Smartphone users interact with their phones up to 150 times a day. Some of their interactions are long interactions but many are short and hurried. Because of this smartphone users may lack the patience of desktop users and without the appropriate feedback and notifications they may abandon an app o
Every project in every business has its stakeholders. These are people who are not necessarily working on the project but have an objective to meet from the outcome of the project. Stakeholders can be internal to the company such as the CEO or the Marketing Manager and they can be external to the co
Playing it safe is a good strategy for much of the time. Yet, the biggest rewards often come with an element of risk. If we want our designs and our careers to take off – we need to overcome our aversion to taking an extreme option at times. That doesn’t mean becoming an inveterate gambler but rathe
It has been established that users are more likely to choose products that meet their needs than ones that meet their wants. Abraham Maslow developed a deep understanding of human needs and how they could be met. You can use Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in a design context to deliver more powerful us
Information visualization has a long history and there were great strides made in the field between the 17th and 19th centuries, in particular. However, the 20th century has seen the greatest progress in the development of information visualization thanks to the development of computing power. Visua
Products do not exist in isolated universes by themselves. Just as creatures in a biological system are affected by the environment; products form part of a greater eco-system in which they are affected by their environments.Market ecology is the understanding that cultural, economic, political, soc
Design is for solving problems. It’s become generally understood that this is the main concern of design and that other considerations are secondary to solving problems. However, holistic design is a school of thought that disagrees with this approach. It still focuses on solving problems but takes
Reverse engineering (or sometimes back-engineering) is a process that is designed to extract enough data from a product and then to be able to reproduce that product. It may involve moving to creating a product from scratch or from pre-developed components. It can be applied to any product (such as
The winner is the one who has failed the most. Success is all about realizing when you are wrong, evaluating, understanding what went wrong, learning, correcting course, and trying again...and again...and again. Even Steve Jobs failed every now and again – he got fired from Apple! He handled th
Confirmation bias is a pernicious form of bias that can cause real problems in both UX research and our own lives. Learning to recognize and eliminate confirmation bias leads to better decision making, better research and ultimately better products and user experiences.One of the most famous, and fl
There’s a good reason that financial advisers tell us “past performance is no guarantee of future returns”. The focusing effect is a cognitive bias that causes us to attribute too much weight to events of the past and translate them into future expectations. Knowing how to handle the focusing effect
In his paper; “Conditional Reflexes” the scientist Ivan Pavlov proved that a dog could be conditioned to respond to a stimulus. He presented a dog with food and the dog began to salivate. He also rang a bell every time he presented the food. Eventually he could ring the bell and cause the dog to sal
The path of use is simple and straightforward; it begins with “no use” and ends in “use”. It was first described by Alan Dix, the HCI expert and University Professor, in his 2008 presentation to the University of Technology in Berlin.The purpose of the path of use is not to state the obvious; which
If you’re going to observe your users in your UX research, and you probably should, you need to know that the act of observation can have an impact on individual behaviour. The Hawthorne effect is common in research and by understanding it, you can (to some extent at least) moderate its effect on yo
Laddering questions help you direct your research in order to get the most valuable information from interview subjects. This can help you expand the remit of the research or to focus it to where the roots of problems really lay.Laddering questions are a variant of the “5 Whys” principle. The idea i
Appropriation occurs when a user takes a design and puts it to use in a way that wasn’t anticipated by the designer. This can have real benefits for a product; it enables the product to become more useful and can increase the product’s appeal to different audiences and increase its market life too.
The Endowment Effect is a contradiction of the classical economic idea that people always behave rationally within an economic system. It is the surprising idea that we are prepared to pay more money to retain something that we already own than we would pay for the item if we did not own it. It is o
There’s a cognitive bias that makes us sadder to lose something than it makes us happy to gain it. This causes us to be afraid of loss – even when that fear is illogical. It prevents us from taking small risks to make big gains, for example. Overcoming loss aversion can help you build better product
UX isn’t all about the users. On the other side of the coin lurks the business and the UX pro that makes her users happy but fails to do the same for the business is the UX pro rapidly looking for a new job.A useful way to get the business’s input into your project is a UX Stakeholder interview. A s
Freelance design work is always challenging and exciting but sadly, it can become an onerous task if your clients aren’t working with you. Freelancing, at its best, is a partnership between the freelancer and the customer and if it stops feeling that way… projects can grind to a halt and pay days ca
AI is replacing jobs everywhere, yet design jobs are booming with a projected 45% job growth. With design skills, you can create products and services people love. More love means more impact and greater salary potential.
At IxDF, we help you from your first course to your next job, all in one place.