UI/UX Articles And Interesting Tidbits Of The Week
December//11//2020
Here are some interesting finds on UI/UX of the week!
1.
Building Trust with your Audience. Interesting reflection hailing from Fast Company, on the topic of engaging with Audiences, and building trust with them. In an era where users in general are saturated with information, and where building trust with brands and personalities is arduous, this article provides a pertinent angle in the sense of bringing authenticity and rawness to the forefront. In the past I’ve alluded to the qualities of long lasting brands, such as Self Awareness, Principles, Deliberate messaging, Focus and Adaptive stances, but surrounding these, there has to be a layer of authenticity which makes them understandable and ingrained by their audiences. With some pertinent articles, this is worth reading. Highlight of the article includes:
“When you communicate in an unscripted and immediate way, the rawness of the presentation is impossible to miss. Live-streaming events, for example, where we are speaking openly and honestly, and without a net to catch us if we fall, carries more impact than preproduced content, because we know intuitively that it’s simply harder to hide the truth when we’re “live.” In this age of collapsing trust, we intuitively know that “official” presentations and executive statements flanked by a PR team are often putting the best possible spin on an embarrassing situation. Going live immediately suggests the presenter is in the moment, conveying the immediate status of a situation — not an agenda.”
2.
Ethical Considerations in UX Research. Another week, another great article from Smashing Magazine, courtesy of author Victor Yocco. This article focuses its attention on the biases that can at times plague research endeavors, which can in their aftermath taint the output of those sessions. A very pertinent article which again reinforces the importance of researchers and interviewers, as individuals responsible in setting the expectations, clarifying context, but not driving the sessions in directions that can castrate users input and natural cadence/process. Highlight of the article includes:
“Research participants often have expectations about the purpose of the research, who will be conducting the research, and how their information might be used. We need to be prepared to address inaccurate expectations and redirect the conversation in a sensitive way that will still allow us to have a rapport with the participant and gain valuable insights. These scenarios are similar to inadvertent sensitive topics in that it is difficult to account for all of the potential scenarios you might encounter. One example of a scenario I’ve frequently encountered is a participant shows up expecting to discuss a specific experience they’ve recently had with my client, while I’m looking to cover a broader topic, such as their overall attitudes and behaviors towards products in an entire industry or set of services.”
3.
Design Systems. Another article hailing from the Invision Design Blog, this one focuses on the ever relevant topic of Design Systems. It’s a brief reflection on the effectiveness of Design Systems, how they ingratiate Product Design processes, and can be fecund tools to propel further productivity, iterative cycles and ultimately consistency across the output of organizations. Highlight of the article includes:
“Like modern car company’s design and development teams, teams will use these reusable parts to quickly build end-to-end experiences, test results, iterating, and then ship a finished unit. These can then be replicated with high levels of quality, thousands of times. This will transform not only basic components like buttons and dropdowns, but much more complex entities that string together full end-to-end user flows. You’ll no longer need to build that data table, configuration page, or registration experience from scratch.”
