UI/UX Articles and Interesting Tidbits of the Week
February//23//2018
Here are some interesting finds on UI/UX of the week!
1.https://seesparkbox.com/foundry/accessible_by_design?ref=webdesignernews.com
Accessibility. Very relevant article on the growing importance of designing with accessibility in sight. Understanding that Product Design needs to be honest, ethic, and therefore inclusive, is something crucial as the discipline evolves. Accessibility, and all that it entails, is only going to become a matter of further importance as times progress. Highlight of the article includes:
“Vision impairment is one of the most common disabilities for web users, and visual accessibility is something we should be watching for from the moment we open our go-to design tools. It starts with an essential principle of design: contrast. On the web, this has less to do with using complementary colors or colors with different hues (red versus green) and has more to do with the lightness/darkness or luminance of a color. This helps to account for color blindness where it is harder to distinguish between hues.”
2.https://www.nngroup.com/articles/affinity-diagram/
Affinity Diagrams. Another great article hailing from the Nielsen Norman group, focused on Affinity Diagrams (or Card Sorting), and how these play a strategic role in devising the Product Design roadmap. The article details how to organize workshops that make the best use of this type of tool. Highlight of the article includes:
“Design ideas from ideation workshops can also be voted on, or assigned value in some other way. Two common methods are the one-hundred-dollar test and the NUF test. One-Hundred-Dollar Test — When there are several design ideas for the same problem, give the group $100 (any currency will do) to split among the ideas generated, such that the total for the group of ideas equals $100. This method forces people to think in terms of each design’s worth, and usually one design emerges more valuable than the other(s).
NUF-NUF stands for: New, Useful, and Feasible. Each design idea is rated on a 1- to-7 scale for each of these three attributes: 1) whether the team has used that design before (usually newer items are considered better); 2) whether the idea is useful and it solves the problem; and 3) how feasible it is for the team to implement the idea. The ratings are totaled, and the overall score is used to rank the ideas.”
3.https://usabilitygeek.com/write-ux-proposal-how-to-guide/?ref=webdesignernews.com
How to Write a UX Proposal. Another insightful article, focused on the process of creating a UX Proposal. This specifically focuses on how to build a document that states the intention behind a UX project/overhaul, with all that it entails, deliverables, ramifications and goals. Highlight:
“Your goals should not be a shopping list of items. In just a few sentences, you should succinctly outline the goals for the proposal. If you find that you have many goals, then you might need to create more than one proposal. Staying focused on just a couple of issues at a time can prevent everyone from being overwhelmed and create a better workflow. For example: the goal of this UX design proposal is to create and implement a new design for the sign-up landing page to drive up conversions. It does not need to be more complicated than that. In fact, the simpler, the better.”
