I’ve crafted a semester-long course based on my book “UX 101: A Primer on User Experience Design.” This book serves as the backbone of our syllabus, offering both beginners and seasoned designers a structured journey into the world of UX.…
Category: UX 101
UX 101, UX Articles
Lessons in UX: The benefits of user research
UX 101, UX Articles
Book Updates: #UX101 and Experience (Still) Matters
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
What are good ways to start learning user experience (UX) design?
First, understand that the user experience design is across multiple industries and areas – software, service design, retail, hardware, you name it. You should focus on the domain that you want to focus your user experience design efforts in and…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
Is User Experience (UX) really just where marketing meets development?
The summary answer to your question: no, it’s not. Though I can understand why you would get that impression based on the people you have worked with – people who confuse minimalism with user experience design, or are calling themselves…
Featured Articles, UX 101, UX Articles
Lessons in UX: The baseline is shifting
I had a great meeting with my team this week discussing customer expectations and needs. As part of the discussion the Kano model, which I was only slightly familiar with, came up. Created in the 1980s, the Kano model explores…
UX 101, UX Articles
Lessons in UX: You are probably wrong
I am a very very strong advocate of usability testing of UI designs (note to self – add an extra ‘very’ into that sentence). It helps you validate that users can understand the interface you are presenting them, it gives…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
What are some good ways to plan a UX project?
A primary thing I would find out is who the client’s customers are. Are they middle-class housewives? Gen Y hipsters? If you don’t have an understanding of who the customers are then you will have a hard time designing a…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
What should an ideal User Experience Design lab have?
I’ve set up a couple of usability labs in my time, so I’ll give you some of my advice/lessons learned in that space. First the practical – get lots of wall space. I mean LOTS of wall space. Almost all…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
What can be included in an aspiring UXer’s portfolio to show off UX skills?
Identify a problem space, evaluate products that try and solve/work in that particular problem space (against some best practices/design principles), and then ideate some solutions/products of your own. Document HOW you approached the problem space – many times the approach…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
Does usability really make the world a better place?
Joseph Dickerson, I've been a graphic or software designer for 20… The way I have always looked at it is this: if you make an experience as elegant and as usable as possible then you are making life just a…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
What qualities do the best UX professionals have?
Joseph Dickerson, Not a Top UX Designer though I aspire to be… The same ability that lawyers have – to be very adept at the core discipline of a domain (user experience design) but also the ability to learn the…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
How do you properly begin designing a user-friendly interface?
Joseph Dickerson, I've been a graphic or software designer for 20… Know your users. Make what you are doing as useful as you can for them. Make it desirable and as amazing as you can. Be focused on simplicity –…
Technology, UX 101, UX Articles
Technology, applied: understand how people use tech and then support their usage and needs
Let’s go back in time a bit – back in time to those carefree days of yore, when tech companies piled new feature after new feature into each consecutive release of their flagship products… When each new release promoted a…
Apple, UX 101, UX Articles
Lessons in UX – “If we understand the extremes, then the middle will fall into place.”
I just finished watching the great documentary on industrial design Objectified, which has interviews with many of the best designers in the history of the domain, including a personal favorite of mine, Apple’s Jonathan Ive. One moment early in the…
UX 101, UX Articles
Lessons in UX: Want to be a user experience designer? Expose yourself to different experiences.
Everything is designed. That basic insight is something I realized many years ago – and, while the idea that someone, somewhere, created the designs of everything around you, wherever you are maybe is an obvious fact, embracing that idea should…