Skeuomorphism has been a very useful concept in design, then it became the most hated concept in design, and then it came back from the dead. Understanding skeuomorphism lets designers help users through learning curves and make decisions as to whether skeuomorphism still serves a purpose today.Skeu
Now we’re going to look at two powerful design principles that may, at first glance, seem too simple and second nature to us to warrant too much thought. However, we would be wise not to underestimate their capabilities and the benefits of their effects. Always keeping a firm appreciation for symmet
Empathy requires us to put aside our learning, culture, knowledge, opinions, and worldview purposefully in order to understand other peoples’ experiences of things deeply and meaningfully. It requires a strong sense of imagination for us to be able to see through another person’s eyes. It requires h
Smart products that adapt to aspects of the users’ activity, context or personality have become commonplace. With more and more products which act intelligently emerging in the market place, users often end up expecting to interact with them more like they would among themselves, as humans. In the f
Let’s examine a subject that has more to it than meets the eye. Applying a deeper appreciation of consistency to your designs will yield precious results, including keeping users happy.Consistency enables users to feel familiar with your website, your brand, etc. and to be reassured that it is your
Getting great interview results requires careful preparation. You need to be clear about the purpose of your research, decide whom to recruit, do all the practical preparations, and—finally—you need to design a great interview guide detailing the questions you want to ask. Here, you will learn how t
Ideation is easy to define. It’s the process by which you generate, develop and then communicate new ideas. Ideas can take many forms such as verbal, visual, concrete or abstract. The principle is simple to create a process by which you can innovate, develop and actualize new products. Ideation is c
When you’re in the beginning stages of your design project and you have just finished some highly informative interviews and observations in the context of your users, your head is full of impressions. You have a feeling for the different types of users who exist, and you have heard some similaritie
Design scenarios are useful tools for communicating ideas about user actions. Mapping design scenarios also has the added benefit that it helps formalize ideas and to take creative approaches to those ideas. Most importantly of all, it will ensure that your designs are firmly rooted on terra firma a
Honestly, how much do you enjoy reading research reports? And how engaging do you find them? Unsurprisingly, receiving a report with your insights into the target group may not get your clients to empathize with the potential users of their product or service optimally. Alternatively, you might cons
When User Experience (UX) improves the customer experience, it affects the company’s ROI (Return on Investment) because good UX investments enhance customer satisfaction. Satisfied customers are loyal; they trust a company’s products, and they want to come back for more, which is why satisfied custo
We know, TED talks can sometimes feel a little… overblown. While there are loads of great talks; some of them go nowhere and don’t seem to add much to your life at all. To make things worse… there are a lot of TED talks and it’s hard to tell which are going to motivate you to do something new and in
This subject may seem incredibly “big” for a single article, but it’s about the specific nature of usability that we often overlook or confuse. With this appreciation, you’ll be able to design more effectively, and your website’s users will be able to grow, too.Usability replaced the outmoded label
There are a few good reasons why you might want to change your career from marketing to UX design. First, there’s the pay—sources like UXDesignerSalaries(1) show that UX designers are paid a fairly handsome salary across the world (even as high as $97k in Switzerland). Furthermore, according to recu
Information visualization requires mapping data in a visual or occasionally auditory format for the user of the visualization. This can be challenging because while some data has a spatial relationship built in (for example, temperatures in cities around a country) many data sets don’t have a tradit
If you want to be a UX designer, you’ll need to create a UX design portfolio containing 2 to 3 UX case studies. But if you’re new to UX design, it can be difficult to create those first UX case studies—after all, you’re still building up your UX knowledge. What if there’s a way for you to learn UX d
Now let’s see a topic about keeping our users’ lives easy. “Isn’t that the theme of most articles here?” you may ask. Well, this one is especially geared towards users. Understanding Hick’s law means you can design so that more users will visit and stay on your website.Delivering a good user experie
You have had a green light from your stakeholders to conduct some user research for your design project, and you think user interviews might be the way to go. After all, they seem straightforward, and interviews are one of the most widely used user research methods — so, they should be a safe choice
Your portfolio is in many ways your most important asset as a UX designer. That’s because it helps you in 3 powerful ways: it helps you get an interview for a job; it helps you attract clients for freelance projects; finally, and perhaps surprisingly, it helps you stay focused on your UX career.It’s
Steve Jobs once said: ''Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.'' Normally, we like to showcase great design but there’s a lot you can learn from dreadful design too. We don’t think Steve Jobs had anything to do with the 30 howlers that follow. From lousy usabi
