This design process series covers the exact design process we use every day at SetDev.io. It’s a culmination of a six-year journey, bootstrapping a software engineering consulting agency as the sole designer. All deliverables discussed are attached as Sketch files for your convenience. I. Design Process Brainstorming Ahhh a fresh, new project — very few things are equally exhilarating, right?… Read More ￫

If there’s one lesson that has been validated in every conversational UI product I’ve worked on, it’s that building the interaction is just the beginning. Testing and iterating are the most time-consuming and headache-inducing (but worth the effort!) parts. Here is what I wish I’d known about the design process: 1. Build with a clear objective. Remember: a bot excellent… Read More ￫

The McKinsey Design Report in a Nutshell In October 2018, McKinsey & Company challenged our hunch about the business value of design. They carried out “the most extensive and rigorous research undertaken anywhere to study the business design actions that leaders can make to unlock the business value of design.” 300 publicly listed companies across three industries (medical technology, consumer… Read More ￫

If I learned anything from Pixar in the last decade, it’s that life is complicated and often requires a balance of joy and sadness to make it through the tougher times (Inside Out, you get me). Whether you’re in the writing/design field, or someone who deals with customers on an ongoing basis, the key to creating memorable experiences starts with… Read More ￫

The digital age brought us the inevitable ‘Disruptor’ – companies that have transformed the traditional way industries operate through regular high impact innovation. With the arrival of it’s new Fin-Tech competitors, finance is an industry in particular that has felt significant impact. Banking, Insurance and other financial services have had long standing procedures that have granted their monumental success to… Read More ￫

Richard Thaler, the Nobel Prize winning economist, talks about a mythical species that is real only to an economist. The Homo Economicus — he calls them Econ for short. An Econ is an extremely rational being and believes in maximizing utility with every decision they make. This is what a prototypical Econ looks and behaves like: I believe when we… Read More ￫

‘How do people actually use our product?’ is a fundamental question that every product creator must answer. In order to answer this question, product designers need to understand the essence of the whole experience from the user’s perspective. User journey mapping is an excellent exercise that can shed light on that. What is a user journey map? A user journey… Read More ￫

Marvel has changed dramatically over the past few years, where we started as a tool for individual designers, we now have entire organisations working within the platform everyday, from design, research, right the way through to engineering. This led us to ask the question – how can Marvel help companies perform at the speed and scale they need to build… Read More ￫

For a long time, using gradients was the biggest no-no in design. Designers tended to avoid gradients because they created a strong impression of design from the 90s. But that is no longer the case. If you open Dribbble or Behance right now, there is a strong chance you will see dozens of designs that use gradients. The gradients designers… Read More ￫

Last year we launched the Marvel API, a new way to build customised workflows, integrations and apps that utilise the designs, users and data on Marvel. It led to some brilliant integrations like SmartMockups, Maze and Microsoft Teams. We also kicked off Marvel Labs, an internal skunkworks where we experiment with small apps and ideas like Userflows and Dashboard …. Read More ￫

This article is an excerpt from the Marvel eBook, The Book of Collaboration: Handoff Edition. Many designers and developers hesitate at the idea of collaboration because it sounds like accepting compromises. Nowhere is this dilemma more apparent than when our workflows overlap and the design is ready for developers to begin building. “Great products come from harmony between the design… Read More ￫

We all have those two friends that have strong personalities. You walk on eggshells when you all get together, hoping you can keep the peace. If left alone, they just don’t mesh – it’s like having two competing soloists. Now, imagine those two friends are fonts. Just like people, fonts combinations need balance. Two loud fonts generally don’t work well… Read More ￫