Where Prototypes Fail: 8 Common prototyping pitfalls
Without the need to overcomplicate things, we’ve seen a typical project start with the following three steps. Given enough preproduction and the right people included in every phase, it will set you up for success: (more…)
Content Marketing Lessons: Growing Our Blog From 200 To 27,000 Visitors
We set out to create the best piece of content about product marketing, and that started with talking to 10-15 product marketers and finally coming up with a clear definition for what product marketing does and where it fits inside of a typical SaaS business. (more…)
Stop the overuse of overflow menus
Overflow menus seem like the perfect solution. Designers can “take away” complexity and leave just the really important bits. You can quickly and easily create a clean looking user interface. The trouble with overflow menus is that you didn’t actually take anything away, you just obnoxiously obfuscated it. (more…)
The Full Stack UXer : A New Breed
Everyone that has visited a high-tech job board in the past few years must have stumbled upon the term “full stack developer” here and there. The definition of the term signifies the difference between a full-stack developer and his “regular” colleague: a developer that has knowledge in all of the development cycle layers, well enough to provide solutions for each. (more…)
A Sense of Where You Are: Another annoying essay on design process
When I asked PMs how long it would typically take to “do mocks,” the answer was a week or two. On the face of it, that didn’t seem unreasonable. Designers were generally turning around complete sets of mocks that quickly, even for complex products. But the data showed that our typical time from “Assign designer to project” to “Agreed mocks” was about 6 to 8 weeks. (more…)
Designer and researcher: the new creative partnership
At Foolproof we’ve seen that better interplay between the person bringing insight into the design space and the person interpreting that into design artefacts produces better work. When designer and researcher learn to trust each other’s ideas and opinions they enter a more fertile creative space – as a team. (more…)
We Don’t Need More Designers Who Can Code
As the head of a product design team, who can also write code (front and back end), I understand the value of the combined skill set. The ability to prototype, the ability to converse cross-discipline, and the ability to understand capabilities and tweak implementations. But I also know where the boundaries lie. (more…)
Why UX Designers Don’t Need More UX Design Tools
So What about Design Tools? Following all the changes that designers face, tools that we use will change as well. 1. Design tools that maintain quality of connection between designers, developers, and other makers will be on the rise. They are not the instruments for micro-feedback and feature development, but tools for connection, visual thinking, and co-creation. (more…)
Who Really Is A Product Designer?
Who is a Product Designer in the digital age? We decided to look for an answer to this question. Before we get to that, however, let’s understand what “design” really means in today’s context. Traditionally, the word has been used to describe pure aesthetics. If you still cling to that definition, let’s bring you up to speed. (more…)
Beyond onboarding: ramping up your users from novice to expert
Onboarding is a fashionable topic at the moment. You see lots of onboarding articles and tear-downs shared these days. But onboarding is just the first date. If someone installs your app or registers on your site, you’re not guaranteed a long term relationship — far from it. One study quoted by Luke Wroblewski, paints a pretty clear picture: (more…)
Why user research is everybody’s job
When there isn't a UX or research team, or you're working alone, it makes absolute sense for designers to conduct their own research. Even when a UX or research team exists, pairing designers with UXers and researchers can make for both better research and application of the findings. (more…)
Designing Products That Scale
Documenting the Style The Style section documents the high-level principles and visual assets behind Salesforce1. We hoped that this section would answer most of the questions we were getting about icons, colors, typography, and the principles used to design the app. (more…)
Why I Love User Stories
User stories are an outgrowth of agile methodologies, and are used to state requirements without writing endless pages of documentation. Groups of user stories are called “epics”, and if a user story is too big, it can be broken up into smaller stories for the developers to work with. (more…)
Tools for Mobile UX Design
Whether you write about or draw mobile UX design concepts, you should communicate details about services, data, sensors, networks, and users. Maybe provide flow charts. Hardly ever screens. Storyboards and other ways of organically showing key principles relating to users’ tasks are great. (more…)