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.

Encouraging healthy lifestyle choices with an engaging user experience

Please note: This was a concept project undertaken as part of the User Experience Design Immersive course at General Assembly and is in no way affiliated with Nuffield Health. Nuffield Health is one of the UK’s leading not-for-profit healthcare organisations. They operate a wide variety of facilities and healthcare services, from gym and fitness centres… Continue reading Encouraging healthy lifestyle choices with an engaging user experience

Design is not Design, thoughts on IxDA 2018

From 6 Feb to 8 Feb, the conference had separate subjects for each of the three days. I am going to recommend and elaborate on one talk for each day to explain the thoughts behind the above statement I made. At the very end of this article, I will also recommend talks that I think… Continue reading Design is not Design, thoughts on IxDA 2018

How does design strategy work within a large enterprise?

Courtesy Dilbert Last October, I visited my alma mater, the School of Visual Arts Masters in Branding program, which teaches graduate students about the intersections of business & design. Whenever I visit, there’s always students that have questions about what I do, both as an IBM’er and a Design Strategist. Most recently, I was asked… Continue reading How does design strategy work within a large enterprise?

Cross-functional Empathy for Designers

A human-centric approach for working with humans As designers, a huge part of our job lies in empathizing with users. It’s exciting to see how far we’ve come as a discipline in becoming more user-centric, more research-driven and better at tying our ideas to actual user needs. Yet many of us struggle with applying that… Continue reading Cross-functional Empathy for Designers

Stop blaming your digital tools for your problems

Jira, Trello, Basecamp, Sketch, Invision, Zeplin, Jenkins, Google Analytics — I could go on, but no matter the tool or how good it is there will always be a problem with it. Your tools are not the problem, your reliance and attitude towards them is. I’ve seen so many teams complain that “Jira doesn’t let me do this”… Continue reading Stop blaming your digital tools for your problems

AI-Driven UX Design

What impact might AI have on UX? My take on how we can design for AI. How will Artificial Intelligence impact UX design? How can we design meaningful experiences in an era with AI-driven products & services? How will this creative process look like? These questions keep clouding my mind, and I like to give… Continue reading AI-Driven UX Design

A series of interviews with senior UX leaders to celebrate International Women’s Day

Meet Elizabeth Elizabeth Churchill is currently a Director of User Experience at Google. She is an applied social scientist working in the area of human computer interaction, computer mediated communication, mobile/ubiquitous computing and social media. Elizabeth is the current Secretary/Treasurer of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the world’s premier professional society for computer science… Continue reading A series of interviews with senior UX leaders to celebrate International Women’s Day

From a Handful of Beans to the Starbucks Experience

“A person’s hands holding a coffee cup and pouring cream into it” by Taylor Franz on Unsplash How much does a cup of coffee cost these days? Depending on where you buy your beverage, anything from $1 to $6. And while you’ve probably guessed right, that the $1 option is a McDonald’s special, likely you’re also… Continue reading From a Handful of Beans to the Starbucks Experience

Five analytical components for a better user experience

User Behaviour Whatever someone does while on your website is called user behaviour. It includes the journey within your website’s pages, interaction with page elements, page scroll, form submissions, link/button clicks, and others. Analytics will help you understand the user behavior of your website better. How far are they scrolling down the page? Which forms… Continue reading Five analytical components for a better user experience

InVision Studio is out—but are designers migrating to a new tool again?

Why would someone switch from Sketch to Invision Studio? Well, to answer this question I decided to look at what the community is talking about online. Here are some of the answers I found on Quora. Opinions seem pretty divided. 1.“It depends on its performance — if it improves my workflow. Sketch is pretty simple and has many… Continue reading InVision Studio is out—but are designers migrating to a new tool again?

Inclusive Design Mindset

At the end of a 72-hour race to complete the Student Design Challenge (SDC) hosted by Microsoft at IxDA this year, I was prompted to think about how my experience could not only benefit future designers, but also public school teachers. The challenge was to design an interactive way to teach rhythm to a student… Continue reading Inclusive Design Mindset

Analysing Usability Testing Data

Gathering feedback from your users is a crucial part of any design process. The way in which you can gather this feedback varies depending on what kind of questions you are trying to answer, the resources you have available for user research and what stage of the product life cycle you are currently in. Qualitative… Continue reading Analysing Usability Testing Data

Building brand trust through UX Design

Be Secure Are you building an eCommerce website? Are you going to make the credit/debit card transactions happen on your website? This section is critical. What are the chances you would give your credit/debit card information to any random eCommerce website? None, right? I know your website is not the dodgy site still trying to… Continue reading Building brand trust through UX Design

Personas, jobs to be done, user needs = goals + pain points

Recently I’ve been working on discovering unmet user needs for my company using the Job-To-Be-Done framework, and I saw some arguments between people who use personas and people who use jobs-to-be-done (JTBD). A common critique of using personas from the JTBD people is that personas tend to focus on the attributes of the users (like… Continue reading Personas, jobs to be done, user needs = goals + pain points

How to be a Product Designer.

My new and improved portfolio. whoistaneisha.com I might be a Product Designer now, but I didn’t always know that’s what I would be when I started my career. Let me start at the beginning of my journey. I went to college for Fine Arts and had found my way to where I am through a… Continue reading How to be a Product Designer.

How to turn user journeys into high-end highways

Photo by Karsten Würth on Unsplash When we need to get from point A to point B, we usually choose from several roads. And let any of them somehow lead us to the destination point, most likely we will get different impressions from this trip. Similarly, when we need to get any online service, we choose… Continue reading How to turn user journeys into high-end highways

The state of UX in Colombia, 2018

The local UX scene Medellín I’m pleased and humbled to announce that I’ve just become the Local Leader of IDF Medellín at the Interaction Design Foundation. This means that, in the coming months, I’ll be taking up the responsibility (and pleasure) of building a vibrant and meaningful community of UX Designers in Medellín and helping the… Continue reading The state of UX in Colombia, 2018

Design critique, the IA of Youtube, serial makers, and more UX this week

The UX of AI → Machine learning will cause us to rethink, restructure, and reconsider what’s possible in virtually every experience we build. By Josh Lovejoy. The IA, patterns, and flows of Youtube → An addiction that extends beyond the content, creators, and community. YouTube has some great IA, design patterns, and flows. By Vicky Weng. The… Continue reading Design critique, the IA of Youtube, serial makers, and more UX this week

How ideating with developers can make you a better designer

I haven’t always been as lucky as I am now by being able to work extremely close with an incredible team of developers. Since making the in-house move, I’ve had the chance to work directly with iOS, Android, and Full Stack developers. Each of them is extremely talented, and they truly care about the product.… Continue reading How ideating with developers can make you a better designer

Here are 34 articles relating Hawaii’s false missile alert with bad design

[unable to retrieve full-text content] Just in case you were away. The Hawaii Missile Alert Culprit: Poorly Chosen File Names Redesigning Hawaii’s Emergency Alert System’s Interface In The Open Blame terrible interface design for the Hawaii missile alert debacle A Hawaiian Missile Lullaby A UX Perspective on the Hawaii False Missile Alert Design Fail #2 :… Continue reading Here are 34 articles relating Hawaii’s false missile alert with bad design

AI and the big why

2018 UX Trends As designers (and human beings) we have a natural curiosity to want to understand the potential and limits of a technology by pushing its boundaries and asking all the “what if…?” questions. After all, experimenting is a great way to understanding. Our entire industry is rushing to launch the world’s first AI-powered [insert… Continue reading AI and the big why

UX at Google, designing friction, interface as a story, and more UX this week

The state of UX in 2018 The death and rebirth of UX → As designers, we have always fought to be involved in strategic decisions early on. Now that we have a seat at the table, what are we going to do about it? Designing for the age of immediacy → Real-time social media experiences are changing… Continue reading UX at Google, designing friction, interface as a story, and more UX this week

Bill Nye the UX Guy

Photo by chuttersnap It was a cold Thursday evening in February and I was less than stoked to be sitting in an 8th grade classroom at St. Catherine’s listening to Deacon Colin’s dry jokes and speech outlining the importance of this marriage preparation course. Trying to look engaged and interested in the conversation at hand,… Continue reading Bill Nye the UX Guy