Design Thoughts

Why UX design has to evolve to stay relevant in the future Since the early 90s, when the term User Experience was brought to wider knowledge, the UX design profession has been dealing with a lot of key challenges. Besides new emerging roles accompanied by an increasing amount of new — and sometimes rather confusing — job titles, UX has mainly been struggling with… Read More ￫

Last week we were again proud to sponsor Design Club – an event series where the creative community figure out what’s next. The two ‘nexts’ being discussed this time around were both topics close to many designers’ hearts — brand identity and remote working. In the packed out ballroom at The Trampery, we heard from Courtney McNeil and Simon Rohrbach… Read More ￫

So, you’ve found the right designer for the job. It wasn’t easy but you got there through some rigorous role analysis with the team, excellent job marketing techniques and creating a fool-proof interview process, which drew out all the information you needed. Trusting that your designer has accepted the role – it’s now time to assess what happens after you… Read More ￫

Takeaways for keeping your interface friendly to the friendliest of people. My mother. It happens about once or twice a year. I travel over to my mother’s house for a visit and, about two or three hours in, she says something like “Hey, can you take a look at my computer? I just want to make sure everything is okay… Read More ￫

It’s any given day. Your inbox is full of newsletters telling you about the fresh new ways to improve your forms or that a new UX technique earned loads of money for someone and so on. You’re excited right? You read the article and can’t wait to find a way of implementing it in your next project/sprint/meeting. But how does… Read More ￫

I’m not much of a designer. In fact, I’m awful at it. I am, however, interested in how it’s done. I read and write plenty about customer success; along the way, (somehow) I found Samuel Hulick’s site UserOnboard. His detailed descriptions of the user onboarding process in popular apps give designers an idea about how some of the most successful… Read More ￫

ustwo has been working closely with organizations in health, wellbeing, accessibility, and now increasingly so in fitness. One of the major challenges the fitness domain brings with it is designing for movement. Our research shows us that runners are frustrated with the amount of interactions required to gain in-run insights on progress towards their goals. Working with a leading sports… Read More ￫

Empathy maps are a powerful tool for helping teams better understand users. But that doesn’t mean they are perfect. You should feel free to adapt them to your circumstances. As user experience professionals we face two significant challenges. Getting our colleagues to think about the needs of users and ensuring they don’t forget about them. There are many techniques for… Read More ￫

Every time someone finds out I’m color blind, I’m always hit with the same question: “So, what color is this?” 95% of the time I’ll answer correctly, which is always followed by, “Wait, so if you can tell this is {insert color}, then how are you color blind? What do you see?”. This is where the joy of explaining how… Read More ￫

The Agile approach has in many organisations become the expected way of working. There have been many articles and books around the challenges of designing in an agile environment. When building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) there are many competing factors, and with the pressure to release something demoable every sprint, features can get compromised in a way that requires… Read More ￫

It’s hard to stay inspired. We’ve all experienced the headaches and weariness of losing momentum whilst designing. It’s common knowledge that everyone has different ways of driving a new spurt of creativity – whether it’s going for a run or simply staying in tune with their surroundings. However, most people find inspiration within a content rich space where they can… Read More ￫

Great digital products don’t suddenly appear out of nowhere. In fact, they are sophisticated artifacts that have successfully grown into great products after a careful product discovery process. They are delightful experiences, easy to use, and beautiful to look at, providing outstanding value to its users. “Building a great product is an art as much as a science.” — Paul Adams The… Read More ￫