UI/UX Articles and Interesting Tidbits of the Week
November//11//2022
Here are some interesting finds on UI/UX of the week!
1.
Zoom with Email & Calendar Services. Another atypical highlight from this newsletter (seems to be happening more and more often), this article from The Verge and author Umar Shakir, is a showcase for Zoom and how their platform keeps expanding in terms of offerings. I find this particularly relevant, since I’ve known Zoom for the past 10 years, and worked on a platform that is/was a competitor of theirs, but Zoom has demonstrated that their constant growth has also manifested itself in expanding their ecosystem, understanding their clients, and providing solutions that are deeply consistent, seamless and orchestrated with each other (akin to omnichannel experiences). Highlight of the article includes:
“Small businesses surviving through the pandemic may have a need to migrate their outdated email servers to a more secure platform, especially if they lack the IT personnel to maintain them. Now, Zoom Mail and Calendar services are another solution businesses can strongly consider vs. products like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace — after all, they are probably using Zoom meetings anyway. In a company blog, Zoom head of product Joseph Chong writes that Zoom mail is end-to-end encrypted within Zoom Mail Service users. “The Zoom Mail and Calendar Services (beta) are targeted at small-to medium-business customers who particularly value email privacy,” Chong wrote. The all-in-one solution is designed to keep users from needing to switch apps when group messaging and starting a video meeting with the team or responding to a client’s email.”
2.
Building Transarency in Remote Businesses. Interesting topic and article from Smashing Magazine and author Siobhan McKeown. At a time where remote work has become part of the new normal, even if brass and brash CEOs who buy social media organizations want to sway otherwise, this article illustrates how transparency in communication can lead to better engagements and tighter connections between team members and the Organization itself. The author highlights tactics such as Asynchronous Communication, Documenting Processes, Managing Noise, Recording Meetings and Providing Pertinent Notes, to name but a few, as mechanisms which can indeed potentiate this transparency buildout and team alignment. Highlight of the article includes:
“Prioritizing asynchronous communication over synchronous communication doesn’t mean that you will never have a meeting or talk at the same time. Instead, it means that your first preference is tools such as documentation and shared issue trackers/task managers instead of having a call. Documentation is kept up to date so people can find what they need for themselves, and issue trackers capture what someone is doing and where they are at and provide spaces for collaboration that don’t require everyone to be online at the same time. By preferring these practices over synchronous practices, work carried out within the organization is always transparent and available.”
3.
Understanding more about the Metaverse. Another insightful article from author Nick Babich, published on the blog Shaping Design. The topic of Metaverse of course got a lot more attention thanks to all the investments and even corporate announcements that organizations such as Meta, and its leader Mr. Zuckerberg, are putting behind it. For those who like to read fiction on this topic, I recommend reading Ernest Cline’s “Ready Player One”, since most of its action does take place in a version of a Metaverse (and on a parallel path, Jonathan Mostow’s film “Surrogates” is a flawed but interesting look into this type of virtual living/existence). Independently of fictional narratives on this topic, this article sheds light on what brands are already producing to engage users at this level, as well as what roles Design professionals can play in order to bring this ecosystem to life. Very interesting and worth reading. Highlight of the article includes:
“The metaverse, as a cohesive virtual experience, exists only as a concept, but we have a few excellent examples of pre-metaverse platforms. Platforms like Fortnite, Roblox, newcomer Gather, and Decentraland share many properties of the future metaverse. Participants’ avatars (a graphical representation of users) can explore these immersive experiences, play games, wear digital clothes, and attend events. But for now, metaverse experiences are typically proprietary: they are locked ecosystems launched by individual companies as brand activations. But even with these downsides, the platform attracts a lot of attention from regular users to businesses. Nike’s Nikeland is one of the most successful examples of an established company exploring a new frontier. With a series of basketball masterclasses led by stars like LeBron James, Nikeland gives users valuable reasons to continually come back.”
