Like most trendy buzzwords, “crowdsourcing” is very misunderstood. It is very different than asking a lot of people the same question. And sometimes it is the worst way to get the answer you’re looking for. In this article you will learn how it’s done, why it works, and how to avoid screwing it up.
Many websites are made with one flawed assumption: if it’s on the screen, people will click it. That is a very dangerous assumption.
This week’s ProTip is a subtle-yet-effective tip for making your copywriting more persuasive. It is also a way to make negative things feel lighter and keep the reader reading or the listening listening. It is the subtle art of “and” vs. “but”.
These days, in an age of 20-something billionaires and an app for everything, we are more feverish for the “next big thing” than ever. In all circles of business from the creative end to the analytical end, everyone talks about ideas like they are mythical creatures that appear to those who hope for them the most.
Most of the time, we plan a way for users to use our site or app, and design a way for it to be used like that. However, users often misunderstand or take a different path and to us, it feels like they are making “mistakes”. The best way to eliminate user mistakes, is to design them out of the product in the first place.
Wireframes are the extensive documents full of empty rectangles with labels like “user name here” and “image”. I admit, they can be boring. But they’re important, if not essential. If we are the “architect”, wireframes are the blueprints.
This week’s ProTip is brought to you by the letter F! Yay!
There are always 1000 ways we can design a website. One major factor that makes a layout easy to use is how well you use the F-Pattern.
When we design stuff, we always have good intentions. However, users don’t care about your intentions, they only care about the what they care about.
In User experience design (UX) we can test a lot of things: the colour of a button, the impact of our copy, or the effectiveness of a layout, just to name a few.
Or we can launch a site.
Scientific theories are a matter of constructing models through experimentation, which then predict future experimental results. By this definition, UX is a science, not an art. That’s why good UX people can improve specific details on purpose, and non-UX people are just guessing.
