As a user experience professional, I continuously focus on design trends and de-facto standards, so I can work with development and product teams to craft the most effective end-to-end experience I can. And a core attribute of such an experience…
Tag: UI
My Quora answers, UX Articles
What did Dieter Rams mean when he said “good design is honest”?
I think he means that good design aligns with the materials used and is straightforward about it’s purpose. A coffee pot isn’t made of wax paper, it’s made of materials that support the heat and liquids that you put through…
My Quora answers, UX Articles
How can a mind map be used to navigate user interfaces?
There's not a lot of visible difference between a mind map and a navigation model – they are both "boxes and arrows" that connect objects in a structure. The use of them and the information they contain are very different,…
UX 101, UX Articles
UX101: On user interface design
All you have learned about user research, information architecture, and interaction design is the foundation for the next step – execution. Taking all you have learned and defined and then designing screens that let users accomplish tasks and get things…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
When creating web and mobile application UIs, what is better: "Flat Design" or "Skeuomorphic Design"?
It depends. Yes, I know, that's a cop-out, but not really… There are benefits and drawbacks to both, and what your are designing and who you are designing for is just as important as the design "style" ("Flat" or "skeuomorphic")…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
Should companies with in-house UX teams evaluate their own work or engage external UX consultants to do so?
Bringing in an external consultant to evaluate a team's work is a BAD idea, for several reasons. First off, the consultant can be the best UX professional in the world who makes the most cogent points possible… but he or…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
What are best practices for participatory design sessions?
Participatory design is a great way to have an engaging conversation with users about a particular task or situation. The main thing to remember about participatory design is this obvious point: Users aren't designers. During the design session they are…
My Quora answers, UX Articles
What is the next frontier in mobile UX/UI design?
Three things that are going to be a big focus for mobile UX/UI designers in the years to come: Voice Interaction: Accessing information from your mobile device or the cloud through speech is here now, but we "turn it on"…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
What user experience means to me, and how I approach the design process
I may sound like Pollyanna, but to me user experience design is a way to make the world a better place. OK, so it's not like we UX folk are curing cancer, or finding new sources of energy, or stopping…
My Quora answers, UX Articles
What are the big topics in mobile user interface design discussions in 2013?
Web vs. native apps. Still. While the majority of companies are pretty firmly in the "native app" space, there are still debates and discussions taking place around HTML 5 and it's capabilities. The problem is, HTML 5 can't do everything…
My Quora answers, UX Articles
What are the different design approaches/UX considerations between designing an iPad app and an iPhone app?
First, and most obviously, you need to consider the constraints of both platforms. The primary constraint when you are designing an iPhone app is screen size. You have a smaller "canvas" to work with, and that constraint means that you…
My Quora answers, UX Articles
Why has the general interface of operating systems evolved but the cursor has remained relatively unchanged?
Joseph Dickerson Because the cursor just works. When a user is typing, he or she needs an indication as to where the next letter or character will display. The cursor does a fantastic job of providing that "system status" with…
My Quora answers, UX Articles
What are pleasant ways to move the user through a technical support request, if they are not very tech savvy?
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"…
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…