Software has never been more accessible than it is today. User interface design has never been more straightforward, or more standardised. Today, we can all enjoy websites, products and applications without having to trade in hours of training and technical know-how. This widespread accessibility seems patently beneficial. After all, software proficiency is no longer … [Read more...]
A Brief Introduction To Interaction Design
Most companies understand why they need a strong web presence, but they often leave the users out of the process. In a competitive digital landscape, businesses must do all they can do to assure a seamless user experience (UX). In our digital age, a company's website is often the first interaction a person has with a company's brand. It is what they see long before … [Read more...]
Conversational UX Design : An Introduction
Conversational user experience (UX) design has recently become a central part of discussions throughout the tech community. Web developers and designers are working to create technology that can interact with humans, experimenting with many types of conversational systems to follow in the footsteps of Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri. As conversational UX design advances … [Read more...]
How to Design for Voice: 5 Tips to Get Started
Over the next ten years, a new, huge market will open for designers that until now have been extremely niche: Voice Designers. Voice design? How does it vary from conventional UX design? Actually, there are many similarities. User research, persona creation, prototyping, user flow creation, usability testing, and iterative design will all be necessary steps in … [Read more...]
Small Print In Graphic Communication And Information Design: A Discussion Of Issues And Interactions
You might consider small print boring or not valuable or interesting, but discussing small print: the way it is presented and used, could be interesting to explore and could raise some interesting points for writing and graphic communication and information design in general. This article is partly inspired by the point from information designer Patricia Wright from … [Read more...]
Pokémon Go And Its Impact On User Experience
By now, everybody has heard about Pokémon Go and its swift and spectacular rise to the top of the app world. For a game based on an old 90's Gameboy game and TV show, it has surprisingly universal appeal - kids and grandparents, hipsters and business people have all embraced it. At its height, the app had 25 million active users. Aside from making Augmented Reality … [Read more...]
Apple’s Mobile Touch ID System: Convenience Or A Security Risk?
To people who are interested in staying on top of developments in the tech world, it probably feels like incredible technology improvements are being unveiled by the day. Many of the tech enhancements that eventually become commonplace get engineered in an effort to create a better UX or make it safer for people and sometimes both. Apple's Touch ID mobile identification … [Read more...]
Social Impact. Market Relevance: The Dual-Threat of Conversational UI
Much has already been written about the Conversational User Interface (CUI). It’s impact on virtual assistants, convenience and search, and even the end of the graphical user interface (GUI) have all been explored, and for good reason. CUI is the future. GUI made perfect sense when our computers were stationary, when they sat on desks and didn’t ride along in our … [Read more...]
7 User Interface Guidelines For Designing Watch Apps
The first constraint (or opportunity) when designing any app is the screen size that the device on which it is accessed is going to offer. With various wearables hitting the market and featuring some exquisite options, a whole new opportunity has emerged for app developers and designers. At face value, the restricted screen size leaves less room for user interaction. While … [Read more...]
First-Time Use: How To Reduce The Initial Friction Of App Usage
There's plenty of material out there that will happily tell you that First-Time Use (FTU) is the most important part of app adoption. After all, it is a precarious time in your app's usage lifecycle. Exactly like everything else relying on the fickle human brain, first impressions count for a scary amount. In fact, by reducing the friction during FTU we could stop … [Read more...]