30. November 2014

3 reasons why usability testing is not part of your workflow (Stefan Rössler)

While that's great, usability testing is not part of most designers' or developers' workflows. Let me give you 3 quick reasons why that's the case, before I tell you, how Userbrain wants to change this. (userbrain.net)

The Big Design Renaissance is Over (Jan Jursa)


Are You Ready to Become a Product Designer? (Ghaida Zahran)

Five years ago, it was all about UX, but we saw through that. At the time, we were pretty stoked about figuring out the best way to get to answers in product design (still are!). However, we realized that there aren't a lot of designers out there that understand what it actually means to be a product designer. UX is one part of it, but what are the rest of the pieces? This is the story of how you too can become a product designer. So stop being a UX/UI guru or prophet or whatever and start solving problems. (zurb.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)

28. November 2014

What an Actual Product Design Process Looks Like (Jomi Cubol)

Cap Watkins, Design Manager at Etsy shared his and his team’s design process a while ago and I consider it to be one of the most invaluable posts on the topic by far. I came across his 3-part series before reading Etsy Creative Director Randy J. Hunt’s seminal book Product Design for the Web, but revisiting it afterwards really clarified so much for me. I hope to apply these principles towards my own process and make it work for myself and our team. (thebadprince)

When to Use Toggle Buttons (anthony)

Users can get frustrated if they can’t find a specific action on your website. They experience this when you hide actions in dropdown menus. One context where this often happens is sorting content. (uxmovement.com)

Usability vs. Conversion Optimization (Lyena Solomon)

If you have been practicing SEO, you would have encountered a disconnect between what you were hired to do and what the client actually wanted you to do when they hired you. You thought your goal is to bring traffic. They thought you will bring them more conversions and revenue. They thought they will fix matters by changing your title to include "Lead Generation." You thought, you need to explore a completely new angle of your job. (searchenginepeople.com)

27. November 2014

Creating Animations and Interactions with Physical Models (Ralph Thomas)

Physics-based animations and interactions are becoming more common in UI. This page goes through some basic physical models and the kinds of interactions and animations that can be constructed from them. Scrolling on iOS is an excellent example of a physics-based interaction. When you drag your finger across the screen, the content tracks along with it, thereby scrolling, but when you lift your finger all of the physics magic happens: the content continues tracking with the same momentum and slows down under the influence of (virtual) friction. If you hit the end of the content, then the momentum goes into an overdamped spring which absorbs the momentum and returns you to the end of the content. (iamralpht)

Digital Tools for Design Research. 16 new ways to improve human-centered design. (Dan Perkel)

Design research is about understanding real people in the context of their everyday lives and then using what we learn to inspire our work. This loose definition may conjure up a narrow set of methods, but at IDEO, we’re broad in our approach: Design research here is not any one thing, and it’s informed by the passion and skills of our teams as much as any organizational process. (ideo.com)

26. November 2014

Making Sense of IA Messes (UX Booth)

The number one challenge of teaching information architecture, is getting people over fear. People don’t need to be taught how to group things together or label them. They need to be taught to get over the fear of doing so. The fear that they will make bad or useless groups or labels. The fear that trying to sort something out will actually make it worse. The fear that they won’t be able to make sense of it. The fear that they will get things wrong and have to do it again. The fear that it will take a really long time to sort it all out. (uxbooth.com)

25. November 2014

An Agile-Lean Transformation: How Getty Images Transitioned to Scrum and Evolved to Kanban (Maritza van den Heuvel, Joanne Ho, Jim Benson)

In 2005, Getty Images was building their software using traditional waterfall practices. At the time, they were generating over US$500 million in annual revenue, most of which flowed directly through their e-commerce website. The site was seeing 11 million unique visitors per month, delivering over 10 million images, and handling 6 million searches per day. This hugely popular site was a 24-7 global cash register for Getty Images and any site downtime affected revenue instantly. (leankit.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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