Evernote for Android Gets a Material Design Update – Evernote Blog.
Evernote has one of the best app designs out there (always has IMHO) and now they’ve taken a que from Google’s Material Design to improve the UI even more. Too bad I have an iPhone. Damn.
Showcasing UI Interaction Design with Animated GIFs.
These are awesome and we should be showing UI designs this way for those who can’t visualize an interaction.
What I Learned About Content Marketing by Analyzing 614 Posts.
Everyone LOVES Content Marketing eh? This is a pretty good breakdown of what works and what doesn’t.
tl;dr – Infographics are king, timing matters, guides are better than posts, people love data, and headlines should be descriptive and not vague (click bait).
Why Brands Need to Measure Experience and Engagement | DigitalNext – Advertising Age.
The best headline I’ve read in a while. ROI IS DEAD! Of course it’s not really dead but instead morphing into something more tangible. Like ROE2 (Return on Experience x Engagement).
Being in Ecommerce I can really get behind this idea because everything we do is about the customers experience and engagement. So getting a great ROE2 only means conversion will go up.
The Role of Web Design in Conversion Rate Optimization.
I think about this stuff daily, so it’s nice to read an article about how web design can effect and does effect CRO.
21 Tools To Build Your Web Design Empire.
A great list of design tools. I’m thinking about trying to work in Slack and Trello into my workflow.
Choosing the Right Size and Format for Icons.
Ever wonder what is the best size and format for Icons? Yep me too. Here is a great primer for that.
UI, UX: Who Does What? A Designer’s Guide To The Tech Industry | Co.Design | business + design.
Great article and on point with what I struggle with daily. How to define what my team does. There are many blurred lines in Design but I think this article does a great job of explaining the differences.
Between UX Designer, UI Designer, Visual Designer, Interaction Designer, UX Researcher, Front End Dev, and Product Designer, this is the most complete and spot on description of each that I’ve found to date.
What this article leaves out though is Web Designer, Graphic Designer and Digital Designer, Digital Branding. For me these all fall under the traditional description of what a Graphic Designer but for digital purposes (NO TRADITIONAL UP IN HERE!). Making things look pretty and on brand, and within the style guides, etc.
Why Users Aren’t Clicking Your Home Page Carousel – UX Movement.
100% agree with this.
IF you are going to add a slider/carousel to your site, at least let it have labels.
UI Animation in Photoshop – Tutorial #1 | Android User Interface | User Experience.
I do not think it’s fair to deliver creative to a developer without proper annotations, requirements, or documentation. One of the hardest things to communicate to a front end dev is how to animate UI components.
This is a great tutorial on how just take the guess work out of what you’re thinking in your head. Animate it so there is NO question how something should interact with the user. Are there other ways to do this? Sure but why open 10 programs to do what one can if it will get the point across.
This is pretty cool. Control your computer from your phone and it’s even on iOS.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-remote-desktop/gbchcmhmhahfdphkhkmpfmihenigjmpp
20 Free Web Design Ebooks from 2014.
Nothing could be finer than FREE EBOOKS about Web Design!
This a great list. I’ve read the Adaptive Design book a few years ago. It’s a bit code heavy but still a good refresher.
I’ll be interested to read “11 Things To Do With Every New WP Install” and “Pixel Perfect Precision”.
Understanding Web UI Visual Hierarchy.
Wonderful article about Visual Hierarchy in UI Design, the art form that I’ve chosen as my way to make the world a better place. It definitely is an art form.
More than being creative, a good artist must also consider subtleties like composition, colors, size, what to include, and — perhaps more importantly — what to leave out. That’s no easy feat, which is why we hold the masters like da Vinci and Van Gogh in such high regard.
Freebie: Touristic Icons 100 Icons, PNG, SVG | Smashing Magazine.
Cool set of free tourist icons.
An older article about Why the Flat Design Trend is Hurting Usability, got me thinking about this subject again.
I agree with some of what the article is saying, though I feel saying flat design is hurting usability is a bold statement. I would say instead that designers use of flat design can sometimes be taken too far. When this happens the whole reason to use “flat” as a design technique can backfire and will created the opposite visual advantages, making the design harder for someone to use.
I’ve written about this before, but I believe the answer lies somewhere in the middle of skeuomorphism and flat.
Google does a great job of this I believe. They have flat looking designs but when needed aren’t afraid to use a drop shadows, gradients and strokes for depth and separation of objects.
I personally feel this technique isn’t skeuomorphic nor is it 100% flat. I’ve ran into more instances where a slight separation is needed to make something stand out of a design or separate it from another element.
As a designer it’s my job to make solve a problem for a user. If the solution is a slight gradient on a button to make it look like something that is active and requires action, then there is NO harm in doing so and if done well, doesn’t date the design or make it look non-modern.
B
Excellent article about Low Fi prototyping.
Though low-fidelity prototyping has existed for centuries, it has recently become popular with the spread of agile design methodologies, inspired by several movements:
- Design thinkingadvocates for “thinking with your hands” as a way to build empathetic solutions.
- Lean startuprelies on early validation and the development of a minimum viable product to iterate on.
- User-centered designcalls for a collaborative design process where users deliver continual feedback based on their reactions to a product’s prototype.
The Skeptic’s Guide To Low-Fidelity Prototyping | Smashing Magazine.
I can personally say that my 3 year old son is amazingly proficient at using a tablet. It’s fascinating.
CSS Shapes 101 · An A List Apart Article.
This is pretty awesome. Being able to format text blocks into shapes (much like you can in InDesign for print) could vastly change how we layout content heavy pages.
I guess the question now is when will all the browsers catch up with this newish CSS style? Also does this make sense for mobile? hmmm.
i can see how mobile would work – but its going to make the fight for screen space harder than it
is.
Lessons in communication. What NOT to do. http://giantconf.com/updates/2014/5/1/speakerfees
RyRy are discussing. 
@nickf I already said why I pulled out here: http://t.co/JcPSA9KrQi @MeganWhalin @GiantConf
— Sarah Parmenter (@sazzy) May 2, 2014
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