UX/UI Links, February 2018
Another month, another roundup of UX/UI Links.
By the end of this "listicle" you will have learned:
- how to improve your interfaces even if you have zero design knowledge,
- how to do better design research,
- how much of an interface you need to design,
- a new perspective on the UX of difficult migrations, and
- the fundamentals of the SaaS business model.
If you didn't read much in February, here are five marvelous pieces to get you up to date on what you missed.
7 Practical Tips for Cheating at Design
Don't get confused by the title; there's no cheating when applying the tips in this excellent article. The authors Adam Wathan and Steve Schoger from RefactoringUI.com do a superb job at explaining wise but straightforward "tricks you can use to level up your work that donât require a background in graphic design."
7 Practical Tips for Cheating at Design is the kind of article you'd like to have on hand the next time you want to make the most out of your projects without regretting not going to design school.
The 9 Rules of Design Research
"Businesses have embraced the idea that meaningful innovation requires understanding their customers as humans with complex lives." This new reality reflects outstanding progress, but we still have to revise "myths, misperceptions, and hedges" surrounding the process of acquiring such understanding.
Ericka Hall, Co-founder of Mule Design and author of Just Enough Research and Conversational Design, put together 9 Rules of Design Research, a concise list to help us correct our path towards better products.
Why the Best Interface Is Just Enough of an Interface
As voice interaction find its way into our lives through our phones, cars, and even our refrigerators, it's easy to imagine a near future where we primarily talk to our devices but does this means that we can get rid of screens?
Like Neil Turner from UX for the Masses states "having a screen is pretty useful," and the key to knowing how much of an interface we need is in "allowing users to focus on their job to be done, rather than having to focus on using an interface."
The article Why the Best Interface Is Just Enough of an Interface is a fun read with valuable hints to design better UI.
Design Like a Teacher
Getting users to adopt a new technology is always a challenge, especially if the new solution has a steep learning curve and causes legitimate frustrations.
It's in situations like this when approaching design as "a way of defining and planning what we want a user to learn" and therefore, thinking of ourselves as teachers, can result in an effective tool.
In Design Like a Teacher, Aimee Gonzalez, UX Consultant and a member of the teaching team for Harvardâs UX Engineering course shares her experience of facilitating the adoption of a sophisticated Health Care System and how this new perspective transformed her UX practice and helped her achieve the project's goals.
The business of SaaS
Not a design article but still a great article.
If you're an entrepreneur in the software industry, going through the fundamentals of The business of SaaS with Patrick McKenzie from Stripe is a good investment of your time. This piece "will help you make better decisions for your product (and company), allow you to see business-threatening problems months or years in advance of them being obvious, and help you in communicating with investors."
If you're not an entrepreneur, it still is a fascinating look at the SaaS world and might even spark ideas for your next adventure.
Try clicking on all five. They're worth it.
Remember to leave your feedback and your favorite articles of this month here in the comments.
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- Jess from the Balsamiq Team
Jessica for the Balsamiq Team
