CategoryUX

January 3, 2017 — Digital products are getting more and more complex. In this article, Yury Vetrov explains why we need to support more platforms, tweak usage scenarios for more user segments, and hypothesize more. Our industry has both high- and low-skilled designers, and it will be easy for algorithms to replace the latter. However, those who can follow and break rules when necessary will find magical new tools and possibilities. Read more…

December 30, 2016 — A 2014 study found that people with easier-to-pronounce names are deemed “more trustworthy”. Atif Azam built Vocalizer (a simple, lightweight JavaScript plugin that facilitates the accessibility of difficult to pronounce names) to solve a problem that has persisted all his life. Now, he hopes this will prove useful to others, helping them solve the same problem. Read more…

December 27, 2016 — The best way to convert a user on a mobile landing page is to provide a clear description of what you’re offering, along with obvious ways to contact you. Be clear in describing what your product does and how you’re solving your target customer’s problems. Get to the point of what you’re selling and show the user how to buy it or contact you. Creating landing pages with mobile users in mind will help you to focus on how best to convert people on smartphones. When building a landing page for any online campaign, take special care to consider the mobile experience. Review the presentation of content, as well as the prominence of contact information. Read more…

December 22, 2016 — Building a genuinely helpful and attractive chatbot is still a challenge from a UX standpoint. While chatbots can be a great tool for creating more personalized customer experience, conversational design still have certain limitations. There are clear cases when a conversation can help or hurt the UX. Before building a chatbot for your business, you should clearly define its purpose and the exact value it could bring to the user. Teach the bot to do one thing extremely good, such as delivering weather forecasts or introducing the company’s scope of service before experimenting further with more advanced features. Read more…

December 21, 2016 — Are you using progressive booting already? What about tree-shaking and code-splitting in React and Angular? Have you set up Brotli or Zopfli compression, OCSP stapling and HPACK compression? Also, how about resource hints, client hints and CSS containment — not to mention IPv6, HTTP/2 and service workers? A front-end performance checklist of things to keep in mind when optimizing for performance. Read more…

December 12, 2016 — In this article, Kyle Cassidy shares his thoughts and experiences on how lean thinking helped to instill efficiencies within his UX design process. For clients undertaking multiple projects, the lack of consistent wireframe deliverables was confusing and disorientating, with the client having to remember multiple URLs and logins while also learning how to navigate the various outputs. Many routine tasks were unnecessarily repeated across multiple projects. It was clear that they needed to establish some rules and guidelines to create a more cohesive approach. They needed to set a new direction, and now was the time to start. Read more…

December 7, 2016 — While an instant response from an app is the best, there are times when your app won’t be able to comply with the guidelines for speed. A slow response could be caused by a bad internet connection, or an operation itself can take a long time. For such cases, in order to minimize user tension, you must reassure users that the app is working on their request and that actual progress is being made. A wait-animation progress indicator is the most common form of providing a system status for users when something is happening or loading. It’s important to provide feedback to the user about what is happening with the app within a reasonable amount of time. Read more…

November 24, 2016 — Is chatting actually good for bots? Early user reviews of chatbots suggest not. How “chatty” your chatbot should be will depend on your users’ mental models of chatbots and the goals and needs your chatbot fulfills for them. Problems occur when designers do not decide up front who their audience is, how the chatbot fits into their business or brand strategy, what domains the chatbot will and will not cover, and what a successful experience should look like. Gizmodo writer Darren Orf describes Facebook’s chatbot user experiences as “frustrating and useless” and compares using them to “trying to talk politics with a toddler.” His criticisms are not unfair. Read more…

November 22, 2016 — In order to improve your workflow, in this article Edric Lapniramai provides a checklist to refer throughout the UX designer’s wireframing process. Divided in three sections — decisions to consider before wireframing, detailing the design elements, and annotations —, this guideline can help you perfect your wireframes and be practical with your time. Read more…

November 17, 2016 — Front-end fatigue is very real.  Technology is evolving so rapidly, that it can be overwhelming. The worst thing you can do is reach the edge and become fully burnt out because once you are, it’s very hard to regain that passion you had for what you do and why you started doing it in the first place. In this article, David Berner shares advice on how to avoid fatigue and stop your head from exploding. Once you’re fully burnt out, it’s very hard to regain that passion you had for what you do and why you started doing it in the first place. Read more…