http://www.wired.com/2015/01/airbnbs-new-head-design-believes-design-led-companies-dont-work/
Designers tend to design for themselves, whether they intend to or not. User research, meanwhile, often has limits. It’ll tell you what’s wrong, but it only rarely leads directly to great products. A true user perspective is something more nuanced, specific, intuitive, and independent.
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.
Is space above the fold still valuable in 2014?
At the end of 2013, Peep Laja spoke at SearchLove about the Principles of Persuasive Web Design. He had observed that despite it being 2013 (now 2014) and us living in a much more scroll-oriented world, content placed above the fold was still grabbing 80% of our attention.
read up – Life Above and Beyond the Fold – Moz.
Infographic: Shutterstock’s Global Design Trends 2014 — The Shutterstock Blog.
The part I found most interesting were the global download trends. Cool promotional idea from Shutterstock.
That was some good stuff RyRy
Is space above the fold still valuable in 2014?
At the end of 2013, Peep Laja spoke at SearchLove about the Principles of Persuasive Web Design. He had observed that despite it being 2013 (now 2014) and us living in a much more scroll-oriented world, content placed above the fold was still grabbing 80% of our attention.
How to design banner ads that people actually want to click – The Next Web.
Some common sense design tips but good read to just remind us that banner ads are harder than you think. Or I should say, they are hard to get people to click on them.
i wanted to click that…. but then i didn’t. the only click a gangster does is when his clip is empty from dumping on some fools. werd life!
A tremendous and ever growing depository of statistically driven data points that could be very useful in convincing stakeholders of the validity of proposed design choices.
How do you measure the success of a design project? Relevant when companies often see design as an expense and not an investment.
The web has gone through many phases in its short life. Today, unfortunately, is the day of overly large RWD sites and resurgance of Flash-like interaction. Both of which seem highly contradictory to the industries recent focus on cross-device experiences and performance.
Google just launched a beta version of Google Web Designer today. It’s a free tool to help create HTM5 and CSS3 animations, mainly for banner ads, but the potential is there to be more.
I’m excited about this because to me, this is a possible way to 1) have real designers take back online advertising again.
and 2) kill flash even more.
This tool has the potential to open back up the potential for designers to animate their ideas in a way that we used to try to do in Flash back in the day. But now we can do it with technology that is thriving, not dying.
I would rather create and animate banner ads directly in this tool over creating static comps in a pdf file for a client to review. Call me crazy, but this seems like a no-brainer.
It will also reduce development and possibly deployment time because this tool can tie in directly with ad services like AdMob.
It also will claims “everything you create is accessible on any screen – desktop, tablet or mobile – without compatibility issues.”
Flash was the first thing I thought of upon seeing the demos. It really looks like a very powerful design tool. The hope is that it makes Adobe evolve it’s products to this level.
Here’s another one: http://adcade.com/
So there has been a lot of talk lately as to what is the best approach to digital design. Should it be user focused? Should it be data driven? How much does any of that matter? Can data driven design be the wrong approach?
Well last night my wife (@alexaseretti) and I got into a discussion about a 3rd type of designer or design team. The GENIUS DESIGNER. From a great article by Jared Spool:
Genius design is a sophisticated approach to making design decisions. Through deep study of similar projects, a team learns what works and what doesn’t. This makes the team more valuable over time, bringing it to a new level with every subsequent project. We’re seeing more teams take the plunge with the genius design approach. It’s a great way to move away from the commoditization of design work, while delivering real value to clients.
I personally consider myself a hybrid between a user focused designer and a genius designer (although I think that title is cheesy). My career has focused me on 4 particular “genius” subjects. Financial, eCommerce, Healthcare and more generically Branding. Any designer who has spent any amount of time with a client or working in-house has probably developed some of these “genius” skills.
I think this all leads me to the approach Google has taken in the past couple of years. It’s a cross between focusing on the user and the data but letting the designer, the “genius”, add their 2 cents. They can really help focus the design taking into consideration the other factors and adding a style to things that is just as important. This has proven to work for them and it shows.
Redesigning Google: how Larry Page engineered a beautiful revolution | The Verge.
Not sure how I missed this article when it was originally posted back in January, but man is this a good one. Especially this:
Great design is not something anybody has traditionally expected from Google. Infamously, the company used to focus on A/B testing tiny, incremental changes like 41 different shades of blue for links instead of trusting its designers to create and execute on an overall vision. The “design philosophy that lives or dies strictly by the sword of data” led its very first visual designer, Douglas Bowman, to leave in 2009.
I’ve recently proclaimed that my UX and Design philosophy is about the user. I don’t want that to be confused with it being about DATA. The user and data are 2 very different things.
For all you huge Apple fan-boys out there…… 😉
Ugh! Great overview of this branding misstep by Yahoo.
When developers build websites, they often focus on the layout and technical features but neglect one very important aspect — how the user experiences the site. If users have a hard time figuring out how to accomplish their goals, they will look elsewhere and not come back. A pleasant user experience, on the other hand, can create a favorable and lasting impression that differentiates a site from its competition.
Nice overview.
The Ultimate UX Design of: Responsive Web Design Navigation – Designmodo.
RyRy are discussing. 
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