UI/UX Articles and Interesting Tidbits of the Week
July//7//2023
Here are some interesting finds on UI/UX of the week!
1.
Where to go on the Web. Really love this article from David Pierce for The Verge in which the author essentially reflects on the meaning and concept of the internet as a democratic space for exchange of ideas and concepts, and how the introduction of social media has shifted that paradigm, and finally now the implosion of some of its stalwarts is leaving a gap in everyone’s digital life experience. The author observes and provides details on a series of new applications all of which seem to be aiming to fulfill these social interaction gaps, while also providing an interesting reflection on what comes next, even as he looks to the past of how these different tools have evolved and shaped our own expectations. Highlight of the article includes:
“Why is this all happening right now? Lots of reasons, actually, most of them at least somewhat defensible. The economy has gone sour, and after more than a decade of low interest rates and access to nearly unlimited and nearly free money, companies are finding their funding sources to be fewer and more finicky than ever. Those investors are also asking for real returns on that funding, so all these companies have had to switch from “growth at all costs” to “actually make some money.” Few social networking companies have ever made real money, and so they’re scrambling for new features and pivoting to whatever smells like quarterly results.
Add it all up, and the social web is changing in three crucial ways: It’s going from public to private; it’s shifting from growth and engagement, which broadly involves building good products that people like, to increasing revenue no matter the tradeoff; and it’s turning into an entertainment business. It turns out there’s no money in connecting people to each other, but there’s a fortune in putting ads between vertically scrolling videos that lots of people watch. So the “social media” era is giving way to the “media with a comments section” era, and everything is an entertainment platform now. Or, I guess, trying to do payments. Sometimes both. It gets weird.”
2.
What is the Perfect Design Process. Another pertinent article from Vitaly Friedman published in The Smashing Magazine, this time around focused on the topic of Design Processes. The author enumerates the various types of Processes including Double Diamond, Triple Diamond, The Loop, Waterfall, succinctly explaining what each one of them is comprised of, before providing his own perspective on what has worked for him and his teams in his career. This aspect of almost showcasing a case study is very pertinent, as the author goes into the specifics in terms of how he goes through the process and what each phase of it actually entails. Worth reading through. Highlight of the article includes:
“The search team must be measured by the quality of search results for the top 100 search queries over the last two months. People who publish content are owners of that content. It’s their responsibility to keep it up-to-date, rewrite, archive, or delete it. Refine, refine, refine. Keep throwing new components and user journeys to developers. Stop. Test with users to check how we are doing. Keep going and refine in the browser. Continuously and rigorously test. Launch and keep refining. Measure the KPIs and report to the next iteration of the design.”
3.
Self-Care and Job Hunting. Great article from Nikki Anderson-Stanier, published on People Nerds, dScout’s Design blog. The author addresses a very pressing and relevant topic on everyone’s lips these days: job hunting. As I mentioned in one of my articles, in the space of a year, we went from the year of the great resignation to the year of the mass layoffs (well, at least in Tech companies). The author details how her process of dealing with a layoff occurred, including some key takeaways from her experience, which include, setting realistic goals, defining boundaries, taking time to disconnect, getting support, to name but a few. Well worth reading through. Highlight of the article includes:
“At first, I was scouring the internet, applying for 10–20 jobs daily, attending seven or more networking events a week, and connecting with as many people as possible. I was busier than I was at work. I eventually scaled back and started setting more realistic goals and boundaries. For example, I was no longer going to check LinkedIn 87,402 times a day, and I was going to attend only two networking events a week. I also curbed my job application frenzy. I applied for everything under the sun when I first got into user research. It took me over 70 applications to get my first role. It felt the same when I got laid off. I applied to everything I saw and then more. Instead, I decided to apply to one job a day (eventually, it got to one position every other day), and I would put a few hours into that one application. It had to be one I thought was reasonable. I did this because, the first time I was laid off, I applied to every job and — out of sheer desperation — took a job that was a horrible fit and led to many issues.”
