Test smart: How to validate product on a business-facing level?

It took a long time since my story How to Select Testing Techniques for an Agile Team was published (if you ask me what happened in between, the short answer will be: a war in Ukraine and a career pivot). The mentioned story focused on Agile Testing Quadrants, a method presented by Lisa Crispin and… Continue reading Test smart: How to validate product on a business-facing level?

Designing a colour system

Building multi-brand colour systems that support light and dark modes with minimum effort. It is all about organizing, naming and choosing the right colour values for the system to work. I would like to share my view on the issue and tell about the methods I choose to make the system. Made with design tokens Design tokens are… Continue reading Designing a colour system

Why Unique ID Attributes Matter

Ambiguous IDs can cause both your developers and your users a lot of frustration, and may ultimately damage customer relations. A Little Background It’s one of the most common WCAG 4.1.1 violations reported by automated accessibility testing tools such as aXe, and it can cause a fair share of problems for your users. It happens… Continue reading Why Unique ID Attributes Matter

We need to have “The Talk”

Generative AI raises legal and ethical issues for all of us A couple of months ago I posted my concerns about the ethics of Generative Art and AI/ChatGPT. In that piece, I suggested that there need to be some Ethics and Standards guidelines in place to guide UX and Graphics professionals in the use of these… Continue reading We need to have “The Talk”

Building a Core Accessibility Team: The Keys to the Kingdom

Have you noticed that in today’s digital age accessibility is not just a nice-to-have feature but a fundamental requirement for any product or service? Creating an inclusive user experience is not only ethically responsible but also just makes good business sense. Sustainability in this conquest can be successful or a disaster, depending on how you… Continue reading Building a Core Accessibility Team: The Keys to the Kingdom

The influence of mobile technology on user cognition and memory

Mobile technology is a part of our daily life more than ever before. Such technology can be a bless to our productivity but also make our brain a bit of a lazy thing. I wrote this article for my Interaction Design post-graduate course. I wanted to share with people some of the things I discovered and… Continue reading The influence of mobile technology on user cognition and memory

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

WCAG 2.2 Removes 4.1.1 Parsing and How axe-core is Impacted

Earlier this year, for the first time ever the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) proposed to remove a success criterion from WCAG 2. Success Criterion 4.1.1 Parsing ensures that pages written in markup languages like HTML and SVG are written in a way that allows browsers and assistive technologies to understand them consistently. Let’s take… Continue reading WCAG 2.2 Removes 4.1.1 Parsing and How axe-core is Impacted

Embracing change with system-driven design

To embrace change, you have to make it easy and cheap. System-driven design is one way to do just that. Waterfall, the double diamond, and other traditional ways of approaching the development of digital products rooted in the building perspective take for granted that it’s easier to make changes to designs than code. They operate under… Continue reading Embracing change with system-driven design

Good UX is not enough without a proper communication plan

To make a design thrive, you should support it with strategies to make it even more robust and accepted. There should be a coexistence between a practical design that should be free of explanation (invisibility) and effective communication (notoriety) Like many designers, I’ve been practicing this mantra all my career: “Good design is invisible,” but… Continue reading Good UX is not enough without a proper communication plan

Just Enough Research

Just enough research This is a story about developing the sense of knowing when it is enough to research and your gut feeling, as no data will tell you when to stop. Earlier in September, I had the pleasure to be a guest lecturer at Infinum’s first Design Talks event in Skopje. We talked about processes and… Continue reading Just Enough Research

10 Key Principles of User-Centered Design

Many firms’ design and development decisions are increasingly oriented toward human-centered innovation. Instead of rushing goods to market, these firms are using a user-centered design approach. Design and development teams build high-performing digital products or websites that uniquely meet customers’ demands by concentrating on the user experience. After all, a good web design is helpful… Continue reading 10 Key Principles of User-Centered Design

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.

Systems and Operations in the Design Profession

Systems and operations in the design profession Photo by Deva Darshan on Unsplash I always loved conceptualizing and visualizing processes. As a product designer, I ended up working with a design team, doing user flows, user testing, design sprints, etc. As I was growing as a designer, I did more facilitation, customer journeys, created big conference… Continue reading Systems and Operations in the Design Profession

Handling cross-team feedback loops on design work

Escape the siloing trap when you are both part of a design team and a product team, involve people early and often, and foster the right conversation at the right time If you are a designer working in a product organization you are maybe also part of two teams at the same time: a design team… Continue reading Handling cross-team feedback loops on design work

Everything You Need to Know About Book Design

Are you interested in book design but don’t know where to start? You’ve landed in the right place. If you’re a book lover and you’ve always wondered how to design a book, here you’ll find a collection of resources and tutorials that will point you in the right direction. We’ll cover what book design is,… Continue reading Everything You Need to Know About Book Design

Are we going to need food in the Metaverse?

A vision for how the world of food could evolve with web3. I was skeptical. I shouldn’t have been. Last week, I had the opportunity to attend YFood’s Insights & Innovation event, which took a deep dive into rising trends in the food tech space, specifically web3 and automation. As a UX designer, I’m interested in… Continue reading Are we going to need food in the Metaverse?

Remote friendly or unfriendly?

Some easy steps to elevate remote working amongst colleagues and teams. I’ve been a product designer for a few years now, working in different countries and environments, with clients in completely different time zones, colleagues in different offices geographically, working remotely due to coronavirus, and of course, worked full time in the office with colleagues. Over… Continue reading Remote friendly or unfriendly?

What is the Neubrutalism Web Design Trend?

Move aside brutalism, there’s a new web design trend in town. Welcome to the stage neubrutalism, which is a refreshing combination of the brutalist trend as well as the modern, minimalist trend that’s graced our screens for many years now. Read on for key features of this new design including what to look out for,… Continue reading What is the Neubrutalism Web Design Trend?

It takes a village to raise 5-year-old designers

Some of us are both designers and parents. Some of us may have designers as parents. Some of us may even be designers creating products for children. Nevertheless, all of us were once children. Being a child may be a distant memory, to an extent we forget what it is like to be a kid.… Continue reading It takes a village to raise 5-year-old designers

10 Best Free Open Source JavaScript Lightbox Widgets and Plugins

Images are crucial, whether you’re running an e-commerce or portfolio website. How many sales you make or new clients you get depends a lot on the quality of the images of your products and services that you can showcase through your images. So it makes sense to highlight your images with a lightbox. Lightboxes make… Continue reading 10 Best Free Open Source JavaScript Lightbox Widgets and Plugins

How to Auto Align in Photoshop

Today, we’ll be looking at how to use the auto align tools in Photoshop, as well as guides and snapping! Photoshops auto align tools are simple but powerful, and they’ll keep you from sending out a design with the always annoying uncentred text or misaligned words.  If you’re looking to speed up your workflow, try… Continue reading How to Auto Align in Photoshop

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

A Look at Its Impact on the Web

In the web design industry, it’s rare that a tool stays relevant for a decade or more. Things tend to change so quickly that the useful life of an app or framework usually isn’t very long. However, Twitter’s Bootstrap has defied those odds. Now in existence for over 10 years, the self-described “front-end open source… Continue reading A Look at Its Impact on the Web