Now that you know what design sprints are good for, you’ll need a few important ingredients to make yours successful. Start with a big, important problem; pitch it to your team; and schedule a user study before you even start. Get the right people and the right supplies in a room and you’re on your way to a successful design sprint. (more…)
At the Google Ventures Design Studio, we have a five-day process for taking a product or feature from design through prototyping and testing. We call it a product design sprint. This is the third in a series of seven posts on running your own design sprint. (more…)
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…)
While certainly not as well known as Photoshop, Adobe Fireworks is a great tool for creating user interfaces, website designs and mock-ups, wireframes, icons and much more. However, most designers who have been using Photoshop for years may find Fireworks a bit awkward at first. Fireworks does have a slightly different workflow and requires a slightly different approach than you may be used to. (more…)
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…)
User Experience (UX), a term that first appeared a decade ago, still has no formal definition or standard. So its not surprising that as mobile applications inundate the app stores, mobile user experience is starting to garner serious attention because some app developers are wondering why their app is not getting much uptake while others who may have less features for more money are. (more…)
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…)
Designing towards touch really forces us to simplify and decide what's most important- what needs to stay on the screen. If we go through that exercise we ultimately end up with software that's easier to understand and as a result more often used. Both good things. (more…)
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…)
Using the word “click” on your links takes the user’s attention away from your interface and on to their mouse. Users know what a link is and how to use a mouse. It’s unnecessary to call attention to the mechanics when clicking a link. Doing so diminishes their experience of your interface because it momentarily takes their focus away from it. (more…)
Usability testing. Some people love it, some hate it, many don’t get it. Personally, I think they are the best thing anyone can do to learn from their users. In the same time, they are emotionally exhausting for moderators. Here are 6 usability testing videos I love. Four serious ones, two not so much. (more…)
Clear, Rise and Solar are three examples of a trend of “gesture driven” apps with a flat UI. These are novelty apps for people lusting for the very latest in app design. Besides using a more flat UI style, which is a topic for a different discussion, all apps contain non-standard interactions. This means users don’t know how to use them beforehand, and all start with a multi-step UI walkthrough before you get to use the app. (more…)
What if instead of designing explicit interfaces we aimed instead at eliminating them altogether? If instead of adding a screen we found ways to remove it? Wouldn’t the best user interface be the one that requires nothing of the user? No UI, proposed here on the Journal by Cooper’s Golden Krishna, is interesting, provocative, and deeply flawed. (more…)
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…)
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