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
Category: UX
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
UX process: how I applied it to my first internship project
Priya Makwana Follow Apr 15 · 10 min read “Every master was once a beginner”- Robin Sharma I am not, by any means, a master yet, but I am glad that at least I am a beginner in the field I am truly interested in. It all started with my mum complaining about using certain… Continue reading UX process: how I applied it to my first internship project
How to test readability
Legibility is the ease with which a user can not only read the text, but also understand it. In my experience as a UX designer, I saw it as the most overlooked part of user experience. Many times I participated in usability tests checking if it’s easy to find some information in an app or… Continue reading How to test readability
5 tips for creating successful company brand guidelines
The first component I feel is vital to brand guidelines is logo variation. Logo variations are alternative visual variants of a primary brand logo. Ideally, for maximum consistency and user recognition, the logomark or symbol/icon should always exist in one recognised colour. As an example, everyone recognises Facebook and Twitter as blue, HSBC as red,… Continue reading 5 tips for creating successful company brand guidelines
The one thing I learned in engineering school that I use every day
Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash Or, looking for data and boundary conditions Engineering problems are typically well-bounded. That is, we only need to solve for particular conditions, and problems often give us the values of critical variables. Undergraduate engineering problem-solving lies less in mathematical derivation and more in recognizing the shape of a problem,… Continue reading The one thing I learned in engineering school that I use every day
Why are we in love with the color blue
It is often mistaken that the colors we use while designing are here just to please the eye and make something “look pretty”. Humans rely heavily on them to understand something and give a meaning to it. Based on a study by Stephen E. Palmer and Karen Schloss published in 2010, it is confirmed that… Continue reading Why are we in love with the color blue
In defence of Dribbble and artsy UI’s
In the recent years I’ve seen dozens of articles saying that Dribbble is destroying the design community, promoting the wrong mindsets and taking value away from real Design Work™. While it’s hard to doubt some of these claims, I decided to stop being negative (like I was with UX has pretty bad UX) and this… Continue reading In defence of Dribbble and artsy UI’s
What’s happening in UX in 2020 — and more design links this week
The State of UX 2020 → We have seen a lot this year. After curating and sharing 2,411 links, we have identified a few of the trends our industry has been writing, talking, and thinking about. Our annual trends report is a holistic analysis of UX Design as a discipline: the tools we use, the… Continue reading What’s happening in UX in 2020 — and more design links this week
Three types of users that can mess with your user tests
Rachel Wendte Follow Nov 19 · 3 min read If you’re a UX designer, or anyone who works in the consumer space, you know that users can affect the future plans, improvements, and features in your experience. To mitigate this, many of us turn to user testing to make our case. But as with any… Continue reading Three types of users that can mess with your user tests
Accessibility & Aesthetics, Cybertruck Design, Autocomplete UI — and more UX this week
Fabricio Teixeira Follow Nov 30 · 3 min read Interfaces 3 →The third generation of interfaces is personal. Building Trust →The constant balancing act of being a designer. Kill The Label →Why labels in the UI are a last resort. The UX Collective newsletter is a self-funded newsletter read by over 119,400 designers every week,… Continue reading Accessibility & Aesthetics, Cybertruck Design, Autocomplete UI — and more UX this week
It’s not about the money — UX research in financial services
Anya Zeitlin Follow Nov 26 · 4 min read I spent a year working as a Design Consultant in financial services. During that year, I lead over 80 hours of one to one interviews and countless other hours analysing data. I designed remotes studies, analysed surveys and visited homes. I spoke to people about one… Continue reading It’s not about the money — UX research in financial services
Why banks need to invest in UX to retain customers
Deepak Pakhare Follow Nov 20 · 7 min read Using mobile apps and websites for banking, insurance, personal finance and investment in India can be deeply frustrating. These are essential services and companies providing these services must invest in the right kind of design expertise to provide superior digital product experiences to their customers. UX,… Continue reading Why banks need to invest in UX to retain customers
The ultimate guide to chatbot personality
Stefan Katz Follow Nov 19 · 10 min read Photo by Erhan Astam on Unsplash A chatbot’s personality is like Donald Trump’s Tax return — everyone’s talking about it, but no one’s ever seen it. Indeed, your last encounter with a chatbot or virtual assistant may have reminded you of the classic meme: A wide… Continue reading The ultimate guide to chatbot personality
Potential designer: focus on this first
In our craft, it is ridiculously easy to consume hours of visual content every day. When researching, it’s a fine line between generating ideas, layouts, and concepts and getting emotionally jealous of their work. I’ve surrounded myself with creative people, a vast array of musicians, producers, photographers, illustrators, and designers. But I have a secret.… Continue reading Potential designer: focus on this first
New Atlantic, Figma Plugins, Dribbblish Designers — and more UX links this week
Fabricio Teixeira Follow Nov 16 · 3 min read Shared Systems →Design systems as a shared product language.By Mariusz Ciesla Password Problem →Why passwords are ultimately a design problem.By Khoi Vinh Dribbblish Designer →Why you shouldn’t hire based on Dribbble shots. The UX Collective newsletter is a self-funded newsletter read by over 117,600 designers every… Continue reading New Atlantic, Figma Plugins, Dribbblish Designers — and more UX links this week
Not every designer can work at a user-driven corporation
Yichen He Follow Nov 12 · 4 min read Image Credit: Daria Nepriakhina A piece of writing I have always been very fascinated with is this article published more than 10 years ago in 2006 on NN/g that still manages to really capture the idea of Corporate UX maturity. When I first started out in… Continue reading Not every designer can work at a user-driven corporation
Our color vision is limited
Iho Kalmyk Follow Nov 7 · 6 min read Our eyes are not only a mirror of our souls, but also the main and most important way for us to perceive the world around us. With the help of vision, we gather about 80% percent of all information concerning what is happening around us. Of… Continue reading Our color vision is limited
Got an idea for a service? Here’s how to evaluate its merit
Steven J. Slater Follow Nov 7 · 3 min read It is so much easier to dismiss a new idea than explore its merit. Many organizations are risk-adverse and executives simply find it easier to say “no” to avoid disruption. That thinking, however, results in missed opportunities. Quickly evaluating new ideas helps avoid spending resources… Continue reading Got an idea for a service? Here’s how to evaluate its merit
How to prioritize and implement features into an app or website
Testing, feedback, remake, testing, feedback, remake… Completed one usability test after the other. Usability testing is a technique used to evaluate a product by testing it on users. The feedback received from the usability test was crucial to understand our users and create a better experience. Here some visual effects of the testing and remaking… Continue reading How to prioritize and implement features into an app or website
Margin & padding: the creation of negative space
In this diagram, also known as the CSS Box Model (a special Michelangelo edition…) you will also see space for content and a border. Content is simply the bounds of an image or text A border surrounds the padding and content. A padding and margin can still exist around content without a border. Below is… Continue reading Margin & padding: the creation of negative space
Am I a good fit for a UX design?
User Experience (UX) Design is an intriguing field. As it’s called UX “Design,” it is easy to assume that only design people who have a traditional design or arts background may join this field. However, in the real world, I saw many talented UX designers coming from various backgrounds, including business, engineering, psychology, and even… Continue reading Am I a good fit for a UX design?