Page Error (Neil Patel)

Landing pages are a fixture of paid search. It’s virtually impossible to go a day without seeing a paid ad. But have you clicked on any of these landing pages recently? One common error presents itself again and again. If you’re in the business of making landing pages, advising people about landing pages, optimizing landing pages, or purchasing paid search, this article is for you. (kissmetrics.com)

Designing Digital Strategies: Connected User Experiences (Sofia Hussain)

Offline and online experiences can interact and overlap easily in today's world. In Part 2 of this 2-part series, author Sofia Hussain shows us how to turn an ecosystem map into a tool for creating truly holistic experiences. (uxbooth.com)

Getting Started with Style Guides (Jake Rocheleau)

Branding is a pivotal aspect of launching any type of company. Although design seems like an afterthought, it’s really a very important piece to the overall puzzle. Style guides are just one method of organizing design & brand concepts into a unified location for easy access. (envato.com)