UI/UX Articles and Interesting Tidbits of the Week
March//21//2025
Here are some interesting finds on UI/UX of the past week!
1.
Scaling Design Systems. This interesting article from Matthew Rayback for the Adobe.design blog, provides great insight on the evolution of Design Systems, particularly as needs evolve/emerge, in this particular case, as a result of marketing requirements, with all its ramifications (including SEO, Brand Positioning, Imagery). As the quote below demonstrates, Adobe had to satisfy multiple needs with their Design system, which went beyond what a Product centric Design System can fulfill. An all encompassing Design System is one which illustrates the ability that language has to cover multiple situations and needs. The article details how different users/characters were leveraged to better understand the needs that the Design System had to fulfill. Highlight of the article includes:
“Marketing content is fast, fluid, and content heavy. Although what comprises “marketing content” might vary slightly for everyone, the content on Adobe.com generally fits into three categories: product marketing (images and copy that support people looking to learn more or buy); brand campaigns (splashy, advertising-like content and partnerships); SEO pages (information-dense, product-oriented pages for search engines). The needs of these content types are different from product needs in four distinct ways: The design system patterns and components that provide clarity in products can be too subtle for the information hierarchies that help users meet their research or purchase goals in the information-dense world of marketing. Product experiences tend to be utilitarian and product design systems assist people in their use, while the expectation for marketing experiences is that they will be expressive representations of the brand. Marketing experiences must create a visual foundation for the coexistence of multiple products with different marketing approaches. Guidelines based on a design system allow for diverse implementation while maintaining visual parity. For sites like Adobe.com, where web marketing and web products are adjacent, marketing design systems can create more cohesive customer journeys by employing a visual language that foreshadows in-product experiences and persists when a customer returns to the marketing site.”
2.
Boosting Confidence Before an Interview. With the continued fluctuations on the job market, it’s worth revisiting this article from Glassdoor, on how to get prepared for a job interview (or get a boost before that interview). The article showcases 8 items: Talking yourself up, Highlighting your wins, Setting the stage, Visualizing a successful interview, Meditation, Preparing easy hits, Focusing on gratitude, and Putting things in perspective. While I personally find these titles and descriptions, cringe inducing, I’ll personally highlight the following: Prepare yourself, with sufficient knowledge of the company you’re interviewing with, with a thorough knowledge of your work experience, with cases that cover situations of success/failure/extreme friction, and with a set of questions prepared for the interviewer, ones that go beyond clichés. The more prepared one is, the less likely one is from being excessively jittery. And keeping things in perspective is indeed correct: be self aware, and principled. If the interviewer doesn’t want to hear what you have to say, or the company chooses to move in a different direction look at it this way: do you want to work for a company that doesn’t want to know more about you? Highlight of the article includes:
“While job interviews are important, an interview is still just a conversation. “Remind yourself that on the other side of the desk is a person — a living, breathing human with his or her own doubts and fears, their own story to tell,” Daugherty said. It’s normal to get nervous when interviewing for a position you really want. But, if these eight tips don’t help you shake off jitters, consider owning up to your nerves. A talent manager in the Glassdoor Community suggested, “Absolutely tell your interviewer you’re nervous, and use it as a reason for why you’re so interested in the role/company… nine out of ten times, it breaks the ice and makes you more human.””
3.
Best Practices for Cognitive Accessibility in Web Design. One of my favorite topics to highlight on this newsletter is Accessibility. Author Caitlin de Rooij does a thorough and substantial job with this article of detailing the issues surrounding Cognitive Accessibility (she lists the issues surrounding ADHD, Dyslexia, Autism, and Memory Impairments). She also lists the seven principles of making websites accessible, namely: Adaptable, Readable, Navigable, Predictable, Input Assistance, Distinguishable and Enough Time. The article also offers great recommendations on how to handle forms, visual elements, content presentation, time management, to name but a few. Suffice to say, it’s a fantastic read. Highlight of the article includes:
“Firstly, since more people use mobile devices, their cognitive load is constantly increasing. There are also a lot of web and mobile services related to our daily lives that require people to perform certain operations — think of online banking, sending applications to your local government, or shopping online when you can’t go in person. Young people might not have a problem with that, but our ageing population needs more accessible designs in order to participate in these operations. This is why the latest WCAG 2.2 guidelines put more emphasis on cognitive accessibility than ever before.”
