I’ve often heard it said that UX design and marketing are at loggerheads. That the two functions are aiming for different things and it’s hard to realign the two so that they function together. I’d like to take a look at this idea and explore if UX design really does clash with marketing objectives.
The age of the internet brokerage for freelance work is upon us; whilst Elance, Odesk, etc. currently only have a tiny share of the overall freelance marketplace – it is possible to earn a decent living online using these sites now. So let’s take a quick look at the advantages of using an internet b
If you’re in UX design or even simply looking to make some tweaks to the design of a website or application; it can be really useful to “mock up” some of the changes or your new design before putting them into practice. There are plenty of tools to make this wireframing exercise easier on the desi
Visual design is often neglected in discussions of user experience. While visual design is perhaps, not the be all and end all of design, it is a vital component of delivering products that people like to use. Unlike other aspects of user experience design, visual design does require some artistic t
We’re often asked for tips that will help people develop their UX practice into something more effective. Given that; this week we’re going to run a series of best practice tips for your UX work – 5 each and every day. So let’s get started at the beginning of the project:Look Before You Leap
Even on the walk to the room; you’re a little bit nervous and when you go inside – you find yourself on autopilot. It’s not that your pitch sucks but it’s just not as good as you felt it could be. You look at the client and they’re neither elated nor deflated? Surely, there’s a better way to go abou
What brand comes to your mind when looking at the image above?Lego has succeeded in utilizing the power of a holistic user experience design.Designing aholistic user experience means embracing all company components a part of a whole thing. In these cases, no matter the world – digital, physical, hy
User-Interface Design is often seen as a field which hasn’t evolved very far; in fact if you look at what works in UI Design that might be taken as a compliment. The best UI is the UI that is so familiar and so easy to work with that it becomes nearly invisible. That wonderful save icon (the Compute
Designing robots has to be among the coolest jobs on the planet. Yet, despite the huge investments in robot design; there’s still a long, long way to go before we reach the panacea of a world in which robots do everything for us. In Kerstin Dautenhahn’s book, Human Robot Interaction, she argues that
If you thought that this article was going to be about making computers look better; please accept out apologies. In fact, aesthetic computing is all about “embodied formal languages”. Which may not be as pretty but turns out to be a very important area for technology designers in general.OK, so How
'Design Thinking' may seem tautological (after all, what design process doesn't involve thinking?), but this is a relatively new user-centred approach to design, which marries many of the tried and tested methods previously employed with a strong focus on empathising with the intended users. In The
There are 100’s of fonts out there nowadays but were unfortunately forced to pay for anything really worthwhile so we generally opt for sub-standard variants and Google fonts offerings.There are however a number of great, free collections out there with free fonts that can be used on our projects wi
Prototypes help you test ideas before you spend too much time putting them into practice. The best prototype has some functionality that mimics the intended product and there are plenty of tools to develop prototypes with available on the market. But what should you do to make your prototypes as val
Welcome back to our brief series on ethnographic research; if you’ve missed any parts of this series – they can be found under the UX Daily tab on our website. Today, we’ll be looking at two more techniques that can help you get better data from your investment in this kind of research:Work Through
Ethnographic research enables the researcher to look at a specific group of people and better understand their behaviours and through that interpret their needs which are currently not met. It’s an expensive business though; ethnographic research requires real interaction with a population over a pe
There’s a certain sleight of hand that goes on every day from some of the world’s biggest retailers. This is done, in the name of profit of course. Those companies know what makes us tick and they play to that in order to driver sales through their online properties. But is their behaviour OK?The Ca
We’re not saying that we’d have done any better in their shoes but some products are such total UX stinkers that we wonder how they got to market at all. In our quest for better design; it’s sometimes worth taking a walk down memory lane and asking the question; “How did they ever get budget for tha
Years ago when someone was unhappy with your product and service; they told their friends and family. Today, they go online and tell the world. Managing a business’s reputation has become a key part of delivering a user and customer experience but how do you do this ethically?The Wrong WayThere are
We come across the occasional client at a loss to explain why their relationships with freelancers never seem to pan out. So we’ve put together this simple cheat sheet for building stronger relationships with design freelancers and getting the results you want:Always Agree on Outcomes At the Start o
If there’s anything more annoying than being dismissed as doing a job that “anyone can do”; we don’t know what it is. The truth is that not every job is suited to everyone and even if “anyone can do” what you do; most people wouldn’t want to. UX design is an exciting and interesting career path but
