[unable to retrieve full-text content] Integrating AI from technical components to user experience. Source Reading Paz Perez’s “The Rise of the Model Designer” offers a clear and accessible perspective on the current wave in AI product development. She makes an interesting case for why designers should step beyond the interface and help shape the very… Continue reading Beyond the Model: a systems approach to AI product design
Tag: I’ve
The Microsoft 365 renewal dance: uncovering deceptive patterns
[unable to retrieve full-text content] Lessons from sidestepping Microsoft 365's aggressive subscription renewal tactics A few weeks before my long standing Microsoft 365 Family subscription was due for renewal I received an email stating that it will automatically-renew, one thing it failed to mention was the new price was 30% more than last year. In the first… Continue reading The Microsoft 365 renewal dance: uncovering deceptive patterns
Digital accessibility and the cost of exclusion
In my previous Proactive Perspectives article, I explored lessons from the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), discussed what to do when digital accessibility goals remain elusive, and shared strategies for managing disruption and keeping your program on track. Today, I want to build on those strategies by looking more closely at opportunities and… Continue reading Digital accessibility and the cost of exclusion
Designarchy Vol. 15
[unable to retrieve full-text content] I save many things each month that I find inspiring for some reason, and I like organized lists, so I figured I’d share those lists and maybe help someone out of a creative block. Why Designarchy? Because Inspiration and creativity do not have true governance, we creatives have time and feedback… Continue reading Designarchy Vol. 15
15 Awesome Tools & Resources for Designers and Agencies for 2024
Have you been searching for the best web design tools to suit your needs involve only to find that each “promising” tool or resource you come across turns out to be little different from one or more of its competitors? Do the results of your efforts leave you with a feeling of déjà vu, a… Continue reading 15 Awesome Tools & Resources for Designers and Agencies for 2024
How this year’s hair trends translate to the state of content design
[unable to retrieve full-text content] Wispy bangs and that little bit of extra texture in your content design org Still from the song ‘Hair’ from the musical ‘Hair’, 1979 Hair has always been big for me. Not just because my favorite movie is the musical movie ‘Hair’ from 1979 but also because I’ve always considered my usually… Continue reading How this year’s hair trends translate to the state of content design
90% of designers are unhirable?
Or why your cookie-cutter portfolio doesn’t cut it and how to fix it Image by Matej Latin (Author) Here’s the harsh truth: I’ve reviewed more than 1,000 portfolios in my design career so far, and I turned 90% of them down because of one thing — the linear design process. By “linear design process” I mean cookie-cutter case studies that… Continue reading 90% of designers are unhirable?
15 Great Tools & Resources for Designers & Agencies in 2024
Posted · Category: Design, Tools It’s 2024 and the number of web design resources and tools on the market seems overwhelming. That’s good news since you need the right tools and resources to come up with competitive designs. The bad news is, rather than sifting through thousands of products to get the ones that best… Continue reading 15 Great Tools & Resources for Designers & Agencies in 2024
Designing genAI-enhanced features
Elevating user experience through intelligent content enhancement and personalization. Futuristic workspace (Created with Dall-E) Chatbots serve as an accessible gateway to the realm of Generative AI features, a fact underscored by the success of ChatGPT. Their simplicity, requiring only basic instructions to engage in natural dialogues, allows them to integrate across various digital platforms seamlessly. Yet,… Continue reading Designing genAI-enhanced features
Google Maps: a refreshing turn in the right direction
Finally! Google Maps gets a much-needed makeover… and we’re here for it. Sometimes, a reroute is all it takes to rediscover the joy of the journey — Google Maps’ latest update is a testament to that. What’s New Since My Last Rant A few months back, I ripped into some serious user experience flaws in Google Maps. Google Maps: about that… Continue reading Google Maps: a refreshing turn in the right direction
Why weirdness is at the center of belonging, diversity, and innovation.
Why weirdness is at the center of belonging, diversity, and innovation In my senior year of college, I took a class about how to prepare for the workplace. The class taught us how to write a resume, what to wear to job interviews, and what companies look for in candidates. It was an easy A.… Continue reading Why weirdness is at the center of belonging, diversity, and innovation.
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
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
How to AI
Three approaches to deploying generative AI for brands and corporations. 11 out 12 are generated by AI. One is real. Which one? | Source: Imagenavi & Jimmy Fermin History rhymes This isn’t a trick question: 11 out of 12 in the image above are generated by AI. Which one is the real person? I posed this quiz… Continue reading How to AI
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
How to ‘un-stuck’ your design work
Three lifelines to call on when you’re feeling stuck creatively I’ve been a professional designer for over twenty years, working across a wide range of media: UX/UI, motion, branding, web design, mobile apps, and creative coding. Most lately, I’ve been developing my font design practice. Design is a long journey of exploration and growth. You… Continue reading How to ‘un-stuck’ your design work
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?
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
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
A radical opinion on ChatGPT
Churn out every idea and then burn it down. We need to talk about ChatGPT. Actually, not just ChatGPT but all AI-powered content development tools. Whether it’s text-to-image AIs, or those capable of generating conversational text, computer code, poetry, and more in response to prompts. Artificial Intelligence has been chipping at creatives for a while, and this… Continue reading A radical opinion on ChatGPT
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
4g CO2 per email—really?
Disentangling a well-known “fact” about emails. There’s a lot of “received wisdom” kicking about on the internet — ideas and “facts” which are essentially presented without question on the basis of “ he said it, so it must be true”. This afflicts many fields, and sustainability is no exception. One common example is that “sending an email generates… Continue reading 4g CO2 per email—really?
Measuring Empathy for Accessibility
After my previous blog on the Two Pillars of Accessibility, I was asked on LinkedIn from a peer in the accessibility field how a program could measure and report the empathy pillar of an accessibility program i.e. how much does your company care about accessibility. Measuring the impact of accessibility is relatively easy — you can track… Continue reading Measuring Empathy for Accessibility
Ask a UXR #2: introducing user research to an organization
On asking the existential questions about a UXR’s purpose, being a thought partner, and bringing questions, not just answers This is the second post in a bi-weekly UXR Q+A series. Submit your questions in the comments, or in this Google form, and it they may be answered in future posts. Follow “Ask a UXR” by subscribing… Continue reading Ask a UXR #2: introducing user research to an organization