Rikke and I started IxDF in 2002 with nothing. We lived in a bamboo hut in Thailand with no investors, no safety net, and no plan B. We had a conviction that world-class design education should not be a privilege reserved for people who could afford a $15,000 degree.That conviction has never changed
In some cultures, people never recover from failure, and Don Norman says this is wrong. In other cultures, failure is seen as a way to learn. David Kelley, the founder of design firm IDEO, once said, “Fail faster, succeed sooner.” Don says this is good, but encourages us to take it one step further,
User testing may be the final word in usability, but usability guidelines, or "heuristics," are rubrics designers use to evaluate their designs. These guidelines are the product of decades of research and experience. They have traditionally been applied to mobile or desktop interfaces but were updat
In design—and anywhere else that innovation is involved—words can often paint a picture far more vividly than strokes on a canvas ever could, and that’s true in UX design (user experience design), where inspiration often comes from straightforward phrases. These brief quotes are way more than just w
Graphic art versus graphic design is pretty much still a bone of contention, and that’s after a long-standing debate that just keeps going on and on—more a source of intrigue than anything negative. Some believe the two overlap with a great deal of things that are interchangeable between them—but, f
UX design for Augmented Reality (AR) has some different guidelines than what is used for screen-based UX. Designers must consider the space and the physical limits of what is comfortable for the human body. Also, as AR overlays physical space, you must be very aware of the cognitive load because you
You’re at your routine health checkup, sipping an iced coffee on a hot day. Suddenly, you get a sharp pain in your head. The doctor looks up from her notes, a sympathetic expression on her face. “You’re experiencing sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia.” Your heart sinks. The coffee cup drops to the floo
Which apps do you use throughout your day? Maybe you manage your projects on Trello, use Notion as an internal docs site, and maybe, just maybe, you do some swiping on Tinder during your lunch break. Despite looking nothing alike, these three highly successful apps are organized around the same idea
Vacation time! You book your flight. You have a reservation. It's real. You paid for it. And yet, when you open the airline's app to look at it, it's surprisingly elusive. You don't want to check in, you don't want to change it, you just want to find it and check the details. It's not on the home sc
As with every design decision, the answer to the question “Should UX designers learn to code?” is: “It depends.” When you work with digital products, you may not always need to write lines of code, but it is an added advantage to know how to build the product that you design.In the early days of web
Let’s explore the various stages of creativity so you can get a firmer idea of its true nature as such a powerful human resource. Graham Wallas was the first to create an overview of a creative process back in 1926. As you can imagine, lots of iterations have emerged since then. Some of these theori
You've searched for the perfect persona template, downloaded dozens, yet none quite hit the mark. Here's the problem: Most templates fail you because they focus on demographics, fancy sliders, and irrelevant details. None of these things help drive decisions or create solutions that improve lives. B
Forms are an essential part of many interactions, but good form layout and clear labels are only part of the picture. Forms also need to work in all the ways users interact with them. Not everyone uses a mouse. Many users rely on keyboards, whether by preference, motor impairments, or because they u
Before you have a single real user in a testing session, you can already find a significant proportion of the usability problems in a design. Expert evaluation, also known as heuristic evaluation, is one of the most cost-effective methods available to UX practitioners. It requires no recruitment, fa
In this video, William Hudson, User Experience Strategist and Founder of Syntagm Ltd, explores the psychological phenomena that affect how users perceive changes in dynamic web interfaces. While the focus is on web pages, these principles apply to any interactive technology, from desktop application
Understanding the legal requirements for accessibility is essential for anyone building digital products and services. Accessibility legislation exists worldwide, and failure to comply can result in costly lawsuits and reputational damage. This lesson explores the legal landscape, compliance standar
Fear plays such a dominant role in our lives that several businesses and products have succeeded on the back of this single emotion. Here’s a look at some of the fears that affect our decision making, how businesses and products exploit these tendencies to their advantage, and how, as a designer, yo
Imagine your next product launch soaring beyond expectations. Your customers raving about experiences crafted just for them. Your ideas finally connecting with the people who matter most. This isn't wishful thinking—it's what happens when you master personas, user experience (UX) design's secret wea
Personas help you get inside your users’ heads—and build things they’ll actually value. Now imagine having a tool that makes it all click faster. That’s AI. Let it handle the grind while you do what only a human can: feel, connect, and create solutions people truly love. Here are seven ways to make
UX (user experience) design has the potential to improve people’s everyday lives. The stakes are even higher if you work as a UX designer in the healthcare industry. The health-tech sector is among the fastest-growing in the world, with expected revenue of USD 1,305.1 billion in 2030, according to G
