3 Essential Design Trends, February 2024

Design By Carrie Cousins 2 days ago From atypical typefaces to neutral colors to unusual user patterns, there are plenty of new website design trends to try this month. Spring into a new website design aesthetic with some of the hottest trends of the season. Some of the things we are seeing right now are… Continue reading 3 Essential Design Trends, February 2024

A proposal for modern UX Researchers

A glimpse of the current standing of UXR and strategy on how to stay relevant with the workforce demand. Photo by Unseen Studio on Unsplash “The UX researcher fallacy: ‘My job is to learn about users.’Truth: ‘My job is to help my team learn about users.’”– Caroline Jarrett As 2024 starts, layoffs are still everywhere, specifically in… Continue reading A proposal for modern UX Researchers

Rock Solid WordPress Security: Keeping Your Business Safe

Development By Simon Sterne Today WordPress is the web’s favourite CMS (content management system), renowned for its low-entry level and vast array of themes and plugins. WordPress’s open-source nature allows for endless flexibility, catering to diverse needs and technical skills. Unfortunately, 10,950,000 websites are hacked yearly, and 4,708,500 of those belong to small businesses. WordPress’s… Continue reading Rock Solid WordPress Security: Keeping Your Business Safe

Housing, It’s a Human Right (Part 3)

A 3-Part Series on the digital accessibility of the housing process experienced by people with disabilities. In this 3-part series, we will look at the challenges and rewards of the entire experience surrounding the process of acquiring housing for people who live with a disability.  We will look at: Buying an existing home Leasing an… Continue reading Housing, It’s a Human Right (Part 3)

What should be the contrast level of inactive buttons?

Using the APCA Readability Criterion to improve the accessibility of disabled controls Disabled buttons. They need to look non-interactable. But they also can’t be completely unreadable. How do I find the sweet spot? I spent a few hours in a deep dive going through a bunch of blogs and accessibility guidelines documentation in search for best approaches… Continue reading What should be the contrast level of inactive buttons?

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”

How Serious Is Your Design Practice About Learning?

Today I’m sharing a strategic approach that enables your design practice to learn more from the accessibility-related data you already have. I will again skip the “how to” article formula and dry laundry lists of tactical “do this/don’t do that” mechanics. Instead, I’ll focus on helping you think about WHY you should do things differently… Continue reading How Serious Is Your Design Practice About Learning?

Digital Accessibility As A Self-Evident Right: How US Federal Government Agencies Can Improve Digital Services

The Federal government of the United States was founded on a set of key principles. While there have been amendments and additions to these principles throughout history, it can still be said that three foundational principles are unwavering: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Monumental, persistent efforts are needed to ensure that these core… Continue reading Digital Accessibility As A Self-Evident Right: How US Federal Government Agencies Can Improve Digital Services

11 Free Website Builders to Try in 2023

Before we go any further, let’s get the whole ​‘all you need to make a website is a basic text editor and a browser’ thing out of the way before we start: Yes, it’s true, you can make a fully functioning, good-looking website with NotePad or TextEdit, but you also need a not inconsiderable level of knowledge and skill. And even… Continue reading 11 Free Website Builders to Try in 2023

Why Ive's way of doing personal projects is good for designers

Why Ive’s way of doing personal projects is good for designers Personal projects should be an important part of life as designers, but is mixed with the work and the realities of an in-house design team, which can be a messy process. Often, the question of fulfilment comes into play. Surprisingly, the answers to fulfilment… Continue reading Why Ive's way of doing personal projects is good for designers

What it takes to avoid an ADA lawsuit, 33rd-anniversary edition

With the number of digital accessibility lawsuits in 2023 on the rise, it begs the question, “Do I really need to consider the needs of 1 in 4 Americans when it comes to their ability to do business with me?” The increasing litigation says yes. Let’s take a look at how you can minimize your… Continue reading What it takes to avoid an ADA lawsuit, 33rd-anniversary edition

Almost Ready! WCAG 2.2 is one small step away from being officially done!

A new version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is almost ready. WCAG 2.2 should be finalized in August 2023. This is a minor version update. If you are already familiar with WCAG 2.0 and/or 2.1, you probably have a number of questions. And we’ve got up-to-date answers! Why isn’t WCAG 2.2 ready yet?… Continue reading Almost Ready! WCAG 2.2 is one small step away from being officially done!

Setting up performance reviews for Product Designers

Take a few shortcuts with my comprehensive guide on evaluating designers Why is evaluating designers so difficult? Evaluating the performance of a product designer within a startup or agency environment is challenging. It involves a mixture of objective and subjective data that is synthesized in an attempt to gauge if someone is to be rewarded,… Continue reading Setting up performance reviews for Product Designers

Are we there yet? WCAG 2.2 is at the Candidate Recommendation v3

If you’re a regular reader of the Deque blog, you may be asking yourself, haven’t I read this already? Well my friend, you may have. In September 2022, WCAG 2.2 reached the Candidate Recommendation (CR) stage for the first time. Then on January 25, 2023, WCAG 2.2 entered a second round of CR. And, you… Continue reading Are we there yet? WCAG 2.2 is at the Candidate Recommendation v3

What’s the place of ‘PLACE’ in regenerative design?

Illustration of how people can co-evolve with nature. I’m taking the Regenerative Development and Design course by Regenesis at https://www.regenerat.es/trp/ and thought I could share some key learnings before I get overwhelmed. The most exciting lesson for me is the concept that Regenesis calls the ‘Story of Place™’, but if you are new to regeneration,… Continue reading What’s the place of ‘PLACE’ in regenerative design?

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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

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

Can technology generate serendipity?

Serendipity by design Ideas for applying serendipity principles in the digital world (I) An (un)expected discovery I love flea markets. Whenever I go there, I usually don’t look for anything specifically; I am just opening myself to chance, to discovery by luck. I suppose most of the people coming to this place do the same: they expect… Continue reading Can technology generate serendipity?

Will nationalism end the golden age of global AI collaboration?

As nationalism divides nations and limits international collaboration, is the future of AI in danger? Artificial intelligence has made tremendous progress in recent years, and much of this progress can be attributed to the open-source software movement. By fostering collaboration and sharing knowledge and resources among developers worldwide, the open-source movement has helped bring together AI… Continue reading Will nationalism end the golden age of global AI collaboration?

Photostockeditor Now Includes AI-Generated Images in 4k

Everyone needs high-quality stock images; they’re essential for breaking up text-heavy websites, creating an emotional connection with your users, and for reinforcing your brand. They say images are worth 1,000 words, but with the way users tend to scan and read online, it’s more like 10,000. So the next time you’re looking for high-quality stock… Continue reading Photostockeditor Now Includes AI-Generated Images in 4k

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?

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?

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

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