Inclusive avatars, everyone should be sketching, how to work with developers and more #UX
What’s hot in UX this week:
What’s hot in UX this week:
Designing inclusive and diverse avatars →
Avatars are often used to help people visually organize comment threads without having to keep track of an individual’s name, or to provide a placeholder identity for users who haven’t uploaded their own personal representation.
While this goal of humanizing online communities with human-like iconography is good, platforms have almost exclusively started off with very male and often white-typed imagery.
Everyone is a designer and everyone should be sketching →
Sketching is an effective method of communication because we get to use multiple channels of communication together. Here’s why everyone who consider to be a designer should be sketching several times a day.
via Fabricio Teixeira
It’s not you, it’s your form →
Forms can be the first step in a relationship with an organization, or the final one in a journey to achieve a goal. Here are a few thoughts on how to get this relationship right from the start.
via Caio Braga
User research when you can’t talk to your users →
It’s not breaking news to say that the core of UX, in a vacuum, is talking to your users to gather insights and then applying that information to your designs. But it’s equally true that UX does not happen in a vacuum.
via Fabricio Teixeira
Description or prescription? →
The Design Thinking methodology provided many people with a perception that if you follow the prescribed process you will arrive at innovation. That’s not really the case.
via Caio Braga
How designers work with developers →
Products revolve around people and even on the development front, a major part of a product designer’s workflow is collaborating with people — especially developers.
via Caio Braga
Mobile first, desktop worst →
An op-ed from the front lines of product design at MetaLab. First, a disclaimer: the subject of this article is Mobile First in the context of design process, not development.
via Fabricio Teixeira
Design with a growth mindset →
An exploratory dive into the concept of growth mindset; the idea that one can — with the proper motivation, hard work, and practice — become great at almost anything.
via Fabricio Teixeira
Design principle: consistency →
Consistency is one of the molecules of the Design DNA. Consistent design is intuitive design. It is highly useful and makes the world a better place.
via Caio Braga
News & Ideas
Here’s the world’s smallest cup of coffee
People don’t want new, they want familiar done differently
An article on leveling up as a user researcher
The best design is invisible, right?
A place for designers to slow down
Slack’s new search identifies experts in anything, even Westworld
Dubai now has its own official font
Domino’s + IFTTT: make your house react to your pizza order
An artificial skylight that is hard to believe isn’t real
Tools & Resources
Atlassian now has a design portal
A Sketch plugin to export images to Slack faster
A free book about “the way to design”
Wonderland mag is a magazine about emerging pop culture talent
UI patterns of old operational systems
Scrum is a platform for creators to share what they are working on
SendBird is a chat SDK for apps and websites
Interface Lovers is an online magazine for and about creatives
5 camera hacks in one minute (video)
Getting started with Headless Chrome
A year ago…
Design Practices in Virtual Reality →
Historically digital interfaces, have been crafted to suit the hardware requirements of 2D screens. Designers have been fitting content and navigation inside the frames of displays, translating our real world experiences to icons and other UI elements (Bill Moggridge, 2007). Bloating the virtual environment with 2D elements ruins the immersion that VR offers.
Designing for VR should not mean transferring 2D practices to 3D, but finding a new paradigm.