The Dangers of Deceptive Design Patterns (And How to Avoid Them)

UX By Louise North Today As web designers, our role in crafting user-friendly digital landscapes is critical. We are tasked with creating user experiences that make visitors feel comfortable and respected. This, in turn, creates benefits for our clients by improving repeat visits and achieves the site’s ultimate aims, whether that is sales revenue or… Continue reading The Dangers of Deceptive Design Patterns (And How to Avoid Them)

3 Essential Design Trends, September 2023

Here’s what’s trending in design this month: 1. Monochrome Color Schemes One-color design patterns can be beautiful and somewhat enchanting. With tints and tones of the same base color, there is a certain elegance that comes with a monochrome color scheme. Designers who have worked with color in this way know that while the end result may look… Continue reading 3 Essential Design Trends, September 2023

From toy to titan: the activations behind the Barbie effect

The marketing budget for Barbie was $150m, more than the $145m for the movie itself—and it shows. Barbie takes over the streets of Dubai. Credit Eye Studio. Operation Barbie Summer (the internal codename from Warner Bros) is in full swing. Since its release on July 21st, just two weeks ago, the Barbie movie has shattered 11 box… Continue reading From toy to titan: the activations behind the Barbie effect

What it takes to avoid an ADA lawsuit, 33rd-anniversary edition

With the number of digital accessibility lawsuits in 2023 on the rise, it begs the question, “Do I really need to consider the needs of 1 in 4 Americans when it comes to their ability to do business with me?” The increasing litigation says yes. Let’s take a look at how you can minimize your… Continue reading What it takes to avoid an ADA lawsuit, 33rd-anniversary edition

How ‘collective illusions’ influence decision making

How our perceptions of the world around us and the groups we work in may be misleading This week builds on our previous post on cognitive illusions and perception errors. optical illusions help illustrate how blind we are to the cognitive heuristics we use to make sense of the world around us. What they show is… Continue reading How ‘collective illusions’ influence decision making

Exciting New Tools for Designers, July 2023

In this month’s edition, you’ll find new ways of using AI, some excellent new services for streamlining your work, plus some great new UI kits. Enjoy! Cosmos Cosmos is a brand-new, beautifully realized Pinterest alternative for creatives. You can use it to create visual notes, record design inspiration, and curate your visual world via plugins on the… Continue reading Exciting New Tools for Designers, July 2023

Innovative Home Decor: How Custom Neon Signs Elevate Interior Design Strategies

‍“There’s No Place Like Home” LED sign by VoodooNeon.com Introduction to innovative home decor In recent years, the world of interior design has seen a significant shift towards innovative and unconventional home decor ideas. As homeowners, we are always on the lookout for unique ways to express our individuality and creativity in our living spaces.… Continue reading Innovative Home Decor: How Custom Neon Signs Elevate Interior Design Strategies

AI? Artificial Intelligence? Accessible Intelligence!

What We Can Look Forward To in the New AI World The Journey For the uninitiated, the concept of AI could seem new, but I can remember learning the term in the late 1980s when I took a course in LISP. LISP is a computer language originally developed over sixty years ago at MIT and… Continue reading AI? Artificial Intelligence? Accessible Intelligence!

Card sorting with visually impaired participants: how to overcome accessibility barriers

A guide to conducting card sorting with participants who are visually impaired. Photo by Author; generated using Stable Diffusion. Card Sorting is a UX research method used to understand how users categorize and organize information, which reflects how they expect information and content to be organized on a user interface. In this method, participants are… Continue reading Card sorting with visually impaired participants: how to overcome accessibility barriers

How to Create a Double Exposure Effect in Affinity Photo

In this tutorial, we will be learning how to create a double exposure in Affinity Photo. We’ll just need two photos and a few layer masks and adjustments for it to all come together in only a few steps. And thanks to being able to nest and create multiple masks, creating a double exposure in… Continue reading How to Create a Double Exposure Effect in Affinity Photo

What did Victor Papanek leave for UX designers in “Design for Real Word”?

In the “Back to basics” series, I would like to rediscover the content of the textbooks I read at the beginning of my industrial design studies. I am a supporter of wise (prudent) use of the achievements of the predecessors, which is why I re-read these valuable, twentieth-century books on design and try to extract… Continue reading What did Victor Papanek leave for UX designers in “Design for Real Word”?

Sketchy Pencil Effect with Three.js Post-Processing

From our sponsor: Get suggestions for improving your content, targeting, and marketing automations to help you increase revenue. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a sketchy, pencil effect using Three.js post-processing. We’ll go through the steps for creating a custom post-processing render pass, implementing edge detection in WebGL, re-rendering the normal buffer… Continue reading Sketchy Pencil Effect with Three.js Post-Processing

The Ultimate Guide to Typography

Are you interested in typography? This complete course covers everything from typography history to the difference between typefaces and fonts, typeface classification, how to choose a font, and more! Watch the Ultimate Guide to Typography Course What You’ll Learn What is the history of typography? What is the difference between a typeface and a… Continue reading The Ultimate Guide to Typography

20 Best New Websites, July 2022

Welcome to our guide to the best new websites this month. If subtle, minimal sites are your thing, either look away now or prepare to have your preconceptions challenged because this month, we are going maximalist. Lots of elements fill up the screen, lots of color, lots of big fonts, lots of illustration, and plenty… Continue reading 20 Best New Websites, July 2022

15 Top Schedule Planners in Figma & Adobe XD to Download in 2022

Are you a designer creating apps or task management platforms? Helping your clients to keep a realistic schedule planner can change the way they manage their time. Create your own using a schedule planner template for Figma or Adobe XD.  This is a great schedule planner template for Figma and Adobe XD. A well designed… Continue reading 15 Top Schedule Planners in Figma & Adobe XD to Download in 2022

3 Essential Design Trends, July 2022

There are a lot of dark, retro vibes trending in website design right now. Although there are still some light projects popping up – including a pastel trend below – a lot of what we are seeing has a quite moody feel. Here’s what’s trending in design this month.   Pastel Color Palettes Let’s start… Continue reading 3 Essential Design Trends, July 2022

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

Top seven free color contrast checkers & analyzers

1. Contrast Checker (Monsido) Contrast Checker (monsido.com) Perfect if you just want a quick and easy contrast measurement without having to download anything. Measure contrast quickly in this web app Very intuitive to use Multiple ways to input colors Screenshot of Contrast Checker (Monsido) 2. Tanaguru Contrast Finder Tanaguru Contrast Finder Perfect if you want… Continue reading Top seven free color contrast checkers & analyzers

Flyer Templates

Welcome to this comprehensive guide to flyer templates. We’ll look at what flyers are, why to use them, and how to create them. And we’ll also look at plenty of flyer design inspiration. Let’s get started! What Is a Flyer? At its most basic level, a flyer is a small sheet of paper containing printed… Continue reading Flyer Templates

How to Customize the WooCommerce Checkout Page

The checkout page is one of the most important pages on any eCommerce website. All the effort that you put into your website content, design and marketing will amount to nothing if your customers keep abandoning their carts and never complete the checkout process. Some statistics show that cart abandonment rate can vary in range… Continue reading How to Customize the WooCommerce Checkout Page

How to Make the Background Transparent in Photoshop

There are several different ways to make a background transparent in Photoshop. And when multiple different tools do the same thing, it can be a pain to figure out which to use and when. Follow along as we go through four of the easiest ways you can quickly remove a background in Photoshop.  In a… Continue reading How to Make the Background Transparent in Photoshop