UI/UX Articles and Interesting Tidbits of the Week
July//2//2021
Here are some interesting finds on UI/UX of the week!
1.
The Future of Leadership. Fast Company has been releasing a series of interesting articles on the topic of leadership. This series has been particularly insightful, as it looks at leadership in the aftermath of both social movements that have erupted in the last few years, but also leadership in the aftermath of the pandemic itself. This article looks at instances such as leaders with the ability to be self aware, humane, be capable of self reflection, and cultivate a culture of integration. The article also points out aspects such as examining the use of power and defining effective frameworks for internal policies. Well worth reading. Highlight of the article includes:
“If you want your legacy to be justice, you must lead by example and be the change in how you do your job, how you lead, and how you interact with the world. No one is right all the time. No one is wrong all the time either. You will make mistakes and be occasionally blind to your own foibles, biases, and ways in which you may be reinforcing the status quo and existing inequalities. Make room for structured reflection to develop clarity in your thinking about your own actions, beliefs, values, and mindsets. Ask yourself what you did to advance collective well-being, justice, equity, and inclusion. You may be surprised at how infrequently we think about these issues and their ramifications in our everyday operations and processes.”
2.
Landing Pages Effectiveness. I’ll be the first to admit I’m averse to this type of articles for a variety of reasons, firstly and foremost, because invariably the authors reach very similar conclusions, from year to year, with the only dramatic difference being the trends, and the aesthetic flavor that is typically dominating, depending on the year in which the article is published. This article however, manages to showcase some fruitful call-outs which potentiate effective landing pages, including testability of the products themselves, quick parsing of content and immediate/clear CTAs. While the pages selected to be featured on this article fall prey to the current trend that is dominating the web, and that is indeed a dreadful one, there’s a few worth visiting, including plink (even if performance wise, the page is not as seamless as it should). Highlight of the article includes:
“Easy to scan layout. Users don’t read on the web, they scan, and it’s essential to design scannable layouts that help users find what they are looking for at a glance. Design a clear visual hierarchy that guides readers’ eyes around the content intentionally, while removing everything that can be a distraction. Prominent call-to-action buttons. Visitors should be able to spot the primary CTA immediately as they land on a page. You can use a blur test to validate your layout and see what element attracts the most attention, like adding a 5–10 px Gaussian blur to your design in a photo editor. By looking at a blurred version of your landing page, you’ll see what elements stand out. If it’s a CTA button, then everything’s fine.”
3.
User Interviews. Voice the Customer is one of the most important sources of information a Product Design team can leverage, in order to bring more pertinence and value to the solutions they’re building. This article takes a closer look at the different types of interviews that can be conducted, and how to choose them in the context of the work at hand (these include, Contextual Inquiry, Structured and Unstructured Interviews). Worth reading. Highlight of the article includes:
“A contextual inquiry is when you observe a user doing a specific set of tasks with a product or an experience. For this type of interview, you have to prepare a well-thought-out set of questions that you can ask the user before, during, and after the interview. The benefit of contextual inquiries is that you can observe in real time how people use a product or go through an experience in their own environments. For this type of interview, make sure to actively listen and observe what the user is doing.These interviews work well for products that users will interact with in conditions that can be hard for us to imagine, for example, a factory or retail setting. Contextual inquiries require us to first-hand observe people working in the final product environment, helping us envision what it’s like.”
