There are myriad ways to integrate user-centered thinking into the creative process of UX design, and personas are one of the most effective ways to empathize with and analyze users. This final part of the series will explain an effective method of creating a persona. There is no one right way to develop one, but the method Shlomo Goltz will share here is based on processes developed, field-tested and refined over the years at the interaction design agency Cooper. This process follows a logical order that begins with knowing nothing about users and ends with a refined perspective of users that can be shared with others.
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If the 404 doesn’t help your visitors, then what’s the point of having carefully crafted memes, funny GIFs, or odd interactive games? A visitor could find themselves on a 404 page for one of many reasons: a mistyped address, a bad link from somewhere else, a deleted page or content that has moved elsewhere. While you can prevent errors from moved pages with redirects, you can’t control people’s mistakes. In this article, Donovan Hutchinson will show you how to have a better 404 page.
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Displaying onboarding screens to first-time users has become a common practice in mobile apps. Given that these are often the first set of screens with which users interact, they also set the users’ expectations of the app. Therefore, it is essential that those involved in creating the product take the time to evaluate whether onboarding is necessary for the app and, if so, to determine the best way to implement it. In this article, Germaine Satia will provide some good tips on how to approach onboarding, some common implementations, alternative techniques, as well as resources to help you provide the best experience for users.
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Over the last century, many incidents have provided examples that innovation and creativity can play an essential role for an organization in the midst of crisis. They can be applied to redesign a company’s structure and devise a more innovative process that leads to products that meet both creativity and business needs. In this article, Rafiq Elmansy will talk about one interesting example of this: LEGO, the world-famous toy manufacturer. By studying its crisis, lasting from 1993 to 2004, we’ll answer two main questions: Can creativity and innovation help an organization in its time of crisis? And can studying cases such as LEGO’s reveal a model for the broader role of creativity in an organization for other enterprises to follow?
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Since Adobe decided to feature-freeze Fireworks in 2013, there is no replacement available for this Software. However, there are many extensions that might help you improve Fireworks. In the second part of this article, Michael Bozgounov will show you more extensions (commands, command panels, and auto shapes) and you’ll learn how to take full advantage of them. Let’s get started!
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Personas have been in use since the mid-’90s and since then have gained widespread awareness within the design community. Once Shlomo Goltz understood why personas were valuable and how they could be put into action, he started using them in his own work, and then his process became more efficient and fun, while the fruits of his labor became more impactful and useful to others. Personas will supercharge your work and help you take your designs to the next level.
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New tools have emerged to address the challenges of responsive web design. And there is that’s been a leap forward in productivity for the team that Richard Knight works with. Its name is Webflow, and it could be the solution to the problems you face with static design comps produced in Photoshop and Fireworks. In this article, Richard will explore the advantages of Webflow and how you can use it to build responsive websites today. He will take you step by step through the process of creating a responsive website layout for a real project, and identify Webflow’s advantages and where it comes up short.
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Email is one of the most important tools for reaching your customer base. But with the ever-growing number of emails to send, getting them all out the door can seem a little overwhelming. By putting in place a solid email design workflow, you’ll be able to regularly ship engaging and mobile-friendly emails with ease. Incorporating a modular approach and a custom framework into your email workflow can lead to increased productivity and make it easier for you to iterate on your designs. You will have to make an initial investment of time to get everything up and running, but the result will improve your designs, the customer experience and your engagement rates, leading to happier customers and increased revenue.
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The simplicity of Jekyll’s theming layer and writing workflow is fantastic; however, setting up the website takes a lot longer than expected. It isn’t for every project. The biggest disadvantage of a static website generator is that incorporating dynamic server-side functionality becomes difficult. Jekyll’s strength is its simplicity and minimalism, giving you just what you need to create a content-focused website that doesn’t need much dynamic user interaction — and no more. This makes it perfect for your blog and portfolio and also worth considering for a simple client website. In this article, Barry Clark will walk you through the quickest way to set up a Jekyll powered blog, how to avoid common problems with using Jekyll, and much more.
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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 August 2014. This creativity mission has been going on for six years now, and we are very thankful to all designers who have contributed and are still diligently contributing each month.
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