Joseph Dickerson Combine visuals with text in a balanced and useful way. If users have to find a product to solve a problem, then have images of the products along with the names and provide a filter to quickly "shorten"…
Category: UX Articles
Apple, Technology, UX Articles
The connected home is Apple’s for the taking
There’s a huge battle taking place between tech companies, one that doesn’t getting nearly the attention it deserves. It’s not the fight between Google and Apple in mobile, or Facebook versus Twitter in social… It’s the fight for our living…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
What does a lead UX designer do?
Hate to pull this old chestnut out, again, but I must…. it depends. There is no one definitive definition of "lead UX designer." In some companies he or she may "own" the entire design of a product or a domain,…
My Quora answers, UX Articles
What is the most astonishing fact about design or innovation you ever heard?
That little things can make a big (sometimes VERY big) difference. Two examples: Example one: Jared Spool wrote a great often-cited essay about the $300 million dollar button, which I will summarize: A major online e-retailer (I suspect Amazon) redesigned…
Technology, UX Articles
Design Mobile First? Not necessarily…
Over the past year, a lot of user experience designers have advocated a “Mobile First” design strategy. The primary idea behind this strategy is when you design the mobile UI and experience first you are able to focus on the…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
What is the daily work of a UX designer like?
It depends on several factors, primarily the stage of the project(s) being worked on and the type and size of company. I have found that the typical design process traditionally has four stages: Analysis and Research, Conceptual Design, Design Testing…
My Quora answers, UX Articles
What would it take to make a mobile banking application outstanding?
Joseph Dickerson Well, my "day job" is designing mobile and online banking apps, so I've spent some time thinking about this question (a couple of years, in fact). The most important thing I've learned (through various iterations, user tests, and…
My Quora answers, UX Articles
What are some best practices that can increase the usability of long (20 question+) web forms?
Well, the first thing I would do, when looking at a long web form, is question why it was long in the first place. Do you really NEED to ask all the questions that you are presenting? Is there anyway…
UX Articles
Lessons in #UX: It’s not about “channels”, it’s about doing things
I’ve been in lots of business meetings discussing mobile and/or tablet “strategies” lately, and I often shake my head at what I hear proposed by people who, frankly, should know better. Too many of these proposals are about features and…
My Quora answers, UX Articles
What do you need to do to manage a UX team effectively? Some advice…
Well, I've managed a few teams in my time (cue crogety old man music), and so I have some insights that can help your design team run (semi) smoothly. Some of these recommendations are applicable to ALL types of teams,…
Disney, UX Articles
#UX best practices, Disney style: Lessons from Mickey’s “10 Commandments”
I recently had the privilege of speaking at the Internet Summit technology conference in Raleigh, North Carolina about Walt Disney and how his processes and ideas could be applied in user experience design. In pulling together the presentation deck for…
Technology, UX Articles
How a lack of #UX design may have cost Romney the White House
A very interesting behind-the-scenes story about the recently completed US presidential election cropped up late this week. As we all know, President Obama was reelected, beating Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Looking at the election totals, it showed that while Obama…
My Quora answers, UX Articles
Should content strategy be included in your UX deliverables?
Yes, with a couple of conditions. I have often lobbied that content strategy and "tone of voice" should be a part of any UX architecture, and that type of arguement comes natural and easy for me because… well, I'm a…
UX 101, UX Articles
Lessons in UX: Embrace criticism
I’ve had my fair share of uncomfortable situations in design meetings, moments where the person presenting their work took any criticism of what they were showing as a personal assault, an attack on who they were and what they had…
Technology, UX Articles
Kickstarter rocks! (even though my project wasn’t funded)
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will have noticed that about a month ago I started a Kickstarter project to help pay for some of the costs associated with writing my planned book on user experience…
UX Articles
Lessons in UX: Create rituals, not designs
I was privileged to be able to speak at WebVisions Chicago last month, and had a great time talking to a packed audience about future interaction models (And I didn’t embarrass myself, so that was a good thing). I was…