3 Design Processes for High Usability: Iterative Design, Parallel Design, and Competitive Testing

Summary:  3 methods for increasing UX quality by exploring and testing diverse design ideas work even better when you use them together.  This is an updated version of an article written by Jakob Nielsen in 2011. There’s no one perfect user-interface design, and you can’t get good usability by simply shipping your one best idea.… Continue reading 3 Design Processes for High Usability: Iterative Design, Parallel Design, and Competitive Testing

What does your design cause?

What does your design cause which is undesirable or unintended or at odds with the design intent? How does one ask and answer these questions? In these next few posts I’m going to propose some ways of answering these questions that build up in complexity and propose some ways of thinking about causality and modeling… Continue reading What does your design cause?

Stop Being an Ego Designer

Wow! The new client project has landed and you will be the lead designer! Great, everybody has to do your biddings. Gnaar! Thats wrong, dude! Photo by: Nik MacMillan I believe that every project and teamwork will push you more into the character of an altruist. Designing a digital product with your ego creates a… Continue reading Stop Being an Ego Designer

30 Unofficial Redesigns of Popular Social Media Sites

As web designers we often get frustrated with the UI and UX design of sites we commonly use, with social media sites being right up there as the most annoying! This can lead designers to have a go at redesigning them, albeit unofficially as a personal project just for fun. Sometimes these design concepts are… Continue reading 30 Unofficial Redesigns of Popular Social Media Sites

Weekend Inspiration: Design for Continuous Experimentation

Take some time out this weekend and listen to Dan McKinley, Principal Engineer at Etsy.com. In this talk he describes the processes undertaken whenever a redesign is carried out – and he knows what he’s taking about, having been at the helm of five redesigns in Etsy’s eight short years.. Watch live streaming video from… Continue reading Weekend Inspiration: Design for Continuous Experimentation