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trying on a metaphor
@theartofmadeline
art blog(derogatory)
Mike Driver
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tannertan36
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
AnasAbdin
Andulka
ellievsbear
Janaina Medeiros
oozey mess
Kiana Khansmith
we're not kids anymore.
Game of Thrones Daily
todays bird
noise dept.
Love Begins
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
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@webwhirled
Time Travel via Button Design
Nice one. Short, too. Check out how buttons have changed over the past 8 years. Nailed = 2011 to 2013. Flat design anyone? I won't spoil all the fun. Check it out at Button Design over the Years and click the little time travel button to get the full experience.
Links
Button Design over the Years
Cognitive Bias and You and What to Do
Good article from the design team at NPR Digital Services: Overcoming Cognitive Bias in User Research. (Good blog to follow in general.)
Adam Kiryk (Manager of UX and Design) talks about many different cognitive biases you and your team may experience and steps you should take to minimize bias impact when you perform, analyze and consider user responses. Bias is ubiquitous. Acknowledging that it even exists is an important (and easy step). Remembering them all, a harder one. Perhaps best to a.) acknowledge and b.) make sure you follow the steps to overcome.
What you'll learn
What cognitive bias is and why it matters
Types of biases
Recency, availability and related
Confirmation bias
Framing effect
Selection bias
Anchoring bias
Clustering illustion
Empathy gap
Observer expectancy effect
What you can do to overcome this Don't try to address each bias individually. Instead have a best-practices plan that helps guide you past biases toward more accurate results.
Links
Overcoming Cognitive Bias in User Research (Medium article)
How to mature from a junior designer
Insightful article written by an Uber Product Design Intern about what he learned about growing as a designer after his internship: Product Design Junior Vs Senior — what do we lack. This would be a good read before the school year starts and your student assistants or interns gear up for their new quarter. I'm not sure how many people actually do reviews with their student assistants, but I imagine that this type of feedback could be really helpful. Some jargon and typos distracted me during my initial read, but if you can get past that (and you should), the thoughts/ideas are helpful.
Big takeaways
T3B3
I've never heard of this kind of review. Maybe it is common in other businesses? You pick the three top things the person you are evaluating excels at (with examples) and you pick the three things he or she could most improve upon (the three bottom things): Top 3, Bottom 3 = T3B3. I agree that the bottom three shouldn't be seen as huge negatives, but instead as areas of important improvement. We've all got them. Better to be aware of them early with suggestions on how one can improve.
How to mature into a more senior designer
I think the writer is spot on with ways people can evolve into stronger designers to become senior designers. This is good insight for our assistants/interns. Knowing this could be an advantage when they get into the proverbial real world.
Links
Product Design Junior Vs Senior — what do we lack (uxdesign.cc)
Designing for Everybody
Airbnb has a series of questions to ask yourself when you approach, plan or design a project. These questions are meant to shake you up to see things from a different perspective or to challenge your bias. Simple questions. Good reminders. Would be a good exercise for meetings.
Examples
What's here that I designed for me? What's here that I designed for other people?
or
Who's someone I'm nervous to talk to about this?
or
Who might disagree with what I'm designing?
Cool questions. Good exercise. Try it out.
Links
Another Lens: A Resource Tool for Conscientious Creatives
The F Pattern
UX Magazine has a short and very good article about The F Pattern – this is the pattern in which users read/engage with web pages. Point: honor this pattern and use it to your advantage. There are many reason why this will help both you and your users.
What this hints at
Put your sidebar navigations on the left side of your web page
Put key contact (and search, I would argue) in your uppermost right corner
Knock it off with the center-aligned content (flush left is a much better reading experience)
Put prioritized content to the left
I loved this
"Your readers may not know you are relying on F-pattern scanning methods, but they will feel like your content gives them what they want without them having to work too hard to get it. This expectation of layout allows your users to review your website at their own speed."
Links
The F Pattern: Understanding How Users Scan Content (UX Magazine)
Insights into Real World A/B Tests: Duolingo
Nice article from First Round Review on Duolingo's VP of Growth, Gina Gotthilf and what she and her team and learned (and implemented) from A/B testing. One, you should read this because Duolingo grew from 3M users to over 200M with Gina at the helm. Two, you should read this for the insights she's shared that has worked for Duolingo. Three, maybe this will spark ideas for things you can implement yourself or that could help you and your team.
Things she shares
"Delayed sign ups" mean users can play before signing up. This alone increases the number of people who do sign up.
"Soft walls" are encouraging screens that keep asking people to sign up or provide information, but that don't hinder the user from going forward without signing up.
People love badges and working toward rewards.
Getting one badge doesn't matter. People want a group of badges (to work towards or to add to)
You can help "train" your users/readers to come back to your site or app by instilling prompts that create habits
My list, of course, doesn't take the place of everything that is shared in the article. It's interesting, it's not that long, and you'll learn a lot
Links
The Tenets of A/B Testing from Duolingo's Master Growth Hacker - First Round Review article
Duolingo
A/B and Multivariate Testing - Lynda.com course
Find Resources. Share Resources.
GitHub user Skullface (Ha ha. Her name is killing me) has a cool little web site to share the web design resources she recommends. She says it used to be a Google doc that she only shared with her most-trusted co-workers and friends, but she thought the community would be better served if she shared with everyone.
I love that. Also love: her username and her domain extension: .party. Clever for a shared resource.
Check out her site (especially when you need that tool for X). If you have recommendations for any of the categories (Accessibility through User Testing) you can send them her way via GitHub.
Links
Design Resources Party - Public web site
On GitHub
Don’t Let Surveys Become Proxies for Understanding Your Customer
Or, heart, intuition, curiosity, play, guts, taste.
"Good inventors and designers deeply understand their customer. They spend tremendous energy developing that intuition. They study and understand many anecdotes rather than only the averages you’ll find on surveys. They live with the design.
"I’m not against beta testing or surveys. But you, the product or service owner, must understand the customer, have a vision, and love the offering. Then, beta testing and research can help you find your blind spots. A remarkable customer experience starts with heart, intuition, curiosity, play, guts, taste. You won’t find any of it in a survey."
– Jeff Bezos, 2016 Letter to Shareholders
The Newsletter You Really Should Be Reading
This is the best newsletter out there right now. Top content. Always excellent recommendations and articles. As of the next installment it only comes twice a month (perfect).
Links
Sign up for the newsletter
Jocelyn K. Glei (the author/curator)
Jocelyn on Twitter
The Future of Web Design/Dev
A great podcast to checkout if you love web design or development is The Web Ahead hosted by genuine design nerd and sandbox evangelist, Jen Simmons. Jen's been hosting this podcast for years. Basically, it's an hour-or-so-long interview with people are who doing cool things online. And when I say cool things, I mean the people who invented Responsive Web Design, or who took the first newspaper website responsive. People who have tackled huge web challenges and triumphed. People who want to share tips, tricks, insights and ideas.
In April Jen sat down with friends Rachel Andrew, Eric Meyer and Jeffrey Zeldman to discuss what is next in the web. What really grabbed me about this show was the push for us all to go back to the sandbox: to try, to reach, to experiment, to play – to basically push ourselves outside the header, main column, sidebar nav structure and way beyond Bootstrap.
It used to be (and these were the days when I grew up in the web world) that there were no norms and we were all trying to figure it out. People were constantly pushing the boundaries, trying new things/new approaches, really just going for it in this new wild-west/underground frontier. Sure, a ton of it was super ugly, but that doesn't matter because it lead to what we all do today.
Nowadays, as you all know, the web is staid. We've sunken into the comfy couch of the tried and true. We handle the remote adroitly as we buzz through frameworks and trusted patterns.
I'm all for trusted patterns. I'm all for a web experience that helps the user. But I also think we do need to be sandboxing a lot. Trying new things, new layouts, new approaches. This is what makes the web fun. How cool would it be, if when we create our sites, we also de facto create sandbox areas as well so that we can practice and innovate. Sandboxes can stay private. Who knows what ideas or new patterns might emerge? I'm excited about this.
Consider
More art direction for your site (Jen's been doing cool magazine type layout experimentations)
Less reliance on Bootstrap or Foundation (especially due to code bloat and design limitations)
Jen says that this design paradigm-shift we're sitting on could be bigger than RWD
How the web could influence graphic design instead of vice versa
How IoT fits into all of this (my note and what I keep thinking about)
Also Of Note
Grid is coming! Heck, grid is here. It's time to start thinking about how we can use it to improve the user experience and take advantage of its strengths. You can learn more about Grid on A Complete Guide to Grid by Chris House at CSS-Tricks. Grid is huge and it will be making RWD content come alive in a very big way.
Links
Predicting the Future with Rachel Andrew, Eric Meyer and Jeffrey Zeldman (direct link to listen or read transcript)
The Web Ahead (home page to podcast)
Labs - Jen Simmons's page of experimentations
A Complete Guide to Grid (CSS-Tricks, Chris House)
Jen Simmons
Rachel Andrews
Jeffrey Zeldman
Eric Meyer
Extraordinary Routines
I love sites that showcase people doing their thing: whether its showcasing their path to creative professions (The Great Discontent) or their path to every day things like Extraordinary Routines. Highlight: many people featured here; beautiful photography; cool insight.
Links
Extraordinary Routines
The Great Discontent
Web Writing Basics
A good reminder from Usability.gov: Writing for the Web.
I found this via a discussion group. A copywriter there was getting pushback from a client who said that the word "you" was jargon. How would you approach that discussion with the client? Where is the common ground? Wanting to reach the user, certainly. Facts, data, best practices always help. This article could be a good starting point.
Beyond the Basics
I've shared this a few time in meetings, but in case you missed it, here's another great resource: Voice and Tone from MailChimp. This is the tool they put together to help everyone in the company communicate in the MailChimp way. I freaking love this thing.
Links
Writing for the Web (from Usability.gov)
Voice and Tone (from MailChimp)
Acknowledging Diversity Through Avatars
Very interesting article on creating default/placeholder avatars that honor and encourage diversity. I love this whole article. Written by Lyft product designer Michelle Venetucci Harvey, it’s titled Design Avatars That Make Sense and Be More Inclusive in the Process and is published on UX Design via Medium.
Besides the male/female representation (and FB’s approach on placeholder avatar equity), I never really thought about avatars and diversity. This is a great thing to keep in mind for future projects — from mock ups to possible personalization of future web sites and apps. I also liked the link from the article to a Twitter piece about how they’ve changed their placeholder avatars over the years.
Take Aways
Be mindful of not creating male-default or implied placeholder avatars
Think colors other than white (specifically, why not whimsical colors? or school colors?)
Consider less-representative graphics (monsters, animals, etc)
Shy away from initials (doesn’t encourage users to personalize)
Consider attributes that encourage personalization (dotted lines)
Ideas/Examples Discussed
Identicons (example: GitHub)
Animals (example: Jira)
Initials (example: Google docs; might not encourage personalization)
Smiley Faces (example: DropBox)
Aliens and Monsters (example: Virgin America)
Brand-related Mascots (example: Snapchat)
Brand colors and symbols (example: Slack)
Memes and pop culture (example: 9gag)
Links
Design Avatars that Make Sense and Be More Inclusive in the Process (article, Smashing Magazine)
Rethinking Our Default Profile Photo
A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats
A new-to-me person I follow online these days is Julie Zhou. She's the vp of design at Facebook and man, I really like her articles. So much, I decided to sign up for her weekly newsletters. This week, I got my first newsletter and it is oh so good. It's a great reminder about attitude and opportunity in the face of what feels like loss (specifically loss of participation).
“As an organization succeeds, everybody within it succeeds. Facebook has grown 100x since I started, and through that I've had opportunities for personal growth that I could never have imagined. I gave up some pieces of my work, but there was ever more to pick up. And as a result, the work I do now feels more impactful than it ever did before. The responsibility I feel and the challenges before me feel ever growing.”
Links
The Looking Glass: A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats (the one that prompted this post)
Julie Zhou newsletter (signup)
Julie Zhou on Medium.com (articles)
Top Tasks: Webinar
Over and over again, I keep coming back to "Top Tasks." It was the last presentation at last year's An Event Apart and it continues to be the thing I want to share with everyone.
The idea is incredibly simple: focus your web efforts on the top tasks your users need to accomplish when they get to your site.
This seems like a no brainer, and yet few sites do this. Most sites focus on what they want to tell the user or what they want the user to do. A lot of effort is put into those tell-and-want items: hours and hours. Most of these changes feel small and are often afterthoughts. "Hey, this should be on the web somewhere." This happens over and over again until the hey-this-should-be-on-the-web-somewhere things dominate your whole web site and navigation, leaving the user to wade through the clutter to find what they really need (if they even decide to wade through the clutter at all.).
Gerry McGovern (who gave the Top Tasks talk at an Event Apart) wrote a great article about this at A List Apart. He's also giving a short (30 minutes!) webinar on it this Thursday at 8am, PDT. I sent out an email inviting the people who I thought would enjoy it most, but also feel like everyone should know about it because this could really transform our web sites and apps.
Sign up
Customer Experience Excellence and Top Tasks (it's free) Thursday, May 25 at 8am → Register here: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5863909198954395394
Transform
And because Top Tasks keeps coming up for me (somehow I think about it all the time), I've decided to put Gerry's book Transform at the top of my reading queue. It was going to be John Maeda's The Laws of Simplicity, and it will be soon. But first, it will be Transform, which I assume is all about Top Tasks and which Gerry calls "A Rebel's Guide to Digital Transformation." I'll report out.
Links
Sign up for the webinar (only 30 minutes and it’s free)
About Gerry McGovern
What Really Matters: Focusing on Top Tasks (article, A List Apart)
Transform (book, Amazon)
The Laws of Simplicity (book, Amazon)
Top Task Management: Making It Easier to Prioritize (presentation, An Event Apart)
Beautiful Web Type: The Bright Side
I went to The Bright Side to read their stories. But the design. Beautiful! Perfect for what they are doing. Reminded me of The Great Discontent's early days. Plus, what beautiful web type! (Also, great photography!)
Above the fold on their current home page
Home page still. Story listings.
Individual story screenshot. Above the fold. (Man, they sure make modern serif type sing, don't they?)
Simple. Beautiful. Perfect.
Links
The Bright Side
The Great Discontent
Learn about web type (huge resource)
Learn about web type (shorter overview)
How Can I Simplify This?
This month I'll be reading (and sharing excerpts from) John Maeda's book The Laws of Simplicity.
I ordered it and plan to do a chapter (or section, depending on size) each work day. Until it comes, I'm perusing his LoS web page, which starts with thoughts about simplicity (Law 1: Reduce) and the basic question: how simple can you make it?
We see the creeping of complexity all the time in the website and app world. Or we did. A few years ago we started to see a drastic simplicity come about (think of the complexity of Flickr vs. the simplicity of Instagram). Turns out, we'd begun to put too many options (aka All the Options!) in everything. Our sites and apps became too bloated. Things became too cluttered with competing hierarchies. Here on campus you can see that in the campus website, most departments' web navigations, our options on the mobile app, and the quick links in the portal. It's not bad that we have all these choices and options – they exist. People need them. But what we don't need is to front load them on to the user.
Gerry McGovern (web industry thought leader based in Ireland) talked about Top Tasks in the last An Event Apart I attended. Specifically, he spoke of prioritizing the most common tasks your user wants to accomplish when hitting your site or app. He surmises putting your energy into those top tasks and making them the easiest things to find and to accomplish. I think about this constantly. This would transform our websites in the most radical and helpful way. Plus, it would be a really fun (ongoing) project.
The easiest way to start
Make "how can I simplify this?" your mantra, then
Identify your user (or even just one type of user)
Identify their top tasks (obvious start: site analytics; also helpful: informal user interviews)
Challenge yourself: make those top-tasks your site and app priority
Links
About John Maeda (Wikipedia)
Maeda Studio
The Laws of Simplicity Web Site
Gerry McGovern (Twitter)
What Really Matters: Focusing on Top Tasks (A List Apart article)