Designers today most likely have been designing for products that use some level of AI for automation. We have been designing in the first stage of AI, artificial narrow intelligence. To get to the second stage of AI, artificial general intelligence, we need user data. Lots of it. How do we get this information? To… Continue reading Design makes AI smarter
Category: UX
Sketch Gists — Useful snippets for plugin development
Last week I was developing an internal tool to create a design workflow for my workplace. The process involved creating a style guide for a new project by setting up the branding colours, typefaces, shadows and scrim. All went well until it was required to convert the text layers into symbols so as to generalise… Continue reading Sketch Gists — Useful snippets for plugin development
UX brutalism, fragile ideas, Kano model and more UX links this week
What’s hot in UX this week: Brutalist wireframes → Usability? Legibility? Common sense? Forget everything you know about UX. Here is a proper framework for designing brutalist experiences that your design peers will love. The Brutalist UX Framework™ is a not a tool nor a template; it is a mindset for UX Designers that brings… Continue reading UX brutalism, fragile ideas, Kano model and more UX links this week
The Journey of a Fragile Idea
unsplash.com As a designer, I am often very impulsive with new ideas. When I come up with a new interaction for an app I’m working on, I get an insatiable itch to share it with my peers. In the light of inspiration, I get a natural high and run to the nearest piece of paper… Continue reading The Journey of a Fragile Idea
Hey Designer, why so fragile?
The Why Praise overdose If you visit the comment section of behance.com and you manage to see through all the self-promotion, you’ll find that the comments are unusually polite and positive. Every project seems to have really positive feedback, the only thing that really distinguishes projects is the amount of praise they get. The reason… Continue reading Hey Designer, why so fragile?
UX & Psychology go hand in hand— How Gestalt theory appears in UX design?
Source: iStock In the age of AI and “Human Centered Machine Learning”, it’s essential that we understand the needs and behaviour of our users. This is doubly true as a UX designer. In order to create work that better serves the needs of our users, it’s important to understand some basic psychological principles. Which is… Continue reading UX & Psychology go hand in hand— How Gestalt theory appears in UX design?
Diversity is Punk Rock
I used to think “diversity” meant the need for the representation of a particular set of perspectives or cultures, i.e., “there are lot of men in this room, therefore we need women.” This idea prevented me from participating in the discourse in the past because I’ve never felt like I identify with any single community.… Continue reading Diversity is Punk Rock
How to Gain Insights from Emotionally Charged Questions
http://www.gratisography.com In product design, we are taught that we shouldn’t ask leading questions in interviews / testing. Don’t you hate when XXX happens?Isn’t it harder that you don’t have XXX in your life?Wouldn’t your life be simpler if you had XXX product? We avoid asking leading questions like those. But why? Generally it is true… Continue reading How to Gain Insights from Emotionally Charged Questions
Make War, Not Interfaces
A Product Designer riding into battle — Andrew Yardley Product Design is a lot like warfare. Think about it. Users are the enemy. Like Clone Troopers straight out of Episode II, they are legion. Their numbers are seemingly without end. Without fail and without relent they will come at you, poking holes in your design, finding its fatal… Continue reading Make War, Not Interfaces
Solving the right problem, VR needs UX, github for designers, and more UX this week
A year ago… A psychological approach to designing interfaces → Do you ever get that feeling when you’re in a supermarket, looking at a sea of different types of toothpaste and you have no idea what to get? The reason why you get overwhelmed by these excessive options has to do with, you guessed it, psychology.… Continue reading Solving the right problem, VR needs UX, github for designers, and more UX this week
11 Communication Techniques for Designers
You have spent years getting this far — going to university, taking regular courses and workshops, going to conferences, reading countless books, articles, and listening to weekly podcasts — only for a stakeholder to steamroll your design expertise.Here are 11 techniques for improving your communication skills and getting your designs approved. There comes a point in every designers career… Continue reading 11 Communication Techniques for Designers
The Core Elements of Product Design: Strategy, Pillars and Principles
Establish these core elements up front to clarify your best product solution You can quote my partner-in-[design]crime and I on that. I’ve dedicated most of my career to digital design within the walls of big business. The endless uphill battle never ceases to remind me that traditional business models have yet to fully adopt design into… Continue reading The Core Elements of Product Design: Strategy, Pillars and Principles
Atomic design: how to design systems of components
Today, the idea of Atomic Design is to begin with common raw material (atoms) with which we can build the rest of the project: Today: we start from atoms and we build the rest from there We have thus not only an “air de famille” between all the screens, but also a system which offers infinite… Continue reading Atomic design: how to design systems of components
From Human-centered design to design for enhancing human ability
The role of design is consequently evolving. From initially being a domain of communication with a predominant aesthetic focus design has taken a key role in the creation of products and has become a human advocacy. Design has moved into the C-Suite with the appointment of Chief Design Officers (CDO) while Design Thinking shifted the… Continue reading From Human-centered design to design for enhancing human ability
Atomic Design & creativity
I’ve been using atomic design in my projects over the last 2 years now. And since then, I can’t help but talk about it to everyone around me ;) Quick reminder : Atomic Design is a methodology, invented by Brad Frost and based on the idea that designing interface should always rely on the smallest part of… Continue reading Atomic Design & creativity
Stop Being an Ego Designer
Wow! The new client project has landed and you will be the lead designer! Great, everybody has to do your biddings. Gnaar! Thats wrong, dude! Photo by: Nik MacMillan I believe that every project and teamwork will push you more into the character of an altruist. Designing a digital product with your ego creates a… Continue reading Stop Being an Ego Designer
They are all around us: 6 archetypes of self-assessed “UX designers”
We’re living in the era of the “UX enthusiastics”: some people just feel they have a natural talent about anything related to “user” AND “experience” and this enables them to randomly act and feel as UX designer. Someone should tell them that this is one of those cases when a natural talent in not enough… Continue reading They are all around us: 6 archetypes of self-assessed “UX designers”
How to choose your first design gig: startup, corporate, or freelance?
The startup route is for designers who are also entrepreneurial souls. If you are the type to grind your way through to success, and love a high risk but high reward environment, then this might be the first job for you. There could also be a general lack of structures, systems, and processes. It is… Continue reading How to choose your first design gig: startup, corporate, or freelance?
Design for a Cause
Personal Design Projects Apart from the professional design work, most designers, especially aspiring designers invest a reasonable amount of time on personal ‘side projects’. These projects typically include redesign or UX analysis of an existing product, concept product design, usability testing etc. They are really good for practicing UX skills. Simultaneously, most designers showcase them in… Continue reading Design for a Cause
Airbnb Vacation — Seamless Trip Planning Done Right
I wanted to tackle this as a design problem. I started thinking about this against a design framework. What are the JTBD (Jobs To Be Done) here? Have a fulfilling trip Not miss out on an experience/activity due to lack of information Reduce transit time by staying close to where the activities are Reduce FOMO (fear… Continue reading Airbnb Vacation — Seamless Trip Planning Done Right
How I apply the Value Proposition Canvas to convince my clients to invest more time in customer…
A few years ago, I used to struggle to convince my clients to give me more — or just some — time to do a good customer research, and I must confess I lost a few battles. But eventually, I learnt how to manage it. I stopped fighting this. At first, I would listen to them carefully — after all, they… Continue reading How I apply the Value Proposition Canvas to convince my clients to invest more time in customer…
Losing customer trust is easy
Photo by www.stylecraze.com Today I tried to book a class in my fitness club where I pay a monthly fee for unlimited access to anything they have on the offer. To my surprise, I got the following message: “You are not allowed to book another class until 10.06 because you have already canceled two classes… Continue reading Losing customer trust is easy
UX and design thinking: 5 tips for changing your company mindset
The UX design is based off an attitude, a mindset that aims to catch those unfulfilled user needs in the context of a certain experience and turn them into design opportunities, through a process made of specific steps, mainly provided by the “design thinking tool set”. Conversely, so many companies in the digital industry keep… Continue reading UX and design thinking: 5 tips for changing your company mindset
Floating labels, high-conversion pages, prototyping smaller, and more UX links this week
What’s hot in UX this week: In the future, design principles won’t be about design → What exactly are design principles? What are they for? Are they useful? How? What makes a good design principle? In an attempt to answer those questions, I poured over the biggest collections of design principles on the internet, and came… Continue reading Floating labels, high-conversion pages, prototyping smaller, and more UX links this week