If Engineers Talk to Users, Do We Still Need Designers?
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Unpaid UX Work Disguised As “Design Exercises”: How To Handle It
After a very enjoyable initial call where I had a great rapport with the interviewer, she explained that the next round of interviews was a design exercise: I was to redesign a section of their existing product. If the CEO liked it, I’d move on to the next round of interviews. This is a request …
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Great Design Vs Good Design: What’s The Difference?
The lowest common denominator for interface design has risen over the last decade. You see a lot less of this now: We’ve figured out how to make user interfaces look okay and function reasonably well. Industry standards have emerged, just as you have them in other mature industries: In a car, you wouldn’t switch the …
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Confidence As A Designer: How To Build It
I feel like I don’t belong here” “Everyone else is so good, I don’t know if I’ll ever reach that level” “How in the world did I get into here?” Talking to other designers, I keep hearing the same issues: low confidence and impostor syndrome. Students will ask me: “When did you feel comfortable calling …
Customer Delight — The True Meaning (It’s not cool animations)
The term “Delight” has been thrown around a lot lately. The little apps you’re making are to be “usable, useful, beautiful and delightful” or some shit like that. But what does delight even mean? Why Does It Matter A lot of posts on this subject are misleading you into thinking that delight means adding cute …
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Ageism in Tech: Why Older Designers Are Better
Ageism is a huge issue in the tech industry. People over 50 are seen as “too slow” to keep up with the fast pace of the industry, they don’t really “get it,” they aren’t willing to push the envelope anymore, they aren’t willing to put in the hours. Why does it matter? This is an important …
The Three Types Of Designer: Carpenter, Artist and Entrepreneur
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvZtqtkzIFA Design is a squishy term that means different things to different people and has meant different things throughout time. Therefore, the field of design has attracted many people with very different skillsets who are all grouped under the same umbrella of “design”. I’ve noticed three broad groups of designers throughout my career: Carpenter, Artist, …
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Design / UX: Specialists vs Generalists — What’s Better?
When I’m out teaching, I frequently get asked “What’s better? To be a jack of all trades designer, or someone that specializes in one specific area of UX? Should I be a full-stack designer? A Unicorn? What do all of these terms even mean?” Let’s ignore all of the dumb terms for a moment and …
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27 Designers Worth Listening To (incl. 11 You’ve Never Heard Of)
It’s very, very important that you learn from the right people. Learning from the wrong people can instill bad habits that are tough to break once they are formed. There’s two big problems with most of the design communication on the internet right now: inexperience and pretentiousness. Inexperienced designers talk too much and don’t listen …
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