UI/UX Articles and Interesting Tidbits of the Week

January//25//2019

Here are some interesting finds on UI/UX of the week!

1.http://www.devolve.ca/blog/progressive-web-apps/
Progressive Web Apps. Interesting follow up article to one I’ve highlighted previously from Smashing Magazine, focused on the emergence and adoption of Progressive Web Apps. The article details the beginnings of this trend, also the main features that define it (and its advantages), and why its adoption is immensely relevant for most businesses, since this type of product merges the benefits of native applications (push notifications for instance) with the services that underline the functionality of web applications. Highlight of the article includes:

“Introduced in the year 2015, progressive web apps are seen now to take off across the globe in a big way, enabling numerous global marketers to build seamless and unique mobile user experience. This hybrid between native apps and web pages offers a combination of the features offered by modern browsers in addition to the advantages of mobile experience.
Providing users with a native app-like experience by making use of the most modern techniques, Progressive Web Apps are the contemporary trend in the global e-commerce arena.”

2.https://jtbd.info/replacing-the-user-story-with-the-job-story-af7cdee10c27
Jobs To Be Done. This article and theory have been around for a while, but I never mentioned it here on the newsletter. This is a relevant article that adds further richness to the universe surrounding users, journeys, motivations, expectations and ultimately pertinence of the solutions being outlined. It’s a very useful compendium style article, which always makes for a good reading. Highlight of the article includes:

“Job Stories are great because it makes you think about motivation and context and de-emphasizes adding any particular implementation. Often, because people are so focused on the who and how, they totally miss the why. When you start to understand the why, your mind is then open to think of creative and original ways to solve the problem.”

3.https://blog.marvelapp.com/top-four-principles-human-centred-design/
Four Principles of Human Centered Design. Interesting summarization from Nick Babich, courtesy of the Marvel App blog, focused on the main 4 elements to attend to, when designing effective human centered product solutions. The article summarizes them as, focusing on the user, identifying the problem, understanding the connectivity of everything that is being created and finally testing everything (these pretty much align with the Design Thinking methodology as anyone can attest). Highlight:

“You can’t replace testing with real users with testing with your family/team members/stakeholders because such testing won’t be representative. Designers, developers, and even UX researchers often suffer from the false-consensus effect — people have a tendency to assume that others share their beliefs and will behave similarly in a given context. In other words, product creators assume that people who will use a product they created are like them.”