Product Design Digest March 2015
For five years now I have been publishing regular reviews of fresh articles on the topic of interfaces, new tools and collections of patterns, interesting cases and historical stories. From the tapes of several hundred thematic subscriptions, approximately 5% of the worthwhile publications are selected that are interesting to share. Previous materials: April 2010-February 2015 .
Baymard E-Commerce Product List Usability: Report & Benchmark
New Baymard Institute report on product list pages on e-commerce sites. Publicly available excerpts from it:
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Getting Users Back From Multitasking
Ben Watanabe parses the multitasking mode in iOS as another way to make working with the application more useful. It shows a reduced version of the last open screen, although it would be more useful to replace it with the squeeze of fresh information from the application.
Infographics: Cheat sheet on the size of graphic elements in social networks
Detailed cheat sheet on the size of graphic elements in social networks. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, Vkontakte, My World, Odnoklassniki.
The Low Hanging Fruit Of User Onboarding
History of how to educate users at the start of working with the product and a look at their future from Des Traynor.
Excerpts from a fresh book about interaction design UXPin
Continuous Input In Mobile Devices - Pain Or Gain?
Igor Fastovsky examines the method of keyboard input on mobile using swype-like gestures. He offers several improvements for him, allowing to solve two main problems - some characters are not visible, and the user does not always remember where the next letter he needs is located. The decision is controversial, but interesting.
Accessibility APIs: A Key To Web Accessibility
About the technical aspects of creating an accessible environment in a web browser and a little about the history of the issue. On the one hand, the article is for techies, but usability should be an interdisciplinary field. Without an understanding of the limitations or opportunities that technology presents to us, effective work is impossible. And in this article it is very clearly explained what you can pay attention to when working on the accessibility of the web environment.
Animation patterns in known applications
Beyond Blue Links - Making Clickable Elements Recognizable
Hoa Loraner lists the rules for the selection of interactive elements in the interface.
Niice - A search engine with taste
Niice app for iOS, tool for creating mindboards, has been released.
Customers Who Bought This… Affinity Analysis Explained
Jeff Sauro on how the formula offers similar products in online stores. The article has visual calculations showing how the relationships between them are verified.
How does the length of a landing page affect its conversion
When to choose a short, and when a long version.
UX Archive Animated
Now UX Archive also collects animation examples in mobile applications.
Mystical guidelines for creating great user experiences
A funny parallel of the design process with the way the Torah describes the process of creating the world. Rather funny than useful, but from this side no one has ever entered.
The Curse of the Mobile Strategy
Jared Spool on the "curse" of mobile strategy. Concentration on only one channel significantly reduces the choice of possible options. It is necessary to think and act at the level of general product strategy, not limited to one of them.
67 Ways to Increase Conversion with Cognitive Biases
Jeremy Smith has built a cool collection of 67 cognitive distortions that are used to control user behavior. The collection is quite serious and extensive. It agrees that the article begins with contraindications to the use and the principle “do no harm”.
Winning Over Wary Participants
People behave differently, including usability testing participants. For some participants, testing is stressful, unnecessary worrying. Jim Ross provides several behavioral techniques that will prevent or reduce unnecessary user anxiety during testing.
People
A selection of theories and concepts on the topic that users are more likely to scan than read texts on the web. The ending and conclusions are blurred, but the article contains many useful references on this issue.
Positive Design Reference Guide
The book "Positive Design Reference Guide" by S.Jimenez, AEPohlmeyer and PMADesmet, which collected 29 models, theories and frameworks dedicated to "well-being-driven" design, leaving the user a good impression from the use.
Design for Asian countries
Change Blindness - What Designers Expect
Kathryn Whitenton on "blindness to change" - why users do not notice some small changes on the site or in the application, which they, according to the idea of ​​the creators of the product, should have noticed. For example, the appearance of error messages or success, filtering results.
Understanding Context: Environment, Language, and Information Architecture
An excerpt from Andrew Hinton’s Understanding Context: Environment, Language, and Information Architecture. The book is devoted to understanding the current context of the user, and this chapter talks about the importance of stories in the description of the interaction experience.
In Design, Empathy is Not Enough
Dan Saffer says that sometimes empathy is not enough to create a good design. For optimal results, you need to keep a balance between empathizing the user and observing user experiences from an impartial point of view. Both extremes do not lead to better results. Continuing the theme:
Design for the elderly
Card generator
A simple online service for preparing card sorting from Lukas Mathis. You need to enter the terms in the column and you can get their printed version, marked by cards.
Service Design: Holistic Assessment Methodology
Memo on the basics of service design and case studies in the University of Michigan library. New information is small, but quite well and in detail laid out on the shelves.
Adobe Comp CC
Adobe has released the Comp CC app for prototyping on the iPad. The basis is not much different from other similar tools, but in practice very pleasant solutions in the details. And most importantly - you can throw in the developments in InDesign, Photoshop or Illustrator for further refinement. Well, in general, it is built on Adobe technology, which means it is perfectly tied to other services - including Typekit. Khoi Vinh participated in its creation.
Bind - Building an experimental UI design tool
Alastair Monk makes his tool for designers Bind. You can’t try it yet, but it talks about its basic principles - versioning with Git, adaptability by default using Grid Style Sheets.
Napkin - Design quick mocks, directly on your phone
Another application for creating prototypes of mobile applications right on the phone. So far only iOS.
New to Sketch
Balsamiq 3
The third version of Balsamiq has been released.
Introducing Noun Project for Mac
The Noun Project has released an app for Mac. Subscription costs $ 9.99 per month, there is a 14-day sampler.
Pixel squid
A new trend is emerging - image drains with the possibility of detailed adjustment before downloading and easy use after it. The first is that you select an image from a quickly replenished collection of the image, select the desired angle (!) And get the image in PSD; all in layers, even the lighting; masks for quick selection and quick isolation. The second, Illustrio, is a vector stock; before downloading, you can change many parameters (for each picture are your own), for example, extend the arms of a robot or recolor the color of a medal. Continuing the theme:
ai2html
Plugin for Adobe Illustrator that allows you to overtake graphics from layouts in HTML5.
Nietzsche ipsum
Text generator in the spirit of Nietzsche instead of lorem ipsum.
Work with iOS8
Publishing Tools
How To Create Effective App Screenshots for Your App Page
Explanatory instructions for preparing screenshots for Android, iOS and Windows Phone app stores. Melanie Haselmayr provides a checklist of the necessary information and graphics for various platforms, and also deals with several approaches to the assembly of the illustrations themselves. Continuing the theme:
From Page to Stage to Screen - Designing an Omni-Channel Experience
Traci Lepore is trying to highlight the features of the environment for the types of platforms - desktops, tablets, phones, kiosks, mailing lists, social networks. Each has its own capabilities and limitations, which are important to consider when cross-channel interaction between them.
New for Material Design
New for Pebble
Apple Watch
New for Android Wear
Evangelising user research
The time of the fat reports that no one reads has passed. David Travis gives an overview of simple and effective lean methods for analyzing and presenting user research results.
The user is drunk
An excellent new approach to testing interfaces - Richard Littauer for $ 250 will check your site in a drunken state. At the exit a report with the found problems and screencast.
How Hard Are Your Surveys To Take?
Jeff Sauro proposes a method for checking user surveys in order to have better results. He called it SRS (Survey Respondent Score) and this is something like the Nielsen heuristics, which are recommended to run a survey before its launch.
A Beginner's Guide to Web Site Optimization
Good tutorial on the course of A / B testing from Charles Shimooka. How to coordinate with other teams, choose tools, analyze results.
Does Response Timing Matter in Online Research?
Jeff Sauro is trying to understand how much the response rate of respondents in surveys affects the quality of the assessment. This will allow the use of data in the course of the study, without waiting for it to end. Previously conducted research either does not show influence, or suggests that those who respond faster are more supportive. The findings from his experiment show that there is no significant influence.
Should Your Entire Product Team Observe Usability Testing?
The discussion at UXMatters about why it is important to invite the whole team to user research sessions.
Uxeria - Remote usability testing and marketing tool
Another tool for remote usability testing is Uxeria. Everything is pretty standard on the set of features.
Tumult Hype 3 Pro - The Next Revolution in HTML5 Animation
The release of the third version of Hype Pro. Interactive reusable animated objects with a physical model and adaptability for websites, iBooks, advertisements.
New to Quartz Composer
Component systems and live guidelines
Web typography
CSS animation
Work with SVG
Work with color on the web
Work with Flexbox
New scripts
Xcode for designers
One Magic Formula to Calculate User Experience?
Wouter de Bres is trying to derive the universal formula UX. It uses load time parameters (technological and cognitive), value and quality of interaction. There are many controversial points and inconsistencies, but the idea itself is interesting.
Design of public sites
No Dickheads! A Guide To Building Happy, Healthy, And Creative Teams.
The most charming spirit-lifting article about team building from Rhys Newman. He examines in some detail the values ​​that should underlie a strong and well-coordinated team capable of creating cool products. One of the best materials on the topic.
Understanding and Influencing Business
Liam Friedland is trying to shift Michael Porter's value chain to design projects.
What does Pair Design look like?
Pair programming is a fairly well-known method. Chris Noessel and Suzy Thompson from Cooper talk about pair design.
False Dichotomies
Lukas Mathis on how to avoid false dichotomy when discussing design decisions. Often in the course of an argument, the team splits around a couple of options and heats up the situation with an argument, instead of digging further and finding other approaches.
Overthinking vs. Underthinking - Finding the Sweet Spot
A good Kingshuk Das column about the biases in pure design thinking and classic strategic business planning. The first generates a lot of motivating, but not attached to life and business ideas, the second - an endless set of analytical materials in which it is difficult to make an informed choice. He offers a table of situations in which the first and second approaches are applicable.
Disney's $ 1 Billion Bet on a Magical Wristband
Disney MagicBand, in the design of which participated frog - perhaps the largest UX-project of the decade.
All on schedule: how to monitor user activity on the main Mail.Ru helps to live and ...
My colleague Olga Kuritsyna tells about the analyst of the main Mail.Ru page in conjunction with major events in the country. It is interesting how offline events affect the work of a large audience with web services.
Consider A Case Study
Claire Carlson shares the experience of conducting user research in Brazil. What should be taken into account in this market in particular and in general when conducting international research on-site.
Redesign Cases
Readable Wearables
A new era is opening for the web - adaptability takes smart watches into account. Matt Griffin talks about how they adapted the Bearded studio site for very small screens.
Google HATES Your Non Mobile Site
Craig Tomlin about the new rules of Google search results, which now takes into account not only the mobile version of the site, but also its quality. According to colleagues, the company pays attention even to the compatibility of the possibilities of a large and mobile version. The article is a simple tutorial on finding such problems. Continuing the theme:
Phablets
Car Interfaces
Design In Tech Report 2015
John Maeda report on the significant increase in the role of design in modern technology companies over the past few years. Designers base successful companies, large companies buy design studios, designers become partners in venture capital companies.
Virtual and Augmented Reality
Ux reactions
The collection of gifs on topical aspects of design work. A good way to diversify project correspondence.
The Web's Grain by Frank Chimero
An article based on the presentation of Frank Chimero about professional philosophy, in which he is trying to reassemble the current understanding of the role and tasks of the designer in the modern web. An interesting approach to adaptive design and the whole environment for which products are created.
Helvetica / Objectified / Urbanized: The Complete Interviews
The book “Helvetica / Objectified / Urbanized: The Complete Interviews” has been published, collecting 100 interviews from three well-known design films. Fast Co Design publishes part of a conversation with Dieter Rams from there .
Announcements of trainings and seminars
New online courses
Designing for Medical
Ted Goas writes about the features of the designer in the company that makes medical services. Because of the tough laws on the protection of personal data in the industry increased secrecy, and the equipment of users is often prehistoric. But the tasks themselves and the opportunity to help real people are wildly interesting.
Critical sharks
Very sensible discourse on whether it is possible to criticize the work of large companies. Of course, they have to take into account thousands of nuances and act within the strict limits of time and resource constraints, plus all this in an aggressive competitive environment. But without dialogue in the industry, it will be harder to develop. The reason itself (release iOS7) is already rotten, but the material is fresh and the topic is still relevant. The third part of the link is the most sensible. Part 1 and 2 .
Translation of the MailChimp book “The UX Reader” by FRIA
Web UI Design for the Human Eye - Colors, Space, Contrast
Another book from UXPin this year, this time about the colors, indents and the necessary level of contrast in the interfaces.
Excerpts from Golden Krishna's The Best Interface is No Interface
Ergonomist number 40
The 40th issue of the Ergonomist newsletter has been published. There you will find materials devoted to the problems of professional assessment and selection of personnel, information about new conferences and publications, as well as some funny ergonomic "sabotage"
The Value of Apprenticeships in Cooking and Product Design
Melissa Mandelbaum compares the experience of internship in design with the way beginner chefs learn and talks about their joining the profession.
The Demise of LayerVault and the Market for Creative Tools
Another sudden news this year - LayerVault versioning system for designers is closing . Last year and a half new tools for designers appeared almost every week, and then suddenly leaving the market one of the oldest and most famous among them. Khoi Vinh ponders why and if it touches the rest. Perhaps this is due to the purchase of something similar service Pixelapse Dropbox - there was a monster competitor, which greatly undermined the development prospects.
How they got there - A book by Khoi Vinh
Khoi Vinh published the book How They Got There fourteen detailed interviews with famous designers. They talk about their career in detail, with all its strange twists and turns. The first of them was published as a probe , with Erika Hall UX-researcher . It turned out that she lived in Russia for some time and knows a little language. Continuing the theme:
New AMA sessions
Conference Review: UX Strategies Summit 2014, part 1
Pabini Gabriel-Petit's report on the UX Strategies Summit 2014 conference held June 10-12 in San Francisco, USA. A rather detailed summary of several keynote speeches, although Kelly Goto has been repeating its presentation for years already.
Video with Interaction15
Video from the conference Interaction15, held February 9-11 in San Francisco, USA.
Fresh links can also be tracked in the Facebook group of the same name. Thanks to everyone who also publishes links in it, especially Gennady Dragun, Pavel Skripkin, Dmitry Podluzhny, Anton Artyomov, Denis Efremov and Evgeny Sokolov. More and more materials in reviews appear thanks to them.
A letter arrives once a month.
Patterns and Best Practices
Baymard E-Commerce Product List Usability: Report & Benchmark
New Baymard Institute report on product list pages on e-commerce sites. Publicly available excerpts from it:
- About the importance of specifying the price per unit, even if the package is sold .
- About the importance of indicating the number of voters who voted next to any numbers of ratings . I wonder how their perception changes with age.
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Getting Users Back From Multitasking
Ben Watanabe parses the multitasking mode in iOS as another way to make working with the application more useful. It shows a reduced version of the last open screen, although it would be more useful to replace it with the squeeze of fresh information from the application.
Infographics: Cheat sheet on the size of graphic elements in social networks
Detailed cheat sheet on the size of graphic elements in social networks. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, Vkontakte, My World, Odnoklassniki.
The Low Hanging Fruit Of User Onboarding
History of how to educate users at the start of working with the product and a look at their future from Des Traynor.
Excerpts from a fresh book about interaction design UXPin
- Article about affordans .
- Four tasks for text in interfaces (greeting, navigation, actions, service) .
Continuous Input In Mobile Devices - Pain Or Gain?
Igor Fastovsky examines the method of keyboard input on mobile using swype-like gestures. He offers several improvements for him, allowing to solve two main problems - some characters are not visible, and the user does not always remember where the next letter he needs is located. The decision is controversial, but interesting.
Accessibility APIs: A Key To Web Accessibility
About the technical aspects of creating an accessible environment in a web browser and a little about the history of the issue. On the one hand, the article is for techies, but usability should be an interdisciplinary field. Without an understanding of the limitations or opportunities that technology presents to us, effective work is impossible. And in this article it is very clearly explained what you can pay attention to when working on the accessibility of the web environment.
Animation patterns in known applications
Beyond Blue Links - Making Clickable Elements Recognizable
Hoa Loraner lists the rules for the selection of interactive elements in the interface.
Niice - A search engine with taste
Niice app for iOS, tool for creating mindboards, has been released.
Customers Who Bought This… Affinity Analysis Explained
Jeff Sauro on how the formula offers similar products in online stores. The article has visual calculations showing how the relationships between them are verified.
How does the length of a landing page affect its conversion
When to choose a short, and when a long version.
UX Archive Animated
Now UX Archive also collects animation examples in mobile applications.
Mystical guidelines for creating great user experiences
A funny parallel of the design process with the way the Torah describes the process of creating the world. Rather funny than useful, but from this side no one has ever entered.
The Curse of the Mobile Strategy
Jared Spool on the "curse" of mobile strategy. Concentration on only one channel significantly reduces the choice of possible options. It is necessary to think and act at the level of general product strategy, not limited to one of them.
Understanding the user
67 Ways to Increase Conversion with Cognitive Biases
Jeremy Smith has built a cool collection of 67 cognitive distortions that are used to control user behavior. The collection is quite serious and extensive. It agrees that the article begins with contraindications to the use and the principle “do no harm”.
Winning Over Wary Participants
People behave differently, including usability testing participants. For some participants, testing is stressful, unnecessary worrying. Jim Ross provides several behavioral techniques that will prevent or reduce unnecessary user anxiety during testing.
People
A selection of theories and concepts on the topic that users are more likely to scan than read texts on the web. The ending and conclusions are blurred, but the article contains many useful references on this issue.
Positive Design Reference Guide
The book "Positive Design Reference Guide" by S.Jimenez, AEPohlmeyer and PMADesmet, which collected 29 models, theories and frameworks dedicated to "well-being-driven" design, leaving the user a good impression from the use.
Design for Asian countries
Change Blindness - What Designers Expect
Kathryn Whitenton on "blindness to change" - why users do not notice some small changes on the site or in the application, which they, according to the idea of ​​the creators of the product, should have noticed. For example, the appearance of error messages or success, filtering results.
Understanding Context: Environment, Language, and Information Architecture
An excerpt from Andrew Hinton’s Understanding Context: Environment, Language, and Information Architecture. The book is devoted to understanding the current context of the user, and this chapter talks about the importance of stories in the description of the interaction experience.
In Design, Empathy is Not Enough
Dan Saffer says that sometimes empathy is not enough to create a good design. For optimal results, you need to keep a balance between empathizing the user and observing user experiences from an impartial point of view. Both extremes do not lead to better results. Continuing the theme:
- An interesting approach to the development of empathy with designers and developers. The service considers the weight of the site pages in the money of different countries, how much it will cost to visit .
Design for the elderly
Information architecture, conceptual design, content strategy
Card generator
A simple online service for preparing card sorting from Lukas Mathis. You need to enter the terms in the column and you can get their printed version, marked by cards.
Service Design: Holistic Assessment Methodology
Memo on the basics of service design and case studies in the University of Michigan library. New information is small, but quite well and in detail laid out on the shelves.
Design and design of interface screens
Adobe Comp CC
Adobe has released the Comp CC app for prototyping on the iPad. The basis is not much different from other similar tools, but in practice very pleasant solutions in the details. And most importantly - you can throw in the developments in InDesign, Photoshop or Illustrator for further refinement. Well, in general, it is built on Adobe technology, which means it is perfectly tied to other services - including Typekit. Khoi Vinh participated in its creation.
Bind - Building an experimental UI design tool
Alastair Monk makes his tool for designers Bind. You can’t try it yet, but it talks about its basic principles - versioning with Git, adaptability by default using Grid Style Sheets.
Napkin - Design quick mocks, directly on your phone
Another application for creating prototypes of mobile applications right on the phone. So far only iOS.
New to Sketch
- Quick preparation of materials for the AppStore .
- Integration with Marvel .
- Apple Watch Patterns for Sketch by Meng To .
Balsamiq 3
The third version of Balsamiq has been released.
Introducing Noun Project for Mac
The Noun Project has released an app for Mac. Subscription costs $ 9.99 per month, there is a 14-day sampler.
Pixel squid
A new trend is emerging - image drains with the possibility of detailed adjustment before downloading and easy use after it. The first is that you select an image from a quickly replenished collection of the image, select the desired angle (!) And get the image in PSD; all in layers, even the lighting; masks for quick selection and quick isolation. The second, Illustrio, is a vector stock; before downloading, you can change many parameters (for each picture are your own), for example, extend the arms of a robot or recolor the color of a medal. Continuing the theme:
ai2html
Plugin for Adobe Illustrator that allows you to overtake graphics from layouts in HTML5.
Nietzsche ipsum
Text generator in the spirit of Nietzsche instead of lorem ipsum.
Work with iOS8
Publishing Tools
- The creators of Aesop are launching Lasso, another publishing tool in addition to Story.AM . This is a $ 129 WordPress plugin.
- Nikita Obukhov gathered at Tilde a selection of strong long-rides, including key hits .
- Interview with Roman Mazurenko, one of the founders of the domestic publishing platform Stampsy .
How To Create Effective App Screenshots for Your App Page
Explanatory instructions for preparing screenshots for Android, iOS and Windows Phone app stores. Melanie Haselmayr provides a checklist of the necessary information and graphics for various platforms, and also deals with several approaches to the assembly of the illustrations themselves. Continuing the theme:
From Page to Stage to Screen - Designing an Omni-Channel Experience
Traci Lepore is trying to highlight the features of the environment for the types of platforms - desktops, tablets, phones, kiosks, mailing lists, social networks. Each has its own capabilities and limitations, which are important to consider when cross-channel interaction between them.
New for Material Design
New for Pebble
Apple Watch
- A little bit about how, under strict secrecy, companies are testing their applications on the device .
- Test laboratory in which scenarios and features of the use of watches for sports are investigated .
- Patterns for sketches .
- Implement a proprietary indicator of physical activity on CSS .
- A small case of creating a version of the Wunderlist for hours .
New for Android Wear
- ELEKS company offered its vision for Tesla application in the development of a recent similar concept for Apple Watch . Both cases show great differences in the approaches of the two platforms, threatening to become the most common.
User research and testing, analytics
Evangelising user research
The time of the fat reports that no one reads has passed. David Travis gives an overview of simple and effective lean methods for analyzing and presenting user research results.
The user is drunk
An excellent new approach to testing interfaces - Richard Littauer for $ 250 will check your site in a drunken state. At the exit a report with the found problems and screencast.
How Hard Are Your Surveys To Take?
Jeff Sauro proposes a method for checking user surveys in order to have better results. He called it SRS (Survey Respondent Score) and this is something like the Nielsen heuristics, which are recommended to run a survey before its launch.
A Beginner's Guide to Web Site Optimization
Good tutorial on the course of A / B testing from Charles Shimooka. How to coordinate with other teams, choose tools, analyze results.
Does Response Timing Matter in Online Research?
Jeff Sauro is trying to understand how much the response rate of respondents in surveys affects the quality of the assessment. This will allow the use of data in the course of the study, without waiting for it to end. Previously conducted research either does not show influence, or suggests that those who respond faster are more supportive. The findings from his experiment show that there is no significant influence.
Should Your Entire Product Team Observe Usability Testing?
The discussion at UXMatters about why it is important to invite the whole team to user research sessions.
Uxeria - Remote usability testing and marketing tool
Another tool for remote usability testing is Uxeria. Everything is pretty standard on the set of features.
Visual programming and browser design
Tumult Hype 3 Pro - The Next Revolution in HTML5 Animation
The release of the third version of Hype Pro. Interactive reusable animated objects with a physical model and adaptability for websites, iBooks, advertisements.
New to Quartz Composer
- Anton Kartashov began a series of articles for beginners working in Quartz Composer. This is a summary of the first chapter of the official user manual .
- Another mini-tutorial on working with Origami from Francis Cortez . He talks about version 2.0 using the material design example.
- Anton Kartashov compiled an excellent reference book describing the 50 most used patches in Russian . The accompanying article .
Component systems and live guidelines
- A story about SC5, a framework for creating live guidelines, as well as basic instructions for working with it .
- Live Guide Primer from GitHub .
- Purple guidelines for the Heroku platform .
Web typography
- Detailed cheat sheet for special typographical symbols on the web and on the keyboard .
- Type.js is a library for easier implementation of normal typography on the web .
- Ways to make superscript in CSS .
- Use the font event API to soften the loading of web fonts .
CSS animation
Work with SVG
- About working with SVG sprites .
- Three ways to use SVG sprites for animation .
- Practically useless, but in terms of alternative vision, an amusing approach to creating vector icons in code using ASCII graphics . An alternative to SVG from a parallel universe.
- Good visual memo on working with vector icons . What formats to use for different platforms, how to export files, what tools are best to use.
- Sara Soueidan’s awesome online presentation about using SVG for a wide range of tasks and its advantages over CSS . Infographics, fonts, icon sprites, animation, etc.
- A library for generating SVG patterns for subsequent data visualization (for example, evening D3.js) .
Work with color on the web
Work with Flexbox
- A quick overview of the features of the Flexbox and the six most sought-after patterns of its use .
- A clear and understandable crib on Flexbox .
- Chris Wright makes a clear reminder of the main situations in which the use of flexbox offers advantages in relation to the usual methods of grid construction . This division of the page into several parts with the same height and cards that look neatly together.
New scripts
- Circular menu generator .
- Using CSS animations to create pretty realistic clocks (look at the arrow :-)
- Semi-automatic creation of pixel graphics (Photoshop plugin).
- Spectacular photo switching in the gallery .
- Fresh pack of experiments from Tympanus .
- CSS and JavaScript solution for splitting content into several content-dependent columns .
- Excellent library for the effect of folding .
- Flickity script for the implementation of adaptive and touch-oriented carousels .
- Dynamic view of data on the map using amCharts .
- Another series of scripts with animation input fields on CSS .
- Some more SVG loaders .
- How the standard field for entering digital data behaves in different browsers on the big web and on mobile .
- The script, which allows using the button on the site to quickly switch its mobile and large versions .
Xcode for designers
Metrics and ROI
One Magic Formula to Calculate User Experience?
Wouter de Bres is trying to derive the universal formula UX. It uses load time parameters (technological and cognitive), value and quality of interaction. There are many controversial points and inconsistencies, but the idea itself is interesting.
Design of public sites
- Another example of state analytics from the US government . There is no reference to scenarios, as on Gov.uk, but in general, useful numbers.
Management of interface projects, processes and teams
No Dickheads! A Guide To Building Happy, Healthy, And Creative Teams.
The most charming spirit-lifting article about team building from Rhys Newman. He examines in some detail the values ​​that should underlie a strong and well-coordinated team capable of creating cool products. One of the best materials on the topic.
Understanding and Influencing Business
Liam Friedland is trying to shift Michael Porter's value chain to design projects.
What does Pair Design look like?
Pair programming is a fairly well-known method. Chris Noessel and Suzy Thompson from Cooper talk about pair design.
False Dichotomies
Lukas Mathis on how to avoid false dichotomy when discussing design decisions. Often in the course of an argument, the team splits around a couple of options and heats up the situation with an argument, instead of digging further and finding other approaches.
Product management and analytics
Overthinking vs. Underthinking - Finding the Sweet Spot
A good Kingshuk Das column about the biases in pure design thinking and classic strategic business planning. The first generates a lot of motivating, but not attached to life and business ideas, the second - an endless set of analytical materials in which it is difficult to make an informed choice. He offers a table of situations in which the first and second approaches are applicable.
Cases
Disney's $ 1 Billion Bet on a Magical Wristband
Disney MagicBand, in the design of which participated frog - perhaps the largest UX-project of the decade.
All on schedule: how to monitor user activity on the main Mail.Ru helps to live and ...
My colleague Olga Kuritsyna tells about the analyst of the main Mail.Ru page in conjunction with major events in the country. It is interesting how offline events affect the work of a large audience with web services.
Consider A Case Study
Claire Carlson shares the experience of conducting user research in Brazil. What should be taken into account in this market in particular and in general when conducting international research on-site.
Redesign Cases
- Explanatory mini-case study on the analytical pieces in Intercom . Users requested analytics, i.e. a simple set of not very useful graphs in their understanding, but the designers wanted to understand why they need this information in order to offer a more suitable solution.
- A story about the redesign of The Seattle Times by Mike Monteiro . He says including the importance of working with the sales department.
Trends
Readable Wearables
A new era is opening for the web - adaptability takes smart watches into account. Matt Griffin talks about how they adapted the Bearded studio site for very small screens.
Google HATES Your Non Mobile Site
Craig Tomlin about the new rules of Google search results, which now takes into account not only the mobile version of the site, but also its quality. According to colleagues, the company pays attention even to the compatibility of the possibilities of a large and mobile version. The article is a simple tutorial on finding such problems. Continuing the theme:
- A quick overview of how to optimize mobile sites for new requirements using Google Webmaster Tools .
Phablets
Car Interfaces
- Design Studio USTWO presented an entertaining concept that describes a rethought approach to the design of car dashboards .
- Inserted five cents about the concept of the dashboard from ustwo . I hope there will be more reasons to write about a topic that I have been interested in for six years :)
- Another concept car UI from a non-automotive company . This time design for a large screen of Tesla.
Design In Tech Report 2015
John Maeda report on the significant increase in the role of design in modern technology companies over the past few years. Designers base successful companies, large companies buy design studios, designers become partners in venture capital companies.
Virtual and Augmented Reality
- A simple explanation of the principles of the VR on the examples of optical illusions .
- Fresh video about Magic Leap .
For general and professional development
Ux reactions
The collection of gifs on topical aspects of design work. A good way to diversify project correspondence.
The Web's Grain by Frank Chimero
An article based on the presentation of Frank Chimero about professional philosophy, in which he is trying to reassemble the current understanding of the role and tasks of the designer in the modern web. An interesting approach to adaptive design and the whole environment for which products are created.
Helvetica / Objectified / Urbanized: The Complete Interviews
The book “Helvetica / Objectified / Urbanized: The Complete Interviews” has been published, collecting 100 interviews from three well-known design films. Fast Co Design publishes part of a conversation with Dieter Rams from there .
Announcements of trainings and seminars
- Bang! Bang! Studio launches an online school for illustrators .
- Yandex has launched a design school . They recruit 30 people for free classes in the evenings dedicated to the work of a designer in a large grocery company. A small announcement .
- Zuckerberg A detailed interview with representatives of the British, Artyom Gorbunov’s school and the Yandex Design School will call you . Approaches, programs, conditions are compared.
New online courses
- Tutorial from Gibbon University .
- Training in design, development and marketing in the format of 5-second gifs .
Designing for Medical
Ted Goas writes about the features of the designer in the company that makes medical services. Because of the tough laws on the protection of personal data in the industry increased secrecy, and the equipment of users is often prehistoric. But the tasks themselves and the opportunity to help real people are wildly interesting.
Critical sharks
Very sensible discourse on whether it is possible to criticize the work of large companies. Of course, they have to take into account thousands of nuances and act within the strict limits of time and resource constraints, plus all this in an aggressive competitive environment. But without dialogue in the industry, it will be harder to develop. The reason itself (release iOS7) is already rotten, but the material is fresh and the topic is still relevant. The third part of the link is the most sensible. Part 1 and 2 .
Translation of the MailChimp book “The UX Reader” by FRIA
- Part 3: How we do research .
- Part 4: Design .
- Part 5: Patterns and SVG animation .
- Part 6: Development .
- Part 7: Creativity and road maps .
Web UI Design for the Human Eye - Colors, Space, Contrast
Another book from UXPin this year, this time about the colors, indents and the necessary level of contrast in the interfaces.
Excerpts from Golden Krishna's The Best Interface is No Interface
Ergonomist number 40
The 40th issue of the Ergonomist newsletter has been published. There you will find materials devoted to the problems of professional assessment and selection of personnel, information about new conferences and publications, as well as some funny ergonomic "sabotage"
The Value of Apprenticeships in Cooking and Product Design
Melissa Mandelbaum compares the experience of internship in design with the way beginner chefs learn and talks about their joining the profession.
People and companies in the industry
The Demise of LayerVault and the Market for Creative Tools
Another sudden news this year - LayerVault versioning system for designers is closing . Last year and a half new tools for designers appeared almost every week, and then suddenly leaving the market one of the oldest and most famous among them. Khoi Vinh ponders why and if it touches the rest. Perhaps this is due to the purchase of something similar service Pixelapse Dropbox - there was a monster competitor, which greatly undermined the development prospects.
How they got there - A book by Khoi Vinh
Khoi Vinh published the book How They Got There fourteen detailed interviews with famous designers. They talk about their career in detail, with all its strange twists and turns. The first of them was published as a probe , with Erika Hall UX-researcher . It turned out that she lived in Russia for some time and knows a little language. Continuing the theme:
- Tobias van Schneider talks about how World of Warcraft helped his career .
- How Vlad Golovach began his career .
New AMA sessions
Conference proceedings
Conference Review: UX Strategies Summit 2014, part 1
Pabini Gabriel-Petit's report on the UX Strategies Summit 2014 conference held June 10-12 in San Francisco, USA. A rather detailed summary of several keynote speeches, although Kelly Goto has been repeating its presentation for years already.
Video with Interaction15
Video from the conference Interaction15, held February 9-11 in San Francisco, USA.
Fresh links can also be tracked in the Facebook group of the same name. Thanks to everyone who also publishes links in it, especially Gennady Dragun, Pavel Skripkin, Dmitry Podluzhny, Anton Artyomov, Denis Efremov and Evgeny Sokolov. More and more materials in reviews appear thanks to them.
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Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/254983/
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