What Grid System Architecture and the Golden Ratio Do for Web Design

September 28, 2015

Good design in any discipline usually carries a structure of order and harmony. Since the Renaissance, artists and architects have used a strong understanding of proportions to create aesthetically pleasing architecture. Many of these classical design principles have followed us into modern times and can be found today in effective web design.

Take an A4 piece of paper for example. If you take it and halve it, the resulting size is A5 with the same exact proportions. No other proportion has the same properties. 16th century architect, Andrea Palladio knew this well. It is believed that because, fundamentally, most architects—like Palladio—use a similar system of proportions to plan and design spaces, buildings can look very different while remaining similar at their cores.

Structure and Beauty

It’s in human nature to...read more
By Ling Lim

             

from UX Magazine http://ift.tt/1OCFvnP
via IFTTT

UIE Article: Team Models for Scaling a Design System

In this week’s article, Nathan Curtis investigates different variants of centralizing and federating decision making around a design system. Here’s an excerpt from the article: Now, more designers code. Now, more developers design. Product managers have their hands dirty with everything. They all work tribally in teams spread throughout an enterprise. You can’t legitimately tell […]

from UIE Brain Sparks http://ift.tt/1QAOVOm
via IFTTT

Help Designers and Developers Learn to Understand Each Other

The notion of being a “designer who can code” has been a prevalent topic in recent years. One of the greatest benefits of using CSS is speaking the same language as your developers. Having this common language aids in creating a more collaborative feel to conversations with developers versus dictating to them what to do. Being […]

from UIE Brain Sparks http://ift.tt/1GeDJ4r
via IFTTT

It All Comes down to Aligning Your Organization

If you don’t understand how users are interacting with your product or service, you don’t know what to design for. But how, as a team, do you come to that understanding? Telling the story of a user’s journey highlights areas where you’re right on point and where you’re missing the mark. And it’s a great […]

from UIE Brain Sparks http://ift.tt/1KIF1sr
via IFTTT

Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Edge? Impressive Web Browser Alternatives

Why Performance Matters: The Perception Of Time

Freebie: World Landmark Icons (AI, EPS, PDF, PNG and PSD)

How To Run A Side Project: Screenings Case Study

Why a Washington Post Editor Left to Work With Starbucks

Starbucks partnered with an editor from The Washington Post who left the newspaper to head up a new media venture. The collaboration between a seasoned journalist and a mega-brand points to an exciting time for long-form storytelling.
Continue reading →

The post Why a Washington Post Editor Left to Work With Starbucks appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

from Content Marketing Institute http://ift.tt/1R9cpuR
via IFTTT

Presumptive Design: Design Provocations for Innovation

By Leo Frishberg and Charles Lambdin Published: September 21, 2015 This is a sample chapter from the forthcoming book Presumptive Design: Design Provocations for Innovation, by Leo Frishberg and Charles Lambdin. 2015 Morgan Kaufmann. Chapter 1: Introducing Presumptive Design “The future does not just happen. Except for natural events like earthquakes, it comes about through the efforts of people.”—Jacque Fresco Overview PrD is a design research technique. Organizations, large and small, use PrD to quickly identify their target audiences’ needs and goals. It is fast. It is cheap. And it is definitely good enough. If you are looking for ways to rapidly and inexpensively reduce risk to your project, PrD is the best technique we’ve found in our 30 years of experience. PrD differs from—and is complementary to—traditional market-research methods. It provides intimate insights into the desires of end users (for products and services), communities (for social innovation), and internal stakeholders (for strategy). The method reduces risk to our projects by capturing our target audience’s reactions to a future we have envisioned. As we describe in detail throughout the book, the devil is in the details: How we envision that future and how we capture those reactions is what sets PrD apart from other research methods.

from UXmatters http://ift.tt/1Qvf29e
via IFTTT

Convenience Makes Hypocrites of Us All: The Ethics of Consumerism and UX Strategy

By Ronnie Battista Published: September 21, 2015 “While a two-day Amazon delivery is certainly a step up from a trek to Bleecker Bob’s, … even buying music on Amazon is not so convenient anymore. With streaming music sites such as Pandora and Spotify, … I can play it instantly.” Recently, over drinks, an old friend and I reminisced about our high school days as suburban, punk-rocker wannabees. Back then, getting your hands on punk or alternative music wasn’t easy. Mainstream department and record stores didn’t carry much, if any, punk music. So, for New Jersey kids like us to get our hands on rare albums from punk bands—especially the coveted vinyl punk imports—we usually had to head to New York City and go to places like Bleecker Bob’s in Greenwich Village to get the good stuff. One of my favorite bands at the time was the Dead Kennedys, a legendary San Francisco punk band famous for their frenetic hardcore sound and satirical, socio-political lyrics. To whit, they named their 1987 compilation album “Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death” as their commentary on the excessive American consumerism at the time. I owned that album and listened to it extensively, so for a bit of nostalgia, I decided to look for an image of the album cover online.

from UXmatters http://ift.tt/1QveWyu
via IFTTT

Recruiting the Right Participants for User Research

By Janet M. Six Published: September 21, 2015 Send your questions to Ask UXmatters and get answers from some of the top professionals in UX. In this edition of Ask UXmatters, our panel of UX experts discusses how to determine whether they have recruited the right participants to enable them to conduct effective user research. Not only is it important to match the salient demographics and contexts of participants with those of a product or service’s actual users, it is also essential that we understand users’ real motivations for using a product or service. Therefore, a good screening process is a must. Our panelists also discuss what to do in low-budget situations. We must always remember that research participants are real people, with real feelings, who are contributing to the excellence of our designs.

from UXmatters http://ift.tt/1FqRqSN
via IFTTT

How to Get More Mileage Out of Your Visual Content

Do you use every part of the animal? You should when the animal is a big data-visualization video or an interactive site. Creating tent-pole content offers dozens of static images to further the rest of your content marketing tactics. Continue reading →

The post How to Get More Mileage Out of Your Visual Content appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

from Content Marketing Institute http://ift.tt/1LK9Lak
via IFTTT

Privacy is UX

Managing Your Content Management System

UI20: You Need to Solve Problems, Not Build Features

Recently, I published an article on a novel concept that Bruce McCarthy shared with me: Themes. Themes are an alternative for features. Instead of promising to build a specific feature, the team commits to solving a specific customer problem. Here’s an excerpt: Part of solving a customer’s problem is making sure you don’t make it worse. […]

from UIE Brain Sparks http://ift.tt/1NHAyIB
via IFTTT

Great Storytelling With Data: Visualize Simply And Focus Obsessively

The difference between a Reporting Squirrel and Analysis Ninja? Insights. As in, the former is in the business of providing data, the latter in the business of understanding the performance implied by the data. That understanding leads to insights about why the performance occurred, which leads to so what we should do. Do you see […]

Great Storytelling With Data: Visualize Simply And Focus Obsessively is a post from: Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik

from Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik http://ift.tt/1Op41sG
via IFTTT

9 Free Tools to Co-Create Content

Even with a solid SEO strategy and amazing content you stand a good chance of getting lost in the crowd. Content partnership may be an answer. Here are 9 tools to make the collaboration as productive and effective as possible. Continue reading →

The post 9 Free Tools to Co-Create Content appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

from Content Marketing Institute http://ift.tt/1OvxbFm
via IFTTT

Evaluating Ideas

How Force Touch Will Change How You Use The iPhone

A new iPhone feature—expected to be announced next week—could give your phone a very different feel.

When Apple introduces its newest iPhones on September 9, the company may reveal a new trick that could forever change how you interact with an iPhone.

Read Full Story

from Fast Company http://ift.tt/1LPHVfq
via IFTTT

Designing For All Five Senses

Apple's 3D Touch Is Trying To Solve The Biggest Problem In Mobile

But can pressure sensitivity really beat Google's mind-reading AIs?

Let's say you want to take a selfie, or hail an Uber, or send a new email. How many taps does it take you? How many screens do you have to visit? It depends on what you're trying to do, but the answer's going to be "more than one." This is mobile's shallow UI problem; everyone from Google to Apple is feeling the pinch.

Read Full Story

from Fast Company http://ift.tt/1F1Ue8P
via IFTTT

A New Emoji Set for City-Dwelling Millennials

Creative agency Moving Brands believes young urbanites may find drones, matcha and pugs more fitting for their emoticon lifestyles

from PSFK http://ift.tt/1IOw4cT
via IFTTT

Living in a World with Instant Access to Everything

Across the globe, digital applications are connecting us with the products and services we need at a moment's notice

from PSFK http://ift.tt/1M5pJ4m
via IFTTT

The High End of the High Life

From premium subscription services to 'haute cuisine' marijuana, a new level of luxury and craftsmanship is overtaking cannabis culture

from PSFK http://ift.tt/1EQ0vV3
via IFTTT

4 New Communal Experiences You’ll See In the Office of Tomorrow

PSFK Labs conceptualizes collaboration tools that optimize interactions and build company culture

from PSFK http://ift.tt/1QcrzhC
via IFTTT

Approaches For Multiplatform UI Design Adaptation: A Case Study

Hey Designers: Stop Being An Afterthought

What You Need To Know About Anticipatory Design

UIE Newsletter: On Surveys

In this week’s UIE newsletter, we reprint an article from Erika Hall. In it, she explores why quantifying customer results in a survey isn’t always beneficial to a company’s success. Here’s an excerpt from the article: Surveys are the most dangerous research tool—misunderstood and misused. They frequently straddle the qualitative and quantitative, and at their […]

from UIE Brain Sparks http://ift.tt/1JNarKE
via IFTTT

Hiring for Building UX Teams – Kim Goodwin’s September 17 Virtual Seminar

Convincing an organization to invest in growing a UX team is an achievement worth celebrating! Once the glow of that success fades, though, most leaders realize that hiring for an effective UX team is incredibly difficult. In Finding the Perfect Fit: Hiring for Building (and Joining) UX Teams, Kim Goodwin teaches you how to build successful agency and […]

from UIE Brain Sparks http://ift.tt/1O11QLF
via IFTTT

UIE Newsletter: The Dirty Dozen Roadmap Roadblocks

In this week’s article, Bruce defines the product roadmap and offers twelve areas where organizations break down when developing roadmaps. Best of all, he shares ideas on how to put all twelve roadblocks in your rearview mirror. Here’s an excerpt from the article: A good roadmap inspires. It inspires buy-in from executives, inspires confidence from […]

from UIE Brain Sparks http://ift.tt/1g9ES69
via IFTTT

Nathan Curtis – Building Scalable Design Systems and Style Guides

The expansion of the web past a desktop-based world into more of a multi-device ecosystem has caused organizations to re-evaluate almost everything they do. Style guides have had to grow to accommodate this new reality of multiple screens sizes and resolutions. When you start incorporating the multitude of products across devices and all the people working on them, organizations are forced to think more “systematically.”

from UIE Brain Sparks http://ift.tt/1Ozriov
via IFTTT

Erika Hall – Cultivating Shared Understanding from Collaborative User Research

Traditionally, user research has taken on more of a scientific identity. You would do usability testing and research, take a ton of notes, and then compile all of your findings into a report. The effectiveness of that research depended on whether anyone read the report, and then if they could do anything actionable with that data.

from UIE Brain Sparks http://ift.tt/1J3ldMd
via IFTTT

Solving the Problem of Design with Karl Ulrich

August 28, 2015

A designer’s job involves reaching a certain destination, often without being given clear direction of where to go. Many designers will confirm that this can lead them to complete a series of tasks over and over again—a process that, as a whole, can become repetitive. Following a framework for design can put designers at an advantage by shortening the length of time they spend on a project and by helping their clients to understand their role.

Because design is a fundamental part of creating a product that appeals to users, designers want to ease the life of the user in some way or offer something not already available. Design fills a gap.

This article uses a template created by Karl T. Ulrich, Vice Dean of Innovation and the CIBC Professor of Entrepreneurship and e-Commerce at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, to organize the process of design and enable designers to consolidate ideas...read more
By Mohamed Amer

             

from UX Magazine http://ift.tt/1EnjfuL
via IFTTT