UI/UX Articles and Interesting Tidbits of the Week
January//17//2025
Here are some interesting finds on UI/UX of the past week!
1.
Best and Worst of Worklife 2024 for Glassdoor. This summary of 2024 according to Glassdoor covers a series of topics, but it’s interesting to notice some of the recurring themes, similar to what occurred with Dice’s report. Those themes include RTO (return to office), ghosting during interview processes, very lengthy and unclear interview processes, though Glassdoor does pepper this look-back with a series of insights from polls and tracking of community engagement/discussion they have on their platform (some of the highlights include one of the most responded postings, someone who got a job after 145 applications and 8 and a half months of searching the market). Highlight of the article includes:
““Ghosting” happened well before Halloween for workers trying to navigate their daunting (and haunting) job search. The phenomenon mirrored frustrations experienced in the dating world, as candidates often felt left in the dark. An overwhelming number of workers, 87%, said ghosting is not acceptable in the interview process, but 13% were okay with it. (This poll ran from September 10, 2024 through September 12, 2024)”
2.
Role of Illustration Style in Visual Storytelling. Another interesting article from The Smashing Magazine and author Thomas Bohm. While not necessarily the most insightful or data based article (would be interesting to have data from surveys demonstrating users’ appetite/response to certain styles of illustrations), it showcases a series of illustration styles, alongside the context in which they should be consumed. The author lists a variety of styles including Caricature, Sci-Fi/Comic Book, Abstract/Geometric, Clean Vector, to name but a few, alongside examples of all these styles. Worth browsing through. Highlight of the article includes:
“Ideal for humorous imagery and illustration with a graphic edge and clarity. The layering of light and dark elements really creates an illustration with depth, perfect for playing with the detail of the character, not something you would automatically get from a clean vector illustration. It has received more thought and attention than clean vector illustration typically does.”
3.
Adobe Acrobat Sign Experience. Very interesting article from the Adobe Design blog, documenting the Adobe Acrobat Sign Product Design experience and journey. The article features an interview with Steven Kramer, who was deeply involved in the Product Design journey, and who volunteers aspects such as the problem statement, challenges, constraints, opportunities, data leveraged, and the crossing experiences between Acrobat and Acrobat Sign. It’s an insightful conversation on what shaped a product solution, including taking into consideration various edge cases. Worth reading through. Highlight of the article includes:
“Our goal was to increase the rate that agreements are completed while decreasing the time it took to complete them. In other words, we wanted more people to successfully fill and sign their agreements in less time. We started by looking closely at the signature process — how someone consumes, comprehends, and completes an agreement — to ensure it was as simple as possible at each stage. We quickly realized that the process was cumbersome — especially for people who use assistive technology, such as screen readers. For those users, reading the document required finding a specific setting to open the agreement on a new page. They then had to navigate back to complete the signing process. While we weren’t the only leading e-signature provider with these accessibility challenges, it was non-negotiable that the Acrobat experience had to be better: signing must be easy for everyone. As we rebuilt the experience, we did so with those users at the forefront, and incorporated extensive testing to ensure our product was as accessible as possible.”
