Lauren Entwistle Follow Mar 6 · 6 min read Photo by Retha Ferguson from Pexels The best-loved albums of all time only seem to stand out in our memories (and the shelves) when they are wrapped in bright and beautiful album art. Think Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors, depicting Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks in black-and-white chiffon,… Continue reading How do you make a good album cover?
Category: Design
Design is the method of putting form and content together. Design, just as art, has multiple definitions; there is no single definition. Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that’s why it is so complicated.
Resonating with your product managers: a designer’s guide
I personally believe that asking a lot of “Whys” during the initial stages of your project helps not only the designers but also the other contributors to the project. Diving deep into the problem and starting off without a solution is what designers do best. While your Product manager and other stakeholders may have many… Continue reading Resonating with your product managers: a designer’s guide
Making strategic decisions when creating content by using journeys, funnels & maps
1. Customer journey map A customer journey map, as its name implies, focuses on the journey of a customer, or on the process that the user goes through when trying to accomplish a goal. This goal can be learning a new skill, buying a product or service, finding a location and so on. The design… Continue reading Making strategic decisions when creating content by using journeys, funnels & maps
Why do so many innovative products fail?
Chad Alessi Follow Feb 25 · 6 min read Innovative Product Failures Another high-profile consumer electronics company is going out of business. On February 12, 2020, Essential Products, said that they would cease operations. The New York Times published an article about the company shutting down entitled “Andy Rubin’s Start-Up, Essential Products, Shuts Down.” Essential… Continue reading Why do so many innovative products fail?
A quick break for visual inspiration
Illustration by Calvin Sprague on Behance Most designers tend to underestimate the importance of their sources of inspiration. For some, it might be a snug café in Brooklyn or Paris. For others, it could be their favorite couch with a cup of hot coffee or tea. If you’re dealing with creative block, try going back… Continue reading A quick break for visual inspiration
Turtles all the way down
Defining a powerful experience strategy is one challenge. Being able to roll it out is another one. And to do it so that people want to follow and stay committed to it is the most crucial aspect of these two challenges. Only then your strategy becomes the basis for your organizational culture. And the only… Continue reading Turtles all the way down
The anatomy of a UX revolution inside an organization
But let’s back up a bit, I want to describe one of the key learnings for me as a product manager before I talk more about what we achieved. How We Started We started with neither UX researchers nor product designers to help us get there. I had worked with designers before to create websites,… Continue reading The anatomy of a UX revolution inside an organization
Bad writing will destroy a designer’s reputation
The barrage of articles reminding us what poor designers we are is seemingly endless. Either we do too much user research or make abhorrent design choices. For me, this is not a missive about incorrect word usage in error messages. Guy Ligertwood’s insights from Google I/O 2017 cover those requirements. Instead, I am more interested… Continue reading Bad writing will destroy a designer’s reputation
Designing for Google Glass
Since scheduling interviews with doctors proved challenging, I opted to test the prototypes internally. I recruited 10 employees with various levels of experience using Glass. The group’s experience level was similar to our doctor population. Each participant went through three prototypes. Initially, some newcomers struggled with the swipe down gesture but eventually, they got it.… Continue reading Designing for Google Glass
A service designer could have prevented the fiasco in Iowa
Steven J. Slater Follow Feb 7 · 7 min read The Iowa Democratic Party botched reporting the state’s caucus voting results this past Monday, the first barometer for voter’s preference in the U.S. presidential election, all because leaders there failed to prototype the process with a smartphone app, according to widely circulated independent news reporting… Continue reading A service designer could have prevented the fiasco in Iowa
A framework for creating effective personas
Demographic data represents the extrinsic characteristics of a user and helps in defining who you are designing/solving it for. This information defines the primary, secondary and tertiary segments/cohorts of the user groups based on their similarities and patterns that matter to a product or service. For example, it could be a distribution based on Geography,… Continue reading A framework for creating effective personas
Should you become a design manager? 4 key myths you must know to make the right decision
Hippogriff — a legendary creature, supposedly the offspring of a Griffin and a mare. I’ve been a UX designer for over 5 years now, and one of my favorite parts of the job is when I get to put my headphones on and sink my teeth into a juicy design problem. I didn’t want to… Continue reading Should you become a design manager? 4 key myths you must know to make the right decision
5 tips for designers who are learning to code
Define a Grid System The grid is a necessity now. Most designers have probably been made aware of this in some way or another, since use of grids is in everything from print media and books, to websites and apps. In fact, grids were used in design even all the way back in the 13th… Continue reading 5 tips for designers who are learning to code
Hammers don’t interrupt: design without dual-task interference
Take a second to imagine this scenario: you need to hang a picture, so you grab a hammer—but as you pick it up, it begins talking. It explains some dense & seemingly random information, distracting you from your task. You try to comprehend, but you have things to focus on: which wall to choose, how… Continue reading Hammers don’t interrupt: design without dual-task interference
How evil clowns and uncanny robots architect user experiences
Dr. Adam Hart Follow Jan 23 · 7 min read Erica © Hiroshi Ishiguro Labs, ATR “When tech’s overlords can’t protect themselves from their own creations, we’re all in trouble.” — Business Insider Following the consumer press these days may give one the impression there is an endless array of creepy tech that is out… Continue reading How evil clowns and uncanny robots architect user experiences
3 aspects of the customer journey you better consider well
“With the sales department, we recently analyzed the customer journey of closing a deal.” With that first sentence, they entered my mailbox. “But we still have hard times with up and cross-selling and sales repetition.” The message continued. In larger organizations, it happens that departments try to understand the customer a little better. The most… Continue reading 3 aspects of the customer journey you better consider well
Why Design Systems Fail, Apple Archive, Death of Design Files — and more UX links this week
Fabricio Teixeira Follow Jan 18 · 3 min read What to expect for UX in 2020? 1. Designing for the post-truth era → 2. The rise of micro-communities → 3. Design as a team sport → 4. Rendering intentionality → 5. The death of design files → The UX Collective newsletter is a self-funded newsletter… Continue reading Why Design Systems Fail, Apple Archive, Death of Design Files — and more UX links this week
Dealing with the loopholes of quantitative research
Concerns from stakeholders – High dissatisfaction among students😒 If the problem is approved, it gets posted, and if disapproved, the admins of the group don’t post that problem. But, they think students need to know why their problem was refused. Another primary concern was the announcements of the senate, and other information gets hidden in… Continue reading Dealing with the loopholes of quantitative research
5 tips to improve your system feedback
Digital products will often have access to specific information about their users, such as their location, schedule and even their preferences. This information can be utilized in order to provide more informed feedback with the added element of personalization. Taking what the system knows about the user into account when giving over feedback will also… Continue reading 5 tips to improve your system feedback
Adopting and maintaining a Design System
Monica Guerrero Follow Jan 8 · 5 min read Building a design system is one thing, but having people adopt it and maintain it, is another. In this blog, I’ll talk about the next steps — after a design system is built. Our design system on Zeroheight During my time at Juvo, we deployed our… Continue reading Adopting and maintaining a Design System
Two skills to train into superpowers this year
It’s the first week of the new year and I just read Chris Do’s new book, Pocket Full of Do, in one sitting. In his book, he shares all the wisdom he has amassed throughout his design and entrepreneurial career. It was like listening to a village elder speak, and depending on where you are… Continue reading Two skills to train into superpowers this year
5 tips to help select great user interface fonts
Stelios Constantinides Follow Jan 2 · 2 min read Whether or not you’re a seasoned designer, choosing a UI font can be a daunting task. As of writing this, Google Fonts alone has 997 families. You might think picking a font is mostly an exercise in preferences, but there are less subjective criteria that you… Continue reading 5 tips to help select great user interface fonts
5 predicted UX trends for 2020
Voice UI, such as Amazon’s Alexa, is already popular in many homes around the world; however, this year will likely see a greater adoption rate. In 2019, an estimated 35% of U.S. households were equipped with at least one smart speaker and by 2025 forecast suggests that this penetration rate will increase to around 75%… Continue reading 5 predicted UX trends for 2020
The bitter truth no one will tell you about being a UX designer
Sometimes, I only worked on the sign-up page of the application for one complete month, because there were back and forth iterations, as the screenshots had to go on Google Play Store. Nobody was happy with one design, and the suggestions were extreme! Our social media manager liked everything ‘clean’, and aesthetic. While our technical… Continue reading The bitter truth no one will tell you about being a UX designer