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
Category: UX
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
Chatbots round-up #6: the best bots of the month
The idea of automating and scaling one-to-one conversations using technology appeals to lots of brands and services out there, and designers play an important role at defining how each conversation is scripted and the behaviors users can expect when interacting with bots. Here at uxdesign.cc, we have written several articles on chatbots and conversational interfaces,… Continue reading Chatbots round-up #6: the best bots of the month
Storyframes in UX, designing metrics, voice UI and more UX links this week
What’s hot in UX this week: Storyframes before wireframes: starting designs in the text editor → Just the other day I was talking to an experience designer in my team about this simple technique that I have used for years and never really thought about as a proper “technique” — maybe just intuition of someone who has designed… Continue reading Storyframes in UX, designing metrics, voice UI and more UX links this week
Houzz: a UX case study
We are all looking for self-expression and inspiration. We express ourselves through fashion, music, art, and through furniture. Houzz is an interior design app that has thousands of furniture inspirations for users to express their styles. After talking to friends and interviewing users I found that out of the people I talked to there were… Continue reading Houzz: a UX case study
The best European design events and conferences in 2017
September 2017 Reasons to: Design, Code & Create Design, Code, Create & Come Together Reasons to: is the award winning 3 day international conference with a festival vibe, held annually in Brighton UK, every first Mon, Tue, Weds of every September. Each year the very best international creative and developer speakers take to the stage to… Continue reading The best European design events and conferences in 2017
Dynamic Icons in Sketch
Two years ago, I had a grand total of zero minutes played in Sketch. Today — let’s do the math — I have approximately 18 months in Sketch x 172 working hours per month, equalling 3,132 hours. In that time I’ve discovered the best solution for tedious icon creation problems that zap your time. In the past, designers spent… Continue reading Dynamic Icons in Sketch
Taking responsibility for the things you launch
Let’s travel back in time. I’ll promise we’ll get back here in just a moment. A few months ago I launched Mindful, an extension for Google Chrome that aims at making users more mindful about their thoughts, ideas, and ongoing tasks by showing their notes in every new tab. Mindful is powered by a text… Continue reading Taking responsibility for the things you launch
Inspiring UX quotes, mobile navigation patterns, taxonomies and more UX this week
What’s hot in UX this week: Design better data tables → Data is useless without the ability to visualize and act on it. The success of future industries will couple advanced data collection with a better user experience, and the data table comprises much of this user experience. Good data tables allow users to scan, analyze,… Continue reading Inspiring UX quotes, mobile navigation patterns, taxonomies and more UX this week
Inspiring quotes in UX to give you the hope you’ve been looking for
On our process “Does it better” will always beat “did it first.” – Aaron Levie “Photoshop is the most effective way to show your clients what their website will never look like.” – Stephen Hay “If a picture is worth 1000 words, a prototype is worth 1000 meetings.” – Tom & David Kelley “If you think good design is… Continue reading Inspiring quotes in UX to give you the hope you’ve been looking for
Walking Through Design in Tokyo
People push past me as I exit the train at Shibuya station, and I start looking for the Hachiko statue. My friends told me to meet there before dinner, but ten minutes later I’m still lost. Thankfully once I slow down and look at my surroundings, I see guides all around me. At its size… Continue reading Walking Through Design in Tokyo
The Evolution Process From A Junior Level Designer To Becoming A Design Lead
This post feels somewhat like a coming of age story. If you’re a junior designer, it might be eye opening. On the contrary, as a design lead it might be the dark satirical humor after a long day that puts a smile on your face. As designers, we all face daily battles big or small,… Continue reading The Evolution Process From A Junior Level Designer To Becoming A Design Lead