“Intuitive design” is one of those overused phrases that we as designers hear all too often from stakeholders and their requirements. In this article, Carrie Webster explores what intuitive design actually means, why it doesn’t make sense, how we can better approach design solutions, and what the future of interfaces might look like. It is aimed at user experience designers and anyone interested exploring these concepts in greater detail.
Read more…
We must effectively design to gain and hold users’ attention in order to have them use our digital products. In this article, Victor Yocco covers specific tactics with supporting research that are bound to help you design for attention. He also discusses the need to understand why we want to gain users’ attention as well as what our users’ needs are.
Read more…
Customer needs should be one of the primary considerations when designing a website or landing page. The era of customer-centric landing pages has dawned. And if your job involves being concerned with metrics like conversion, engagement, and bounce-rates, this is a post that you may want to sit straight up for. In this article, Travis Jamison explains why customer-centricity is so important and how you can apply it to almost every business decision that you make.
Read more…
The first place Suzanne Scacca goes to whenever she’s curious about what more could be done to improve our users experiences is the Google Developers site or Think with Google to pull the latest consumer data. There’s a reason why Google dominates market share for things like search engines, web browsers, email clients and cloud storage services. It knows exactly what consumers want and it has designed simple, intuitive, and useful solutions for them. If there’s one company whose product features you should be mirroring, it’s Google.
Read more…
Imagine if your website could evoke this kind of response. Visitors who respond to the sensory stimulation would instantly be in a more positive headspace, which they’d then associate with the site and your brand. While you don’t want to design a website for all five senses — because that would most certainly lead to sensory overload — you can use individual senses to strengthen the experience visitors have. In this article, Suzanne Scacca will take a look at five ways you can use the senses to put your visitors in a better headspace when they enter your site and interact with your brand.
Read more…
The Scrabble GO, Instacart and YouTube mobile apps have recently undergone disruptive redesigns. Were they worth it in the end? Judging by their users’ reactions, the answer to that is “No”. But that doesn’t mean that redesigns or design tweaks are a bad idea after launch. In this article, Suzanne Scacca will take a look at the mistakes made and the lessons we can extract from them.
Read more…
Information architecture is the process of categorizing and organizing information to create structure and meaning. To give this context, in this article Carrie Webster explores not only the basics of information architecture, but also the broader view of the information age, how we use information and how it impacts our world and our lives. Understanding the bigger picture enables us to get a much clearer perception of the value that good information architecture delivers to help our information-overloaded lives.
Read more…
We’re at a point now where restaurants can no longer be reluctant or stingy about improving their digital presence. And, as a web designer, this should get you excited. The restaurant industry has begun to undergo a major digital transformation. Those that want to survive will need a website that can handle the new way of operating, which means they can no longer afford to hold onto that cheap website they built for themselves years ago. And this spells big opportunities for web designers interested in working in the space.
Read more…
The ancients can teach us a thing or two about design — even web design. The Roman architect Vitruvius had buildings in mind when laying out his golden triad, but its principles are just as applicable to the web as they are to brick and mortar. Today’s article is about architecture, and how some of its core tenets apply to the worldwide web. Architectural terms are not unusual in web development, and for good reason. In many ways, web developers are digital architects. Today, Frederick O’Brien will focus on Vitruvius, a Roman architect, and how his principles can and should be applied to websites.
Read more…
Stress isn’t just something that makes people feel uncomfortable. It stimulates the urge to “fight” or “flight”. The very last thing you want is to design a website that stresses visitors out, leading them to dread the experience or abandon it entirely. There are many things that might invoke this response from your visitors, including the design. In the following guide, we’re going to look at some ways to de-stress your design.
Read more…
