UX design principles 1-10 Over the years, I’ve picked up certain rules that I use as design proverbs. At Engagio, I put them on the wall to remind me and to decorate my area. I just added my 11th and 12th design principle. 11. Vertical Space is Expensive. This refers to the fact that most…
I am not officially trained in anything in particular. I’ve learned from practice for the past 22 years. Over the years, I have headed UX, Product Management, Training, Documentation and Product Marketing. Each area has a different set of mental models and techniques to do a good job. I have seen people who were masters…
The following is a model to determine the optimal response rate of an application. It is optimal and therefore difficult with today’s technology. However, the answer of “instantaneous” is not correct in most circumstances. I + T + D = PInput + Thinking + Delight = Optimal Performance I = Input This ranges on a scale…
Something has gone horribly awry at Google Analytics. You click on the Sign In button and get this menu: WTF? I can’t find the damn thing I want. What is all this shit? Here are the flaws: Skimming text doesn’t work. Every single item has the word Google in it. Is that needed? I came…
MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product. I have had a long distaste for this acronym, but I think it is worth a deep-dive. I found an image on this website that sums up some of the problems. I’m going to deconstruct it to explain better. Strategy #1: Build too much before launch In this scenario, you…
When designing a new product or brand, you need to get inspiration from somewhere. We are about to launch some new stuff and I realized where my inspiration came from…it was the view out of our window. During the day, it’s especially bright and the reds in the wood glow. The combination of the reds,…
Product Camp is a free, user-driven, collaborative “unconference” for Product Managers and Marketers. It’s in a few cities now. This weekend was the 2016 Silicon Valley edition. I usually go every other year. This year seemed to have diminished in attendance from previous ones. Accordingly, the number of sessions was also diminished. One of the…
I just got this email. It has several major UX issues. Problems: Alignment. It is harder to read centered text than left-justified. Contrast. Gray on white is hard to read. Size. Text is too small and hard to read. Serif. Serif is harder to read than sans-serif, especially when small. Disconnect. The words reference things…
I have not had an easy time adjusting to Google Apps. GMail is ugly, Inbox is pretty but severely limited and Google Calendar is deeply frustrating. More and more, I have been missing the power and elegance of Microsoft Outlook. I decided to try and use Outlook on top of Google Apps. At first, I…
Based on a quora question, I was inspired by Bert Green‘s answer. For the purposes of this blog, I am going to make it shorter (20 min) and possible to do in an office. Here is the question: Show me how you would build a 6″ wooden box. Show me the design and the steps.…
CAVEAT: I design B2B Applications, not marketing websites. The following is specifically targeted at that kind of project. I’ve been using PowerPoint since 2007 for UI storyboard design with much success. I’ve posted several blog posts about it: Using PowerPoint for Storyboards Suggestion for MS PowerPoint PowerPoint 2007 for UX Design Storyboards or Prototypes? UX…
Both are needed. However, direct manipulation should be used way more than it currently is. Whenever I look at UI Designs from other designers, I am struck by the plethora of indirect manipulation cases. Here is an example to clarify. Case: You have a table of data (columns and rows) and you want to reorder…
I like Calendly alot. However, some parts of their UI are not very good. They bury functionality in strange places and use a few anti-patterns. Plus, it’s a little bit ugly. One thing however, is a serious UX no-no. Do you see the problem that causes confusion? UX Rule #81: Never use the word Cancel…
One thing I am really obsessed with right now is the use of animation in an enterprise SaaS product. I think, done well, it can dramatically enhance the experience. Some places it can be used: Loading images Page transitions Empty states (like when search yields 0 results) New objects that haven’t been set up yet Marketing…