First steps of strategic product research at Glovo by UXR & Data ✏️ Illustrations credits to Ivan Mesaroš / Available on Blush From Spotify, all the way to Microsoft, Booking.com and many more, the leveraging of multidisciplinary teams to conduct product research seems THE WAY to achieve more actionable, comprehensive insights providing a higher likelihood of making… Continue reading How to kick off strategic research if you are NOT Spotify?
Category: UX
Rapid Personas: a play for your UX Playbook
Sketches of people in action poses, by Uday Gajendar It’s hard to write any article about personas — the design artifact people love to hate — without a string of caveats. But, here I am, writing about personas with no caveats. Let’s do it. With the Rapid Personas play I’m trying to address a couple… Continue reading Rapid Personas: a play for your UX Playbook
Super-helpful tips when working with Figma component properties
Handy tips to improve your understanding of Component Props Continue reading on UX Collective »
Exploring interstitial spaces
Embracing the serendipitous as design process Book interior page spread Relinquishing control Dictionary.com defines serendipity as “an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident”. My first acquaintance with serendipity as an element immersed within a design process was at a talk delivered by a photographer who would daily “put himself in the way of the… Continue reading Exploring interstitial spaces
When brown becomes a shade of orange in data visualization
Using the color Brown to create sequential and diverging color schemes. Continue reading on UX Collective »
What is a Design System? A simple guide to get started
A design system is a library of guidelines and reusable components that should establish the consistency of the product experience. The goal of a design system is to create a single source of truth, that is visible and maintainable by the team. Perhaps not all teams need a design system. However, from my personal experience,… Continue reading What is a Design System? A simple guide to get started
Let me be stupid — Creating experiences that are effortless
Let me be stupid — Creating experiences that are effortless While browsing Reddit the other day I stumbled upon this thread.The question asked was simple: ‘Do you ever wish you were a little more intelligent?’ I clicked on the thread expecting answers to range from ‘Duh’ to ‘HELL YES’, but I was extremely surprised when I saw… Continue reading Let me be stupid — Creating experiences that are effortless
Evolving animal personas as design tools with interspecies design
How learnings from interspecies design make non-human personas more effective in protecting and engaging animals Photo by redcharlie on Unsplash Just like user personas, non-human personas represent key stakeholders in design—the animals and environments impacted by human creations. With only a few years in design conversation, however, non-human personas are still very much developing. How… Continue reading Evolving animal personas as design tools with interspecies design
Stealing like an artist — design heuristics in creative ideation
Stealing like an artist — design heuristics in creative ideation Mental shortcuts and cognitive frameworks aren’t only useful in everyday judgments and problem-solving. When faced with creative challenges, we can also tap into our “design brain” to channel previously encountered ideas into our own work. At their core, design heuristics are the combination, exploration, or transformation of often already… Continue reading Stealing like an artist — design heuristics in creative ideation
The vanishing designer, Prototyper for Figma, understanding service models
Look around us. Every business is an app and every app feels the same, because every designer has the same resume, follows the same process, graduates from the same program, uses the same tool, scrolls the same Dribbble feed, reads the same Medium articles, expects the same career outcome, lives in the same ideology bubble.… Continue reading The vanishing designer, Prototyper for Figma, understanding service models
I’m not a robot (but, are you?)
The case for authenticating humans, reclaiming our identities, and defending against the coming swarm of bots. It’s 2022 and we are living in the opening scene of a dystopian Black Mirror episode. The line between what is real and what is fake has already blurred. The line between who is real and who is fake is now… Continue reading I’m not a robot (but, are you?)
Designing against complexity
The first line of defense to solve a complex problem is to avoid complexity all together Designers struggle to deal with complexity. Designers have a bias; they look at every problem as one that could be solved by studying the user. Tools like personas, empathy mapping, or journey mapping do little to uncover the systemic… Continue reading Designing against complexity
How to make decentralized apps (dApps) more user-friendly
I feel for Celsius, Three Arrows, Babel Finance and whoever the next floater happens to be. Continue reading on UX Collective »
If your user research feels incomplete, try talking with your customer support team
They’re probably more than aware of where users are struggling Photo by Olha Ruskykh: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-wearing-headset-while-working-at-the-office-7504886/ Customer Support can be one of the most significant untapped resources for user feedback if you know what questions to ask them. I learned this when I couldn’t interview users for a product I was designing. I was designing an… Continue reading If your user research feels incomplete, try talking with your customer support team
Design systems; the great connector
Like a backwards prism, design systems focus the energy of many teams into a single beam. They spread efficiency and consistency, but they also shape culture and hone brand expression. They’re about bringing it all together, across disciplines, to form alignment and a cohesive outcome. What’s the big deal about design systems, anyways? You might have heard… Continue reading Design systems; the great connector
You can learn a lot from a chicken: Line 201
ART | DESIGN | CREATIVITY | MOTORCYCLE | DIGITAL ART Yeah, we’re skipping the 100 level classes ’cause that’s just how we roll “A is for Amelia” Design and Photo by the Author You know, Amelia has my whole heart even though I suspect she herself has a heart like a biker chick. She hopes… Continue reading You can learn a lot from a chicken: Line 201
Gestalt psicology for dataviz
Understanding why specific data visualization techniques work better than others may not be so simple. Visual Pattern — Credits: Omar Flores on Unsplash We easily perceive a design that catches our attention, or elements that are out of place, but then we hardly know how to identify and evaluate them accurately, almost as if their effect acts at the… Continue reading Gestalt psicology for dataviz
Thoughts on modernism, brutalism, and a number of other outdated “isms”
When hollowed-out ideologies produce failed outcomes. Collage detail from book — the Modernist conception of space A Spatial Triad For French sociologist and philosopher Henri Lefebvre, space is a social product that is collectively shaped through the triad of conception, perception, and experience. The idea central to his book The Production of Space posits that… Continue reading Thoughts on modernism, brutalism, and a number of other outdated “isms”
Are we going to need food in the Metaverse?
A vision for how the world of food could evolve with web3. I was skeptical. I shouldn’t have been. Last week, I had the opportunity to attend YFood’s Insights & Innovation event, which took a deep dive into rising trends in the food tech space, specifically web3 and automation. As a UX designer, I’m interested in… Continue reading Are we going to need food in the Metaverse?
Hey, check out this egg-laying wool-milk-pig: said no one ever
How customization can lead to inclusion on Wikipedia. By Robin Schoenbaechler & Jazmin Tanner Over the past year, the Wikimedia Foundation Android team has focused on improving the communications experience in the Wikipedia Android app. Asynchronous collaboration is a core component of the Wikipedia editing experience, and the lower the entry barrier to editing, the… Continue reading Hey, check out this egg-laying wool-milk-pig: said no one ever
Storytelling as a service in SaaS
Rather than solely focusing on product characteristics and features, an authentic and creative narrative can convey brand values and connect with the target audience in a more strategic way. We are all the heroes of our own stories, and building a narrative around our experiences courses in our veins. Binging on stories is one of… Continue reading Storytelling as a service in SaaS
Create an accessible hamburger menu
Accessibility isn’t always easy. Should I be using a button or a link? Do I need ARIA labels? A lot of these questions can be answered using W3C’s WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices. The guide explains everything from carousels to breadcrumb navigations, from tabs to alerts—always with accessibility in mind. The design patterns that the guide discusses… Continue reading Create an accessible hamburger menu
What does your design cause?
What does your design cause which is undesirable or unintended or at odds with the design intent? How does one ask and answer these questions? In these next few posts I’m going to propose some ways of answering these questions that build up in complexity and propose some ways of thinking about causality and modeling… Continue reading What does your design cause?
On the narrative of AI as fiction
Hey Siri, we need to talk about the narrative of our relationship. I have spent the last few years looking closely at how we can design for presence, transformation, and more complex emotions. Our evolving relationship with intelligent technology is one of the most dynamic areas of this field. A recent book picks up this… Continue reading On the narrative of AI as fiction