I just got back from a design conference. It was just one in a sea of poorly-designed design conferences I’ve attended over the years. I wont beat around the proverbial bush. Here are 3 easy ways for organizers to step up their game and put on an impactful, memorable, and successful design conference. Speakers are… Continue reading Design Conferences are broken, but we can fix them
Tag: happens
Which WordPress Website Builder Is for You? Try the #1 WordPress Theme Builder
Posted · Category: Tools Finding just the right WordPress website builder to fit you needs can take time. First, you must determine what it is you want. Then you must take the time to research what’s available. Your research may require the skills of a Sherlock Holmes since you often need to read between the… Continue reading Which WordPress Website Builder Is for You? Try the #1 WordPress Theme Builder
Web Designers, Stop Wasting Time on Billing and Accounting When You Don’t Have Too
Posted · Category: Tools Keeping a small business running is hard work. You have projects to negotiate, emails to answer, and deadlines to meet. You have to find the time to explore new trends and methods. Sometimes, you have to take whatever time it takes to learn how to use new tools of your trade… Continue reading Web Designers, Stop Wasting Time on Billing and Accounting When You Don’t Have Too
How does design strategy work within a large enterprise?
Courtesy Dilbert Last October, I visited my alma mater, the School of Visual Arts Masters in Branding program, which teaches graduate students about the intersections of business & design. Whenever I visit, there’s always students that have questions about what I do, both as an IBM’er and a Design Strategist. Most recently, I was asked… Continue reading How does design strategy work within a large enterprise?
These 5 UX Mistakes Drive Visitors Away in Less Than 5 Seconds
Posted · Category: Best Collections The longer you can keep a visitor tuned into your website the better. But the time needed to fully engage a visitor is quite short. If your website UX isn’t up to snuff, you’ll be fortunate if a visitor sticks around more than 5 seconds. That isn’t much time to… Continue reading These 5 UX Mistakes Drive Visitors Away in Less Than 5 Seconds
Stop blaming your digital tools for your problems
Jira, Trello, Basecamp, Sketch, Invision, Zeplin, Jenkins, Google Analytics — I could go on, but no matter the tool or how good it is there will always be a problem with it. Your tools are not the problem, your reliance and attitude towards them is. I’ve seen so many teams complain that “Jira doesn’t let me do this”… Continue reading Stop blaming your digital tools for your problems
Five analytical components for a better user experience
User Behaviour Whatever someone does while on your website is called user behaviour. It includes the journey within your website’s pages, interaction with page elements, page scroll, form submissions, link/button clicks, and others. Analytics will help you understand the user behavior of your website better. How far are they scrolling down the page? Which forms… Continue reading Five analytical components for a better user experience
Inclusive Design Mindset
At the end of a 72-hour race to complete the Student Design Challenge (SDC) hosted by Microsoft at IxDA this year, I was prompted to think about how my experience could not only benefit future designers, but also public school teachers. The challenge was to design an interactive way to teach rhythm to a student… Continue reading Inclusive Design Mindset
Some of the Best WordPress Plugins That You Should Use in 2018
Posted · Category: Best Collections Creating a website that gives its visitors exactly what they are looking for is not that easy. It often involves a certain amount of trial and error, the use of analytics, and other approaches. Sometimes, the difficulties you experience in your work to please visitors are not what you think.… Continue reading Some of the Best WordPress Plugins That You Should Use in 2018
How to Properly Load Test a WordPress Website
WordPress is without a doubt the most popular content management system in the history of the web. The power and versatility of the combination of technologies like SQL, PHP and web browsers have made it possible to produce a system that can be adapted for nearly any purpose including photo galleries, online comic books, and… Continue reading How to Properly Load Test a WordPress Website
A Reflection on Product Design
Though all good products must function and provide a benefit to the end-user, I believe the magic of a truly inspiring or great product happens in the realm of user experience. As designer and writer Joshua Porter writes, “The experience is the product.” Spotify is one example of a great digital product, as it provides… Continue reading A Reflection on Product Design
Serious products don’t have to be serious
In industries like financial services, we have learned to expect that all communication will be formal, stern and, quite frankly, boring. It’s all insider jargon and confusing acronyms — any sort of personality is a rare sight. But it doesn’t have to be that way… At TransferWise, we have recently launched instant transfers, allowing you to send… Continue reading Serious products don’t have to be serious
Canny Edge Detector Using Python
Edge detection is an essential image analysis technique when someone is interested in recognizing objects by their outlines, and it’s also considered an essential step in recovering information from images. For instance, edge detection can extract important features like lines and curves, which are then normally used by higher-level computer vision or image-processing algorithms. A… Continue reading Canny Edge Detector Using Python
There’s no such thing as “minor design changes”
Sharing a quick story I found on Intercom’s blog about how there’s no such thing as a small change in a product. At some point Intercom’s team decided to limit the number of characters of their reviews to 140. “We want to limit the length of a review in the product to 140 characters, because… Continue reading There’s no such thing as “minor design changes”
Copyright, Creative Commons and Licensing For Web Developers
What is copyright? Very few people outside the creative industry have a strong or accurate understanding of copyright law. Let’s review some copyright basics, from the ground up. What is copyright? Copyright occurs as soon as an idea is “fixed in a tangible medium.” It does not require registration or a fee. The moment you… Continue reading Copyright, Creative Commons and Licensing For Web Developers
The 5 questions you should be asking yourself all day, everyday #UX
The other day I found myself writing down a list of 5 questions I was asking myself more frequently than ever in the projects I am working on — and decided to pass it on to my team as well. The agency life is extremely fast-paced. Each Experience Designer on my team is simultaneously involved in two… Continue reading The 5 questions you should be asking yourself all day, everyday #UX
Processing Incoming Request Data in Flask ― Scotch
In any web app, you’ll have to process incoming request data from users. Flask, like any other web framework, allows you to access the request data easily. In this tutorial, we’ll go through how to process incoming data for the most common use cases. The forms of incoming data we’ll cover are: query strings, form… Continue reading Processing Incoming Request Data in Flask ― Scotch
Make Sure You Avoid These Security Mistakes in Your Next Project
Whether you’re building a website, application or server, make sure you don’t make these security mistakes on your next project. 1. Insufficient Backups Backups are a crucial part of running a anything online. They preserve your data in the event of a system crash or user error, and they can also save you from security… Continue reading Make Sure You Avoid These Security Mistakes in Your Next Project
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
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…
Resist — or reach out? Thoughts on entrepreneurship and diversity
re·sist·ance: the refusal to accept or comply with something; the attempt to prevent something by action or argument; the ability not to be affected by something adversely. #Grabyourwallet, weekly marches, Facebook and Twitter posts galore — our anger won’t subside any time soon, and for good reason. Its expression is powerful and meaningful. But how does Melissa,… Continue reading Resist — or reach out? Thoughts on entrepreneurship and diversity
8 Strategies to Create The Perfect .COM Domain Name For Your Website
To get that perfect brand name you’ve always wanted for your business or blog, you’ll need to demonstrate a lot of creativity and flexibility. When selecting your domain name extension, .COM remains the best option. According to the result of a finding by Registrar Stats, the most popular name extension is .COM, with 75% of… Continue reading 8 Strategies to Create The Perfect .COM Domain Name For Your Website
More Gold for Emerging Interface Designers
Text in this VR GUI. http://www.mastersofpie.com/project/siemens-oculus-rift-tradeshow-experience/ Use Your Words The written word makes up a significant portion of how we build our interfaces. Even the best GUIs use text. What happens when you don’t consider the language used in your interface? It fails. It breaks the user’s trust and in the end, costs money when visitors… Continue reading More Gold for Emerging Interface Designers
How UberEats could make ordering for groups of friends simpler — a UX case study
The Problem — I find myself using UberEats (launched early last year) more frequently than the likes of DoorDash primarily because of two reasons: Continuous promotions — They have had some really cool promotions all this while. (No delivery cost upto $5 for an order) Ordering experience — From searching for food to ordering and waiting for it, the… Continue reading How UberEats could make ordering for groups of friends simpler — a UX case study