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The Golden Ratio - Principles of form and layout
Now, we’re going to look at a subject that comes directly from mathematics and that we can also find all around us – the golden ratio. Don’t worry; we’re not going back into the classroom for long. We will examine what this concept is and exactly how much it is a fundamental part of making designs pleasing to the user’s eye. The golden ratio’...
10 Great Reasons to Go Freelance (Things You Might Not Have Considered)
If you’re toying with the idea of going freelance; you’ll already know some of the benefits. Getting rid of the commute and ditching your boss may play heavily in the decision making process but there are other benefits to leaving the rat race behind. We’ve come up with 10 great reasons to go freelance that you might not have considered yet in ...
Prototyping in Design Thinking: How to Avoid Six Common Pitfalls
The Design Thinking process cannot be done without prototyping and testing. However, for companies or teams unfamiliar with the Design Thinking method, there might be some common mindsets about prototyping that potentially undermine its effectiveness in helping you craft the optimal design solutions. Let’s look at six of the most common misconce...
Conducting Ethical User Research
In any type of research that involves human participants, it’s important to consider the ethics of the research project. That is also the case when you do user research. You are responsible for your participants’ wellbeing, for representing them honestly, and for keeping their personal information safe. That is a big responsibility, so it’s impo...
The Self-Generation Effect: How to Create More Memorable User Interfaces
Learn how to improve user experience by incorporating the self-generation effect in your user interface design. The self-generation effect is prompted in many of the customization tools built into some of the most widely-used products out there. This phenomenon provides users with a sense of control as they customize their own tools and function...
14 Barriers to Ideation – and How to Overcome Them
Would you like to facilitate successful ideation sessions? Or would you like to learn how to contribute to ideation processes in your team more effectively? In either case, you should know the ideation traps and how you can prevent yourself and your team from falling into them. You should give the following 14 important barriers to ideation your...
The Rule of Thirds: Know your layout sweet spots
Now that we’ve started covering the topic of proportion in design (beginning with the Golden Ratio article), let’s look at another vital subject. Getting a firm grasp of the Rule of Thirds will empower you to fine-tune your eye to bring out the best of the elements in your design by placing them where they belong best. What Is the Rule of Th...
Freelancer and Entrepreneurs: How to Get Paid – and What to Do When the Client Doesn’t Pay
It’s not enough to do the work; you also have to get paid. One of the biggest challenges facing freelancers and business-to-business entrepreneurs alike is how to handle that moment when a client fails to pay. The good news is that, by and large, it’s a painless process which shouldn’t lead to a big fallout between the business and the client. H...
Getting into the Mobile App User’s Mind – User Research for Mobile Applications
It’s well understood that user research is what makes for the best user experiences but what are the right user research techniques for mobile apps? While, there is no doubt that any classic UX research technique may be turned to mobile app user research – there are some techniques which have already been demonstrated to show proven value. Maste...
Principle of Consistency and Standards in User Interface Design
Learn to design with consistency and standards in mind and understand the reasons why they’re important to incorporate them into your work. Derived from Jakob Nielsen and Rolf Molich’s Ten User Interface (UI) Guidelines, ‘Consistency and Standards’ are evident in many of the widely-used products created by some of the most successful companies. ...
The Laws of Figure/Ground, Prägnanz, Closure, and Common Fate - Gestalt Principles (3)
We’re now going to take a look at some more Gestalt principles, building on what we’ve learned in the first two articles. This third piece is particularly useful because having a good grasp of Figure/Ground, Prägnanz, Closure, and Common Fate will enhance your ability to design with more thoughtfulness, confident that you’re making the best use ...
Create Some Space – for Ideation Sessions and Design Thinking
The spaces we occupy deeply influence our experiences, our feelings, and our behaviours. Our state of health, psychology, productivity, mood, and creativity spaces influence us on many levels and also influence our interactions with each other. The spaces in which we journey through Design Thinking and Ideation sessions must be set up in such a ...
What is Ideation – and How to Prepare for Ideation Sessions
Ideation is the process where you generate ideas and solutions through sessions such as Sketching, Prototyping, Brainstorming, Brainwriting, Worst Possible Idea, and a wealth of other ideation techniques. Ideation is also the third stage in the Design Thinking process. Although many people might have experienced a “brainstorming” session before,...
Introduction to the Essential Ideation Techniques which are the Heart of Design Thinking
Ideation is at the heart of the Design Thinking process. There are literally hundreds of ideation techniques, for example brainstorming, sketching, SCAMPER, and prototyping. Some techniques are merely renamed or slightly adapted versions of more foundational techniques. Here you’ll get an overview of the best techniques as well as when and why t...
Putting Some Emotion into Your Design – Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions
Emotional design is a big buzz word within the UX community. Designs which tap into the user’s emotions are considered to do more than just respond to their stated needs and provide a greater level of user experience. One way of understanding emotions is Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions – this may help you deliver better experiences to your users wh...
The Myths of Mobile Design and Why It Matters
When it comes to any school of thought surrounding a new concept – there comes a point when there is a body of “accepted knowledge”. That body of knowledge then becomes sacrosanct and instead of being treated as a guide to inform our work – it becomes practical dogma. It is worth challenging such myths and seeking to explore beneath the surface ...
Giving Your Users Freedom with Editable Input Fields
When you want to purchase something on the internet, no matter what it is, or which e-commerce service you use, you don’t want to encounter any restrictions. Just imagine what your user experience would be like if a web shop presented you with a limited set of options to choose from when asking for your contact details. And what would you say if...
Task Analysis a UX Designer’s Best Friend
Task analysis is a critical part of any design project and one that is all too often skipped in favour of other seemingly more interesting actions. In fact, task analysis is essential to the success of a design project and once you’ve got the hang of it – it’s surprisingly easy too. It can be used equally successfully on both mobile and desktop ...
What is Design Thinking and Why Is It So Popular?
Design Thinking is not an exclusive property of designers—all great innovators in literature, art, music, science, engineering, and business have practiced it. So, why call it Design Thinking? What’s special about Design Thinking is that designers’ work processes can help us systematically extract, teach, learn and apply these human-centred tech...
5 Inspiring Freelance Designers’ Websites and Portfolios
We’ve found five great inspirational websites for freelancer designers – these can provide insight into how to construct your own website and online portfolios. However, please don’t copy them but rather seek to emulate things that you think work well. RadiumCosmin Daniel Capitanu of Romania runs Radium, and he’s a freelance designer and archit...
