UX
Defending your design decisions
Something no one ever tells you about working as a product designer is that you are constantly defending your decisions. As soon as you start designing wire frames, you'll be questioned about your choices. This process is consistent throughout the development and launch of the product. It's a…
Why early wireframes need to look hand-drawn
There are many kinds of mockups to show users and stakeholders. Different levels of fidelity will elicit a variety of feedback. In UX, we generally assume that the lower the fidelity, the more we're looking at feedback on interaction, organization of pages in a structure, and page to page flow.…
How to Hire Awesome UX Designers
This article first appeared on LinkedIn Pulse, LinkedIn's effort to get its users to write and create LinkedIn content for free. I have mixed feelings about publishing on this platform. Gaining simple 'exposure' seems oddly close to working a job to have a 'great portfolio piece'. Realizing that my…
Make better infographics
Let's face it; we're living in an age of total data overwhelm. We need to be able to quickly understand what's going on in a set of data. We need the story, or at least powerful tools to help us get the data that helps us visualize trends, movements and comparisons. So how do we do this better?…
Enterprise dashboards
I've written before about dashboard and how they're typically awful even when the design seems nice and modern. The problem is known as 'the portal problem' and it's been well documented - see this article on boxes and arrows. Here's an example of a dashboard that looks great, but that may or may…
Relationship visualizations
Given how opaque and overwhelming data can be, it's incredibly important to distill all those numbers into a coherent, emotional story - particularly when presenting those numbers in a visual format. In the case of visualizing relationships, not only is it important to show the connections between…
Bring UX interactions to life with video mockups
Don't let stakeholders bumble through the mockup of your cool new feature. Control the narrative of your UX designs by switching your deliverables to videos (yes, videos). Any mockup is basically a quick way to tell a narrative about a feature, a flow, or an experience. We can use static images,…
Designing an iPhone app? Ditch the wireframes
You don't need extensive wireframes for iPhone apps. Get a solid site map and page flows together, and jump straight into design, you'll be OK (I promise) Since phones have a pretty limited UI palette, it makes more sense to start with the end. Design your high-res button elements, fonts, icons and…
Media Queries for Business apps
While media queries are typically used to handle a site's transition between different devices and screen sizes, they can also be used to enhance the desktop experience. Why use media queries? Many enterprise users have wider monitors, so as designers we should take advantage of this horizontal…
Rules for editing list rows one-by-one or in bulk
The foundation of a list is the row, and all the interactions associated with it. Far from being mundane or niche, row functionality is important in a user's process. Let's look at some emerging patterns that work well in Enterprise applications. List actions on individual rows Typically list rows…