Viewpoint

Literally 300 times a day, I have a conversation like this: Person: So what do you do? Me: I’m an illustrator. Person: Oh my goodness! How wonderful! I can’t draw. Not even draw stick figures! First of all, a stick figure is a drawing. You just think it’s a bad drawing. And that’s the problem. You Believe You Can’t Draw The… Read More ￫

13 ways to present forms and the future of data input From complex ERP systems to Facebook, applications make meaning out of input. The form — in its many manifestations — provides a gateway for user submission. This article illustrates 13 different ways to present forms, and explores the future of data input. Modal Simple modals work well for forms with… Read More ￫

Testing is a critical part of building usable digital products. A testing environment with relevant content encourages more thoughtful feedback, that can then be used to craft a more tailored user experience. What is Lorem Ipsum? Lorem Ipsum is dummy text used by publishers and designers when the original copy is not available. They use it to keep the work flow… Read More ￫

When a company gets as big as Atlassian is now, and has always had a good track record in innovation, it’s easy to get complacent. Nobody ever intends to, but there is a balance to be struck in terms of spending time on making what we already have better vs. breaking new ground. We noticed that our teams could push… Read More ￫

When I was young, I’ve always had an answer for when people were asking me what my favorite color is. It was blue, but then after a couple of years it turned to purple, and then turquoise, and then yellow when I got older… “Relationships with colors are affected by our experience with them.” Colors are like music genres, some… Read More ￫

As I sometimes dig inside my work process, trying to understand what’s going on inside my head while I design, I started to realize what drives my decisions and thinking process. Pushing pixels, placing objects in the space, and adjusting colors, sizes and shapes, are not an easy tasks. How should a designer know what to do? Are there any rules… Read More ￫

Over the past few years I’ve learned a lot about building delightful products that hopefully people love. Some have taken off. Some have been acquired. And some sort of went nowhere. More often than not, these learnings came from mistakes as I worked on a handful of web and mobile products. My experience set only comes from working with small… Read More ￫

Hey there, tech designer person. Have you noticed the increasing number of vague specializations we’ve invented for ourselves? Here are a few I grabbed from a job board 10 minutes ago. UX Designer UX/UI Designer UI Designer Graphic Designer (UX & UI focus) Visual Designer Digital Designer Product Designer Presentation Designer Front End Designer Web Designer Bleh. What’s the difference between… Read More ￫

Identify your purpose Before you do anything else, first identify the purpose of your design. What information do you want to convey? What is the medium for your design? Good design aligns its typography with its purpose. This is because typography is key to setting mood, tone, and style in your designs. For example, if you are designing a greeting card… Read More ￫

Have you ever felt the magic of working with a small team to execute on a project and it went so well that you think, why can’t it be like this all the time? Sometimes it seems like the stars have to align in order to have the chance to do great work with great people. There’s more that goes… Read More ￫

Software designers and developers are all about NEW. We like to experiment with far-out ideas and make shiny things. Our livelihood depends on it. We’re so addicted to NEW that sometimes it clouds our judgment. We love NEW and everyone else should too, so we force heavy-handed product changes onto our customers without much explanation. And if they didn’t want… Read More ￫

In the next few years we will see a continuing trend to simplify the UI of our apps/websites. This is happening because of two main factors: How we interact and understand new technology, and the rise of more friendly and human software and interfaces. Let’s go step by step. 1. The Simplicity Revolution We live in a world oversaturated with… Read More ￫