Claire Carlson had the opportunity to conduct in-home user interviews in São Paulo on behalf of a Brazilian real estate company called Zap Imóveis. This project provided her with invaluable insider knowledge on how to best conduct in-home user interviews in Brazil and, more broadly, how to conduct field research in foreign countries using the same underlying principles. This article presents her tips for foreigners planning to conduct in-home user interviews in Brazil, including parallels with research in India, China, and Spain.
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A quick query of “mobile navigation” returns thousands of opinions on navigation patterns, including the “hamburger” menu, front-end plugins, frameworks and plenty of other tools. Despite this changing landscape of tools and design trends, a successful navigation system sends users on the path to the exact content they need at the right time. In this article, Patrick Marsceill will explore the beginnings of the design process, as well as techniques specific to mobile ideation, and a unique idea for building a prototype navigation system in Keynote.
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In this article, Igor Fastovski invites UX designers and usability experts to look at the user experience of continuous input. He will detail the process of continuous input and weigh its gains against its pain points. Igor will then apply usability heuristics and basic empathy considerations in an attempt to remove pain points and tweak the design, helping developers improve usability of continuous input apps.
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From simple charts to fancy infographics to complex timeline animations, data visualizations are popping up all over the Internet. However, as in any other area, once everyone gets on the train, distinguishing yourself from the pack becomes hard. There is virtually no limit to what you can do with the physics of data visualizations. Create column charts and make them fall like dominos, or make pie charts roll, bounce and more. You can make objects in charts and maps roll, spin, bounce, change shape and morph in ways that will capture the viewer’s attention much more quickly than regular static or even interactive versions!
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Many of the skills Jeremy Girard honed while playing in a band have contributed to his success as a web designer — as much as, if not more than, his ability to write clean code or design an attractive web page. He learned skills critical to his success, such as the importance of tailoring your set list (or your presentation) to make an early connection with your audience, or the ability to speak clearly and confidently in public. In this article, Jeremy will describe how being in a band taught him to be a better web designer.
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In this article, Varya Stepanova & Juuso Backman will talk about style guides that are generated directly from the style definition sources — i.e. CSS and its modern variants. Style guides are useful in many aspects of development and maintenance, so it’s little wonder that developing them has become a highly popular practice. But even with the clear benefits, taking the necessary steps to start using them is easier said than done, as quite often the challenge is cultural, requiring changes in people’s mindsets. We encourage everyone to try it!
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The success of your app definitely does not depend solely on its looks: it has to be functional and solve someone’s problem, or enhance a current experience. But, given the human attraction to looks and visual cues, giving app screenshots a good amount of focus cannot be wrong. App store optimization (ASO) has become a handy addition to an app developer’s marketing plan, and promises to help increase visibility and, as a consequence, downloads. In this article, Melanie Haselmayr will take a closer look at app screenshots, one of the two key decision-making helpers for anyone who downloads an app.
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Flex items are truly accommodating and a pleasure to work with. Most web apps consist of a series of modular, reusable components. You can use flexbox for those bits of layout that induce headaches and that depend on brittle CSS hacks to work. It takes a while to have your “Aha!” moment with flexbox, because it involves unlearning what you already know about CSS layouting. But once you speak the flexbox language fluently, your process of designing responsive apps will become effortless and your style sheets will get leaner!
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As designers we usually turn to different sources of inspiration. As a matter of fact, we’ve discovered the best one—desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This post features free desktop wallpapers created by artists across the globe for March 2015. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free. It’s time to freshen up your wallpaper!
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Emphasis is relative. For one element to stand out, another has to serve as the background from which the first is to stand out. Some elements need to dominate others in order for your design to display any sort of visual hierarchy. By varying the visual weight of some elements and the visual direction of others, you can establish different levels of dominance. Three levels is ideal; they’re all that most people can discern. Designing different levels of emphasis or dominance will create a visual hierarchy in your design, with more important information being more visually prominent. It will help you communicate with visitors quickly and efficiently.
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