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

5 things I learned as a product designer: a 10-year journey at Amazon, Walmart and startups

In 2019, I wrote an article titled What I learned as a Product Designer over the last 6 years — a snapshot of my journey with points I deemed relevant to any upcoming designers interested in the field of UX or Product Design. Little did I know that the following years would bring an abundance of experiences,… Continue reading 5 things I learned as a product designer: a 10-year journey at Amazon, Walmart and startups

Accessibility of the Button: Should We Fix It or the Root Cause Problem?

Let me tell you a story along the lines of…Button, Button, Who’s Got The Button? Typical “how to” articles are dry laundry lists of tactical “do this/don’t do that” mechanics that do nothing to help you think about WHY you should do things differently. Today, I’m going to share a more strategic accessible design approach… Continue reading Accessibility of the Button: Should We Fix It or the Root Cause Problem?

How you can create non-obvious UX research insights

6 tips to sidestep “we already knew it” feedback on a research report Image on https://www.nirandfar.com/hindsight-bias/ Every UX researcher wonders how they can create amazing insights that go beyond expectations and elicit a ‘wow!’ reaction from their audience. Despite conducting numerous rounds of interviews, sometimes our research reports can seem too plain and bland if they… Continue reading How you can create non-obvious UX research insights

Designing for AI: beyond the chatbot

Guidelines and strategies for meaningfully leveraging AI in your applications With the recent advancements in AI, we as designers, builders, and creators, face big questions about the future of applications and how people will interact with digital experiences. Generative AI has unleashed huge possibilities with what we can do with AI. People are now using… Continue reading Designing for AI: beyond the chatbot

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

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

AI is about to kill creativity

AI has a massive disruptive quality on the creative sector. Is AI going to benefit us, or will it create a new dark age for innovation? The Aeolipile (left) and the Steam engine (right) on a section of Bosch’s masterpiece The Last Judgment (Wikimedia) In the early first century, the first steam engine was invented… Continue reading AI is about to kill creativity

How high-fidelity prototypes can enhance user testing

During the usability testing phase, gathering as much information as possible about how users understand designs/product is essential. The objectives of usability testing often differ across studies. They typically uncover product or service design issues, discover opportunities for enhancement, and gain insight into the target user’s behaviour and preferences [1]. Tools like Figma and Sketch… Continue reading How high-fidelity prototypes can enhance user testing

How to design generative AI experiences to be truly helpful

From bullsh*t generator to ultimate copilot. Photo by Rolf van Root on Unsplash Suddenly, news about Generative AI is everywhere. People talk about how ChatGPT reached 1 million users in a record of 5 days, how Goldman Sachs predicts that AI will impact 300 million jobs, and how the new Bing goes “unhinged”… All the hypes aside,… Continue reading How to design generative AI experiences to be truly helpful

Software accessibility for users with Dyslexia

It is estimated that 15% of the population has Dyslexia. In absolute numbers this means that 30 million adults in the USA alone are dyslexic and a lot of them don’t even know — because it is often not diagnosed. Dyslexia is a cognitive disability where the brain has difficulties to manipulate the sounds and letters of… Continue reading Software accessibility for users with Dyslexia

Getting Started with HTML Tables — SitePoint

HTML tables are intended for displaying tabular data on a web page. They’re great for displaying information in an organized way, and can be styled with CSS to match the look and feel of our website. In this tutorial, we’ll cover the basics of creating HTML tables and adding styles to make them responsive and… Continue reading Getting Started with HTML Tables — SitePoint

The way you make me feel — how to set up in-app feedback

The way you make me feel — how to set up in-app feedback The success and longevity of an application depend on positive user acceptance. In order to integrate the users’ problems, needs, and expectations, it is necessary to continuously collect and analyze their feedback. From the various possible feedback channels, I have mapped the best practices for… Continue reading The way you make me feel — how to set up in-app feedback

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

Turning users into AI, UX personality test, modeling components in Figma

Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers. Modern products often have a large amount of user research data from different sources: user research interviews, intercom conversations, customer e-mails, surveys, customer reviews on various platforms, and whatnot. Making sense of all that data is a challenging task. A traditional way to do that is to maintain a… Continue reading Turning users into AI, UX personality test, modeling components in Figma

The age of Agile must end

30 years ago the technology industry attempted to import Lean practices — it failed. Instead of “continuous improvement,” progress halted. Agile is incompatible with UX research, design, and scalable development. It always will be. It’s time to create a new operational standard. Changing of the guards. Photo by Micah Kunkle on Unsplash As startups refocus on “operational efficiency,”… Continue reading The age of Agile must end

The role of grid systems in graphic design

Grid System: Vertical and horizontal lines grid. What is a grid system? The vertical and horizontal axes are divided in proportion to the coordinate system. In graphic design, the grid is used to control the font and image position layout design matrix, which has an important role in Mesh design, in different periods and geographical, people have… Continue reading The role of grid systems in graphic design

Building inclusive products for trans people

Answering trans people’s needs online can create a safer digital environment and lead to a more diverse workforce in Tech. Breaking news: design can help do it. This article is issued from “The great absentee: the trans community in our digital products” conference, held in French by Christopher De Paola and me at “Paris Web 2022”… Continue reading Building inclusive products for trans people

Digital death, neurodesign, Notion AI, Figma automated UI builder

Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers. “We live in a hyper-connected world where things don’t seem to have happened unless you post about them. An emotion hardly seems validated until it’s been shared with others online. On average, we spend a quarter of our lives online. For people we never met in person, all they know… Continue reading Digital death, neurodesign, Notion AI, Figma automated UI builder

Loading UX: make users not care about having to wait

An article about the psychology of waiting and how you can make this a positive user experience. Waiting. It’s something we all do every day. Waiting for a response to that message you sent, our food to be delivered, the traffic lights to turn green, and our computers to start at the beginning of the… Continue reading Loading UX: make users not care about having to wait

Should you do UX Research yourself, or hire an agency?

The Pros and Cons of these two options — plus a third you might have ignored The number at the end of the agency’s proposal was over one million Euros. I was floored. A client of mine had sent me a proposal from the latest research consulting firm in the runnings to help them explore a new market. Of the… Continue reading Should you do UX Research yourself, or hire an agency?

Digital humans are here. They sound and look just like us.

Now digital humans are here. They sound and look just like us. Digital humans, AI-powered digital counterparts, are going to change how we interact with the world around us. https://medium.com/media/5d057cb8920f355e7fa126d3cedcac2c/href In 2016 Miquela Sousa, or @lilmiquela, quickly grew to be one of Instagram's top influencers. At a first glance, there is little wrong with the 19-year-old Brazilian-American… Continue reading Digital humans are here. They sound and look just like us.

Be a cultivator of ideas to achieve trust, buy-in, and design excellence

Be a cultivator of ideas because you are more likely to achieve design excellence when you include ideas from a diverse group of people. Field Of Sunflowers by Matthew T Rader One of the UX Designer‘s primary roles is to not generate all the ideas but to cultivate ideas from the various stakeholders in a project. Early… Continue reading Be a cultivator of ideas to achieve trust, buy-in, and design excellence