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Augmented Reality – The Past, The Present and The Future
Augmented reality has come a long way from a science-fiction concept to a science-based reality. Until recently the costs of augmented reality were so substantial that designers could only dream of working on design projects that involved it – today things have changed and augmented reality is even available on the mobile handset. That means des...
The Pareto Principle and Your User Experience Work
There are two things that are always in short supply on any project; time and money. The Pareto Principle can, in the long-term, help you save both. It can also help you make intelligent decisions based on your user research. Our story begins with a Management Consultant Joseph M Juran back in the 1940s. He noticed that there is a general rule ...
How to Select the Best Idea by the end of an Ideation Session
Once an ideation session has finished, it’s time to collect, categorise, refine and narrow down the best idea, solution, or strategy. Here are the best selection methods. It’s Post-it voting, the Four Categories method, the Bingo Selection method and the Idea Affinity Diagram. The Six Thinking Hats and the Now Wow How Matrix will help you apply ...
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 ...
Guidelines for Good Visual Information Representations
Information visualization is not as easy as it might first appear, particularly when you are examining complex data sets. How do you deliver a “good” representation of the information that you bring out of the data that you are working with?While this may be a subjective area of information visualization and, of course, there are exceptions to t...
Laws of Proximity, Uniform Connectedness, and Continuation – Gestalt Principles (2)
In this, the second part of our examining Gestalt principles, we’ll look at another Law – the Law of Proximity. This one is especially useful as it deals with how our eyes and brains draw connections with design images. Of course, connecting is also important to us – that’s what we want to make happen between our users and our designs!“The eye t...
The Continuum of Understanding and Information Visualization
Information visualization is a process by which data (or information) is represented to help the recipient, of the information, build an accurate representation of it in their mind. It is most common for information visualization to be constructed graphically (e.g. to facilitate visual understanding) but it may also be carried out in sound (e.g....
How to Calculate the Return on Investment of a Design Education
One of the biggest challenges facing designers is how to begin and how to further their design education. Do you go for the university degree or book-learning or e-learning or pay for classroom learning? While we all have some natural preference for one (or more) of these learning methods, one thing we really need to consider is the return on in...
The Concept of the "Triune Brain"
In the 1960s, American neuroscientist Paul MacLean formulated the 'Triune Brain' model, which is based on the division of the human brain into three distinct regions. MacLean's model suggests the human brain is organized into a hierarchy, which itself is based on an evolutionary view of brain development. The three regions are as follows: Rep...
Information Visualization – A Brief Introduction
Have you ever thought about how much data flows past each of us in an ordinary day? From the newspaper you read at breakfast, to the e-mails you receive throughout the day, to the bank statements generated whenever you withdraw money or spend it, to the conversations we have, and so on?There is a tidal wave of data associated with each aspect of...
The User Experience of Recruitment – Why You May Not Get the UX Talent You Really Want
Businesses are still stuck in the idea that UX is about the products and services they offer their customers. They are yet to grasp the idea that UX can be applied to all services within a business. A UX focused of review of recruitment or accounting (or whatever) can quickly improve the way that a business function, which will never (or rarely)...
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...
Functionality and Mobile Design – Don’t Shrink the Screen, Focus on the Tasks
Mobile design and design for other devices such as laptops and desktops does not mean producing the same product, just smaller. It means focusing on what matters to the mobile user and delivering a differentiated user experience. To do this successfully, you need to focus on tasks and how they are executed. Design for mobile is no longer option...
Habits: Five ways to help users change them
Let’s take a look at a subject that might appear tricky for designers to influence. However much control we have over our designs, we still have the power to reach beyond. Guiding our users toward a better UX isn’t only simpler than you might think; it will also pay dividends to both you and them and avert potential catastrophes.Habitual Choice ...
Making Use of the Crowd – Social Proof and the User Experience
Social proof (sometimes referred to as informational social influence) is a psychological concept. It refers to the tendency of human beings to follow the actions of others when making decisions and placing weight on those actions to assume “the correct decision”. It’s a concept that can be used in product design for the Internet and mobile web ...
The Context of Mobile Usage – The Big Picture
There are two schools of thought when it comes to contextual consideration for mobile use and thus mobile design; one is concerned with the patterns of use identified for mobile and offers a useful set of heuristics to consider – the other is concerned with a larger, less well-defined context which may also be valuable to consider when designing...
Increase Competitiveness in Users with Leader Boards
We humans are competitive creatures, and creators of successful online games and sports applications use this knowledge to egg us on with leader boards. However, as a designer, you can apply leader boards in so many other situations to encourage users to engage more, or produce better output. Trust that no-one wants to finish last, however fun o...
Learn How to Use the Best Ideation Methods: Brainstorming, Braindumping, Brainwriting, and Brainwalking
Brainstorming is the most frequently practiced form of ideation. We recommend that you use it along with Brainwriting, Brainwalking, and Braindumping. Here, you’ll learn the best practices from the very best experts from d-school and IDEO as well of the father of the Brainstorming technique, Alex Osborn. Brainstorming is a great way to generate...
10 Simple Ideas to Get Your Creative Juices Flowing
Writers deal with writer’s block and designer’s often find that they get stuck for ideas too. There’s no shame in it but learning to smash through the block is a necessary professional skill. Time waits for no-one and when there’s a deadline looming… you’ve got to pull something out of the bag. There are better techniques for getting creative t...
Workshops to Establish Empathy and Understanding from User Research Results
Honestly, how much do you enjoy reading research reports? And how engaging do you find them? Unsurprisingly, receiving a report with your insights into the target group may not get your clients to empathize with the potential users of their product or service optimally. Alternatively, you might consider organizing a workshop for them. This allow...
