Design Systems Teams: Understand Your Users So They Can Serve Theirs

Welcome to the next edition of my Design Strategy blog series. Today, I’ll be sharing a story from some recent client visits that will help y’all recognize WHY you should do things differently to mature and scale your digital accessibility program quickly. I will once again skip the “how-to” dry laundry lists of tactical “do… Continue reading Design Systems Teams: Understand Your Users So They Can Serve Theirs

Johan Cruyff’s influence on adaptive role switching in Product Design

Johan Cruyff's influence on adaptive role switching in Product Design A product design philosophy inspired by the brilliance of Total Football, as orchestrated by Johan Cruyff and the 1970s Dutch masters. Switching Product Roles: Created via Midjourney 2023. NB. The product design theme of this article should still strike a chord, even if you aren't a football fanatic.… Continue reading Johan Cruyff’s influence on adaptive role switching in Product Design

The extended designer, and the design machine

The Extended Designer spends less time making products, and more time making progress. The Extended Designer spends less time making products, and more time making progress. 2023 has been Generative AI’s breakout year, but that has been greeted by some fairly mixed responses, particularly from Designers. As the terrain we all live on reconfigures around… Continue reading The extended designer, and the design machine

What’s the difference between design values and principles?

Collectively, design values and principles are the guiding beliefs and priorities that shape the design process for any design team, product or designer. But what should they be, and what’s the difference between them? Photo by Tyler Lastovich on Unsplash We’re all different, and whether we’re aware of it or not we’re all likely to have our… Continue reading What’s the difference between design values and principles?

WWDC 2023 Accessibility Goodies for Developers

This year, Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) was a big deal! Among the many announcements this year, Apple introduced the new Apple Vision Pro headset which has arguably and understandably stolen the show this year.  Although Vision Pro may be the big talk of the town post-WWDC, there was also a myriad of exciting… Continue reading WWDC 2023 Accessibility Goodies for Developers

Facilitating effective ideation meetings

[unable to retrieve full-text content] Designing engaging and productive gatherings Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash In today’s hybrid work landscape, meetings have become abundant, but unfortunately, many of them still suffer from inefficiency and ineffectiveness. Specifically, meetings aimed at generating ideas to address various challenges related to people, processes, or products encounter recurring issues. The lack… Continue reading Facilitating effective ideation meetings

The Power of Place in Photography

Place in photography is everything to the photographer, as it helps him capture and investigate various concepts such as culture and identity, traditions, and environmental challenges. But also, place plays a more significant role in the photograph’s appearance and can give you a bad day at the office if not controlled. Although place can add… Continue reading The Power of Place in Photography

How people read online

Tips for accessible text. What makes a text nice to read? To know more about this, it is important to take a closer look at how people are reading. Additionally, it may be the case that someone is impaired, physically or mentally, to read a text. How does it work? Saccades, fixations, and breaks The reading process… Continue reading How people read online

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

How playing improvised music can train the ability to synthesize in design

Improv form #1. Drawing by Alexander Pryshyvalka (Instagram) My experience with Minsk Improvisers Orchestra I was always certain that only those who are trained in understanding musical notation and playing music instrument, are allowed to create music — only these special kinds of people are eligible to be called musicians. I’m not one of this special kind… Continue reading How playing improvised music can train the ability to synthesize in design

AI is going to change UX research forever

The rise of AI will impact everyone. But in what way can UX designers use AI to their benefit? And how do we design AI systems? AI will revolutionize every sector, but unexpectedly UX research might suffer a huge impact. Photo by me. The rise of AI is creating a lot of buzz in almost every modern… Continue reading AI is going to change UX research forever

Co-creating has drastically improved my designs

How co-design has drastically improved my work Users, engineers, product managers… I’m not the only one designing things around here I find defining a problem challenging. Ideally, at the start of a project all the metrics and objectives form a crystal clear statement. But working with high ambiguity in the platform space, I often start with a… Continue reading Co-creating has drastically improved my designs

8 Best WordPress Forum Plugins

Do you want to add a forum to your WooCommerce website? Forums can create a high level of engagement for users of your site.  Example of forums include:  question and answer platforms discussion boards peer to peer support, especially for software  To add a forum to your website you will need a… Continue reading 8 Best WordPress Forum Plugins

Does UX have an imposter problem?

8 reasons it might be them, not you. Illustrations throughout by Emma Clayton Eyes cast down, she whispered, “I feel like UX is a dance club that I can’t get a ticket into.” A heavy silence hung in the air. This, after two years working at one of the largest technology firms, in what most of us would consider… Continue reading Does UX have an imposter problem?

4 Best Real User Monitoring Tools for 2022

The success of your website or web app hinges on the user experience. A positive experience translates into loyalty through high user retention and conversion rates, which in turn increase your profits.  The good news is that you can discover exactly what kind of experience users are having on your website or web app. You… Continue reading 4 Best Real User Monitoring Tools for 2022

How to Make Your Web Developer Portfolio Stand Out

The rise of the internet has changed how we interact with the rest of the world. We are constantly connected to one another and have access to vast resources for education, entertainment, and business. Yet, the continued practicality of these technologies relies on the talents of web developers to provide interfaces and structures. One of… Continue reading How to Make Your Web Developer Portfolio Stand Out

Thinking in experiments: Today’s winning mindset

[unable to retrieve full-text content] The old excuses for not engaging with customers more often simply don’t apply anymore. In fact they’ve been turned on their heads. Photo by Girl with red hat on Unsplash “For every good idea there are a thousand bad ideas it is indistinguishable from. The only real way to tell the difference… Continue reading Thinking in experiments: Today’s winning mindset

Pondering the Future of the WordPress Sidebar

The WordPress sidebar has been a mainstay feature of both free and commercial themes. It seems that, no matter how the content management system (CMS) evolves, the sidebar has triumphantly (and, perhaps defiantly) come along for the ride. How has it survived this long? For one, it continues to serve a useful purpose. It houses… Continue reading Pondering the Future of the WordPress Sidebar

Designing UI for the Voice Era

The world of web design is incredibly dynamic. Every year, new trends and opportunities emerge, primarily driven by the arrival of modern technology.  In recent years, we’ve seen various updates to the web design landscape, such as the arrival of AR and VR solutions for making mixed media. Video content has increased in quality, while… Continue reading Designing UI for the Voice Era

Top 5 Web Design Hacks For Effective Healthcare Marketing

In the modern digital world, the first place where people who need medical attention search for healthcare providers is the internet. Even as patients secure appointments, they still look at the website for the hospital they’re scheduled to visit. As such, healthcare professionals who have poorly designed websites risk losing patients to those that have… Continue reading Top 5 Web Design Hacks For Effective Healthcare Marketing

PHP round, ceil, and floor: Which One to Use?

A lot of programs, both big and small, require us to deal with numbers. There are two ways of defining numbers in PHP. They can either be floats or integers. We can also use strings to represent very large numbers. You can learn more about these data types and converting between them in this tutorial… Continue reading PHP round, ceil, and floor: Which One to Use?

8 Content Marketing Tactics To Increase Your Traffic In 2021

If you run an online business in 2021, you need to make sure you have a strong content marketing strategy if you want to attract as much website traffic as possible. Content marketing is the process of creating valuable and shareable content, like blog posts, quizzes, and videos, to attract your ideal customers and ultimately make… Continue reading 8 Content Marketing Tactics To Increase Your Traffic In 2021

Applying white space in UI design

[unable to retrieve full-text content] 8 practical tips, with examples. Good UI design is the thoughtful application of whitespace at all scales of an interface, from component to page, micro to macro. When whitespace is used well, the result is an interface that is harmonious, legible, and, above all, effective and easy to use. 1 /… Continue reading Applying white space in UI design