Five Big UX Topics in 2012
For years, UX professionals have vigorously lobbied for a “seat at the table” when it comes to formative decisions about products and product development. Looking back at 2012, trends indicate that this wish is becoming reality. Many leading UX consultants reported that their clients are more open to research and design methods with a UX focus than they have been in the past. (more…)
UX is not UI
UX has become a neologism. When something has “good UX” it is an implied meaning of having the core components of UX (research, maybe a persona, IA, interaction, interface, etc etc…). It’s not really necessary or desirable to tack the word design onto the end anymore. It’s a distraction and leads people down a parallel but misguided path… the path to thinking that UX = User Interface Design. (more…)
Wireframing, Prototyping, Mockuping – What’s the Difference?
A couple of years ago I realised that a lot of my IT, non-designer, friends were using the names of my beloved design deliverables synonymously. They assumed that a wireframe, prototype and mockup are exactly the same thing – a kind of greyish, boxy, sketch representing an ingenious idea. (more…)
6 Mind-Blowing Things I Learned about UX in 2012
The UX community is extremely generous when it comes to sharing useful and meaningful information related to the field. Whether its tips on how to tackle your first survey to case studies, podcasts, interviews, UX cartoons and more, there is a plethora of information at your fingertips and a community of professionals willing to share. (more…)
Tips on Prototyping for Usability Testing
Don’t let prototyping drive your design. The best prototyping tools are not necessarily the best design tools. It certainly saves time if you can design and prototype at the same time, but the last thing you should have to focus on when designing are the limitations of a prototyping tool. (more…)
Why It’s Important to Sketch Before You Wireframe
Designing an interface is a process. It all begins with an idea, but that idea needs user interface translation. It’s not enough to say, “I want an app that does X, Y and Z”. You need to know what the user will see on each screen of your app to do X, Y and Z. Sketching takes your mind from in the clouds to the user interface, where you start thinking about the user experience. (more…)
A prototype is worth a thousand words
Wireframing is important. I don’t think I need to labour the point about this, Its something most designer folk involve themselves with at the start of the design process. If you don’t, you really should. Most of the effort in wireframing is gathering together the outline of what will be on each page and where it will sit within a page hierarchy, we create a blueprint for our website when we wireframe. (more…)
Designing Sequences Not Stills
Designing software based on a checklist of screens can blind designers to the overall customer experience. To understand any individual screen, you must understand the chain of events that led to a user going there… and you can can map this out. The customer flow above shows how a user eventually arrives at a settings screen. (more…)
Beyond Wireframing: The Real-Life UX Design Process
We all know basic tenets of user-centered design. We recognize different research methods, the prototyping stage, as well as the process of documenting techniques in our rich methodological environment. The question you probably often ask yourself, though, is how it all works in practice? (more…)
Create wireframes that work for you
In this excerpt from The Web Designer's Roadmap, Giovanni DiFeterici discusses the role wireframing plays in design, and how to create a wireframe that suits your own needs. Once all the planning for a site is done and the initial thoughts have been hashed out, we must start putting together concrete ideas for design and structure. (more…)
What is User Experience?
I’m tired of discussing “user experience.” What it is, what it isn’t. I’m tired of talking about wireframes vs prototypes. I’m tired of the agile-lean-waterfall debates. I’m weary from discussing personas and sitemaps. I’m wary of design patterns, and I’m pretty sure the term “user” has held us back. Above all, I’m tired of defining the damn thing. (more…)
Design Mistakes We Made in Our iPhone App
Getting things wrong is inevitable when designing a complex user experience like a mobile app. That’s especially true when you’ve never done it before. As logical as your wireframes may seem, or as beautiful as your mock-ups may look, some of your designs are going to fail when you put them in front of customers. (more…)
A Practical Wireframe Primer
In the current design atmosphere , I hear the term wireframe being thrown around a lot more than it used to be. Over the last few years, wireframing is a process that has endured a lot of misunderstanding and has been become much more widely known as a software and web design methodology. I’ve begun to notice that the concept is warping and not for the better. (more…)