Learn to Create Accessible Websites with the Principles of Universal Design

“Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning and focused effort.” — Paul J. Meyer, premier international authority on goal setting, motivation, time management, and personal and professional development Accessibility is not the first item we consider when we start designing a w...

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• 1 month ago

Build a common language by referring to design movements

Let’s check out a couple of words that are vital to us. Without them or their functions, life would be a nightmare. It would take ages to get anything done! Thankfully, we have categorization and labeling to help us understand our world and communicate with others.Labels and categories are great, time-saving building blocks. As user experience d...

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• 1 month ago

5 Ideas to Help Bring Lean #UX into Your Research

Lean UX can be a tricky beast to get to grips with at first. For those used to working in more traditional UX environments it can be very challenging to move to an environment where the focus is on making decisions rather than producing deliverables.That means there’s a change in the way that the UX design team works. The idea is simply to chann...

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• 1 month ago

How to use Design Thinking to build the Perfect Portfolio

All the UX training in the world would be for nothing if you couldn’t get a job as a UX professional and fulfill your dream. Hiring for UX positions is difficult – recruiters need to assess many applicants’ skills, experience and attitudes towards their work. Contrary to being measured by traditional text-based résumés, UX candidates are typical...

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• 1 month ago

A Simple Introduction to Lean UX

Lean UX is an incredibly useful technique when working on projects where the Agile development method is used. Traditional UX techniques often don’t work when development is conducted in rapid bursts – there’s not enough time to deliver UX in the same way. Fundamentally Lean UX and other forms of UX all have the same goal in mind; delivering a g...

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• 1 month ago

Improve Customer Experience with UX Investments that Increase ROI

When User Experience (UX) improves the customer experience, it affects the company’s ROI (Return on Investment) because good UX investments enhance customer satisfaction. Satisfied customers are loyal; they trust a company’s products, and they want to come back for more, which is why satisfied customers are vital to a company’s success – and are...

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• 1 month ago

Ideation for Design - Preparing for the Design Race

Ideation is easy to define. It’s the process by which you generate, develop and then communicate new ideas. Ideas can take many forms such as verbal, visual, concrete or abstract. The principle is simple to create a process by which you can innovate, develop and actualize new products. Ideation is critical to both UX designers and learning exper...

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• 1 month ago

Google’s Material Design - Android Design Language

Material Design (originally referred to as and codenamed “Quantum Paper”) was developed by Google and is a design language used for Android devices. The idea, according to Matias Duarte Vice President of Design for Google, is to provide a design language which mimics the feel of pen and paper. Material design offers the user physical edges and s...

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• 1 month ago

How to Build Your First Freelance or Design Agency Portfolio

For most freelancers and newbie design owners, their most powerful marketing tool will be their portfolio. A portfolio is simply a collection of samples of your work that you use to demonstrate to clients that you have the experience and competence to handle their projects. As there are an awful lot of disciplines, it’s impossible to define the...

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• 1 month ago

7 Powerful Steps for Creating the Perfect Freelance CV

A CV is a great way of explaining your expertise to a would-be client. Not all freelancers use a CV/resume to market their services or to convey their experience to their clients. Those who do use one will tell you that it’s a great way of explaining complex information to potential clients and partners without long speeches. A freelance CV is v...

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• 1 month ago

15 Popular Reasons to Become a Freelancer or Entrepreneur

You can pick from literally hundreds of reasons to become a freelancer or entrepreneur, but some crop up more than others. This section provides an overview of 15 of the most popular reasons that people choose to go out on their own and start a business rather than staying in the safe, secure and sometimes more limiting field of employment. If y...

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• 1 month ago

The Principles of Service Design Thinking - Building Better Services

Service design is all about taking a service and making it meet the user’s and customer’s needs for that service. It can be used to improve an existing service or to create a new service from scratch. In order to adapt to service design, a UX designer will need to understand the basic principles of service design thinking and be able to focus on...

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• 1 month ago

The Design Career Map – Learn How to Get Ahead in Your Work

Most people put a lot of effort into their work. Unfortunately, they often neglect themselves in the process. Time served is no longer enough to progress your career (if it ever was). You need to consciously develop your personal and professional skills to succeed and you need a plan to get from where you are to where you want to be. Developing...

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• 2 months ago

Help Users Skim Contents with Titled Sections

Text-heavy websites, such as those of all the major newspapers that have embraced the web as an essential medium for the future, know the importance of using titled sections to reel the readers in. There’s a perfect art to the craft, and it stems from an exact science concerning how human beings process information. So, learn from The New York T...

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• 2 months ago

Ideas for Dealing with Terrible Clients in Your Design Practice

The prospect of winning a new client is something that leaves us all a little excited. Yet, the more clients we bring on, the more we realize that there are great clients and there are clients with whom every interaction sucks our will to live. Signing the former is a great shot in the arm and leaves us enthusiastic and signing the latter usuall...

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• 2 months ago

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-centered tec...

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• 2 months ago

How to Achieve Critical Mass for a Product Launch

The concept of critical mass originates in physics; it refers to the volume of a nuclear product required to sustain a chain reaction in a nuclear explosion. However, critical mass in marketing requires a very different product – users – to ensure a “chain reaction” of sales.The idea of critical mass has been present in social sciences for a lon...

• 266 shares
• 2 months ago

Native vs Hybrid vs Responsive: What app flavour is best for you?

At some stage, during the design of your mobile app, you’re going to have to make a decision about how you will develop the app. Your choices include native apps, hybrid apps and responsive web sites and the decision you make will affect the final product. Learning to make the right decision requires understanding the way each type of developmen...

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• 2 months ago

Help Users Retrace Their Steps with Breadcrumbs

Do you remember the fairy tale about Hansel and Gretel, a small boy and girl trying to retrace their steps in the forest? They only wanted to find their way back home, and so do your users. They should feel free to explore all the options and information on your website, without losing track of where they are and how to return to where they came...

• 257 shares
• 2 months ago

Probes for Context Mapping – How to Design and Use Them

Whether you are designing a mobile app, a professional online platform or an interactive museum exhibition, it is essential to understand users and the context in which they will use your design. Traditional methods such as interviews and observations will help you to touch the surface of their lives. A deeper understanding of what your users fe...

• 345 shares
• 2 months ago