Additive vs subtractive color systems. For most of my design career I had a pretty fuzzy understanding of additive and subtractive color systems. I knew enough to select RGB in my design programs for anything online, and CMYK for anything that was going to be printed. But why those two different color [...]
“People decide whether or not they like a product in 90 seconds or less. 90% of that decision is based solely on color.” - 99designs Color Psychology Color psychology is the idea that colors elicit emotions from people, often subconsciously. Color has a predictable and quantifiable physiological effect that influences our perception and our [...]
When it comes to usability testing, I'm fast and agile! I know how to sketch out whiteboard wireframes for brainstorming sessions and quick solutions. Then create lo-fi clickthrough prototypes, or the ever popular (fast & cheap) paper prototype to test usability and validate or invalidate assumptions. speed. Guerrilla validating No need to spend a [...]
Personas I gather enough data about your user groups to understand similarities and divergences in how they use your product. As an example, an internal dashboard that's used by agents to keep track of customer accounts may also be used by managers to keep track of agents and productivity. The manager and the agent [...]
The best way to understand what your users want is to watch what they do--and ask a lot of questions. Design ethnography I conduct fly-on-the-wall studies of user experiences with software, websites, wearables, or brick & mortar customer experiences. By observing how people interact with applications, I learn their problems and pain points, which in [...]
This week Business Insider revealed one of Facebook's most asked interview questions for hopeful candidates. The question is, "On your very best day at work — the day you come home and think you have the best job in the world — what did you do that day?" It's a wonderful question for understanding what inspires and [...]
There's a big, handy black box in software development that we like to throw our complicated and annoying problems into. It's called, User Error. It's where we send help desk comments from people who lost their passwords, or wandered down an IA dead end, or made their browser crash and can't explain why. We [...]
I'm often dumbfounded by the really bad user experiences I encounter online and in apps from even the largest companies. From websites that aren't mobile-friendly–they all have to be responsive to mobile devices, even if you have an app–to online forms that erase all your data if you make a single mistake. Which is what [...]
How do your customers feel using your application? Have you ever watched someone brand new muddle their way through your website, or struggle to figure out what your app does? This kind of shadowing and user task testing is critical for getting past your own familiarity bias with your product and seeing it through [...]
Don't have time or money for extensive user experience testing? Follow this 10 step checklist for rock solid UX when designing your app and you'll clear up 80% of the problems that make users tap, hold and delete your app from their mobile devices. ONE Priority of Uses: What are the top 3 things [...]
