March 2016

UX, Mobile, iPad, Tablet, HCI

The Best UX Design Articles of March 2016

March 31, 2016 Design Technology

A catalogue of some of my favourite and insightful UX articles published in March 2016.

UX is Not Design
The ‘design’ in ‘UX Design’ is not related to visual aesthetics. This article reveals the true meaning of user-experience design.

How everything we design will in turn design us back
Entrepreneur and Creative Director, Jones Virtanen, writes on the interesting notion of ‘ontological design’, which says, everything that we design in this world, will in turn design us back.

Smart UX: Designing For The Future
A list of valuable future-oriented UX design questions for your next application or website design project.

How We Made Our Client’s Site Accessible by Law
Vince Sevilla presents a case-study about a California-based disability centre, and how his agency redesigned an “accessible” website.

Usability testing of Mobile Applications: A Step-By-Step Guide
Justin Mifsud, presents a structured view of testing mobile applications in this very insightful article.

7 Remarkably Simple Methods To Boost Checkout Conversion Rates
In this article, co-founder and CEO of Invest Consulting Khalid Saleh, speaks at length about ‘shopping cart abandonment’, and the checkout process conversion rates. And how to improve the analytics and the experience.

Microinteractions: The Secret of Great App Design
As a mobile app designer, you just can’t ignore the power of microinteractions for providing a delightful feedback. This article outlines the why, what and hows of dealing with microinteractions to design better apps.

How to Make Your Site Senior-Friendly
Declining eyesight and motor abilities create tremendous usability challenges when designing for senior persons. This is an insightful article which speaks about the sensitivity of building websites for seniors with key UX recommendations.

Five Best Practices for Becoming a Data-Driven Design Organization, Part 2
Michelle Bacigalupi (Experience Design Management & Strategy for WebEx Online at Cisco) lists a set of best practices for developing a data-driven design organization. You can also read Part 1 of the article as well.

Product Pages: UX Tips to Boost Conversions
As more products flood the shopping market, the competition to get stuff sold online will intensify. An article that broadly outlines the UX elements to make your product page stand out.

Best UI design principles to develop strong mobile apps
A comprehensive list of details that could make or break your mobile app.

Probability: A UX Designer’s Second-Best Friend
Probability is about making educated guesses about the future. Even without research, we all have an innate sense of probability, that makes us judge a bad idea from a good one. A very good article on the effects of using probability in UX design.

 

Featured Image – by courtesy of ebayink / Tablet use 2 (Some Rights Reserved)

The Monuments Men (2014)

March 18, 2016 Movies

I just found The Monuments Men appealing on several aspects. It’s just a great WWII movie. As an art school alumni and an art lover, I could accept the sensitivity around nurturing art, not just as an artifact, but as a document of a culture reflective of human traditions and lifestyle of that era. In Frank Stokes words (played by the ever-so-elegant George Clooney!):

You can wipe out an entire generation, you can burn their homes to the ground and somehow they’ll still find their way back. But if you destroy their history, you destroy their achievements and it’s as if they never existed. That’s what Hitler wants and that’s exactly what we are fighting for.

And my mind goes back to what Hitler was thinking when he wanted all the artworks to be housed in his ambitious Führermuseum (which never happened), later ordering his men to destroy it all because they lost the war. Not even sure how many pieces of artwork were destroyed by his men, but that’s a different discussion.

Directed by George Clooney and based on a true story non-fiction book (The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter), while the Allied army is fighting the Nazis, a group of men – basically artists and architects, from the  Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program are in search of precious artworks which have been looted by Hitler’s men when they occupy parts of Europe. Barring this team of fervent art lovers, the generals of the Allied force care less about canvases and colors. They’d rather focus on winning the war in Europe. In a thrilling turn of events, the group leads a heroic effort in finding most of the paintings, important among which is the Ghent Altarpiece. The paintings and other pieces of work are found safe in copper mines which prompts Frank Stokes to note – “It seems the Nazis took better care of art than they did people.”

I would highly recommend The Monuments Men, even if you are not a WWII/war movie fan.