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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Right questions don’t simply roll off the tongue, but it’s a handy skill everyone can train. The following pieces of advice will help you to formulate questions that foster reliable answers from your users and clients. Slava Shestopalov will talk about 12 kinds of questions explained with examples. The first part includes six frequent mistakes and how to fix them. The second part presents six ways to improve decent questions and take control of difficult situations.
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Constructing an equivalent experience may mean changing the way you think about development and design, and potentially reevaluating your existing work. In this article, Eric Bailey will discuss learning how to embrace an equivalent, inclusive mindset. He will also provide practical, robust ways to improve your websites and web apps by providing solutions to common, everyday barriers cited by the people he interviewed.
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Getting a client or stakeholder to approve a design concept can be challenging. However, testing can make it easier, as well as ensuring you have the right solution. In this post, Paul Boag will explore some of the advantages testing design concepts can provide to us as designers, and demonstrate that you can do it cheaply and without slowing down the delivery of the overall project. Let’s begin!
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