UI/UX Articles and Interesting Tidbits of the Week
August//23//2024
Here are some interesting finds on UI/UX of the week!
1.
Insights into Cross-Cultural Design. Multicultural products are a reality, one that at times seems to become a secondary thought with Product and Design teams. The most obvious statement is of course: crafting insightful solutions goes beyond delivering products that serve one language only, and yet, that appears to be the case for so many products available on the market. This article from Sabrina Weschler for the Dropbox blog is a helpful reminder of what to keep in mind when tackling multicultural solutions. She provides cues on topics such as Color, Language, Content Density, Imagery, and Technologies. With Figma bringing AI features which allow localization on mockups/concept work, it’s worth realizing that multicultural means more than just translating strings of text. Highlight of the article includes:
“When moving from a source language to a target language, any given word in the source language might be translated into multiple words or phrases in the target language. For example, in moving from U.S. English to Italian, German, or Russian, you should consider allowing for up to a 300% text expansion. In this partial page capture from the Apple site, a two-line header and a seven-line body copy in U.S. English, appears as a four-line header and an eight-line body copy in Italian. Thinking about this aspect of cultural design in the context of responsive design approaches can ensure that designs won’t break when copy expands during translation and localization work.”
2.
Roles are not Rules. Fantastic article from the Figma blog and from author Kris Rasmussen, who is Figma’s CTO. It constitutes a healthy reminder that engineering is in fact a pertinent peer when it comes to ideating and establishing a product vision, much like the counterparts in Product and Design. The waterfall and ridig aspect that seems to consume many organizations, is something the author aptly challenges, and something that is reinforced by the Design Process in itself, which at its core does bring a union of all these voices across its many chapters. Well worth reading and reflecting upon. Highlight of the article includes:
“It’s no longer the case that product development starts at design and ends at engineering. Still, in many orgs, product managers and designers are responsible for setting the roadmap, while engineers execute on that roadmap. This is something that Yuhki Yamashita, my counterpart on the product team, and I wanted to get right. We work very closely together, and that waterfalls to the rest of our org. Engineers don’t just define how to make things, they also figure out what to make by working closely with their cross-functional peers, and hearing feedback from customers. When it comes to starting new streams of work, we always encourage teams to draw from a range of perspectives as early as possible, allowing a concept doc to evolve based on input from the rest of the product development team. Engineers are expected to write down early thinking, and the goal is to get feedback from their collaborators as they’re working on it, not when it feels “polished.” Virtually every project has a document of some sort to capture this early thinking; the challenge is getting quick feedback from teams when they’re sprinting on their own work.”
3.
Case Study on Research and Design with Matter. Great article from Dovetail’s blog detailing a conversation with Marc Reisen and Francesca Gabales, who at the time of this article were working at Matter. The article showcases the importance of leveraging qualitative research, but also the process to leverage it into pertinent insights. The article is also demonstrative of the challenges of starting a entire function in a newish startup and how research evolves alongside the organic tissue of Design and Product disciplines. Even if the article is dated from 2020, its insights remain as relevant and applicable to what is happening these days. Highlight of the article includes:
“A challenge with qualitative research is that customers are very eager to put on their design hats and request a wide spectrum of features and functionalities. As a design team, we make a concerted effort to probe for the root cause of these asks before we build out conclusions. Thinking through this lens allows us to be data-informed, but not drive every decision solely based on raw data.
In the beginning, our design team was just Marc Reisen, our Head of Design. Due to the time needed for research, qualitative efforts were reserved for larger projects during the initial stages of the design and development process. In 2019, Matter grew from a team of four to a team of 11. With that growth, Matter has been able to decentralize research and design through the hiring of a dedicated researcher and a product designer. This evolution has allowed Matter to work at a faster velocity in creating new features, while also dedicating time to iterate on existing features.”
