What are /r/userexperience's favorite Products & Services?

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So, without getting into a flame war ... just no on Axure Team share, I'm sure it's got great points and everyone is welcome to tell someone else all about them.

Sketch allows us to quickly and rapidly create/deploy prototypes etc. with Invisionapp. (curious about studio)

We can also take the same file we used for wireframing, and then do the color comp if necessary without recreating the wheel. Black and white blocks become styled.

Handoff to developers the Zeplin files

We use Notebook Premium to annotate our wireframes and designs. Quick and easy.

This is an oversimplification, but you get the gist.

>Do you need a chart here? — Sometimes it is better just to show the user a few numbers and no extra elements that distract him.

This is so true. If you are communicating a single value or even 3-4 that do not describe a multivariate relationship, ask yourself if a user needs to wade through 4 colors and 20 vertices just to get some info they could process in 2 seconds.

This is a pretty great listicle, and it's geared towards live visualizations generated from user insights/behavior for the user. If you are a UX researcher and are creating inferential charts, worth checking out this as well: The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.

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Spotlight for me: Cmd + space. Or, rather, Alfred, using the same shortcut.

But then I don't really like using the mouse for this stuff - my "dock" is just Finder, Chrome, Photoshop, and Sublime - things I need to drag stuff onto to open.

I think there used to be an Applications folder that was pinned to the dock. That was pretty much the same as Launchpad, but in alphabetical order.

Don't Make Me Think is 216 pages. Lean UX is 152. The Design of Everyday Things is 368. All of the A Book Apart series are pretty short, weekend reads. The Elements of User Experience is 192.

I'm not sure which ones your are reading that are 500+. I've found just the opposite. I even had my product manager read Don't Make Me Think.

My experience is that every single client is different, so having a larger toolbox of methods helps me know what to apply to their particular situation. I'm not sure how helpful white paper style case studies would be to learning the trade, but everyone learns differently.

Which books are you specifically referencing?

What are you looking for exactly? While both Axure and Framer can be used for "prototyping", they are fundamentally different tools.

Axure is unbeatable when it comes to handling complex processes and multi-screen flows. Framer (Origami, Pixate...) are great for quick demos and showing how certain details should behave, in a purerly visual manner. And finaly Invision – super painful for iterative prototyping (even with tools like Invision Sync combined with auto layer comp export) while great for collaborating and getting feedback on the actual visual layer.

Here's one of my projects, utilizing both Axure and Framer. The Axure one covers all users flows but is super raw, the Framer one (gif at the top) is visually polished, but showcases just one detail. Hope that helps!

Definitely the first one. For example Google Flights use that on their search results.

Right arrow doesn't mean "expand" but open, most often in new page or modal.

I'm a Product Design Manager at GitLab, and you are 100% right, we would be more than happy about any kind of contribution! 🙂

You can either reach out to me, have a look at our design system (https://www.figma.com/community/file/781156790581391771), or watch our UX showcases to see what kind of problem designers at GitLab are solving (https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL05JrBw4t0Kq89nFXtkVviaIfYQPptwJz).

Hi. Don’t worry - it’s very common! Get comfortable with not knowing stuff.

I hope the below makes some sense. Im exhausted from a long day and conscious that I have half my brain already shutting down :) …

I don’t know where you are in your learning journey, but have a look at the design thinking double diamond where you start by understanding the problem and scoping and sizing it properly before you ideate solutions.

The problem that you’re trying to solve can quite often not be the real problem - have a look at the 5 whys method for getting to the problem behind the problem. It also helps you break problems down into smaller, manageable (and understandable) pieces.

These methods can help you gain confidence in understanding more about the problem space which in turn gives you confidence to explore solution space.

Get used to forming hypotheses (the scientific method for testing whether something is true or not) for your problem statements.

It also can be value to switch between looking at the big picture, then diving down into a bit of detail, then back to big picture thinking. It stops you getting too caught up in the weeds or, at the other end, too high level and abstract.

Let me know how you get on! Happy to help!

1. Personas might help in setting your goals with real users in mind. I find this helpful often times.
2. User-flows and touchpoints (maybe a sitemap as well)
3. Paper sketches and then mid-fi wireframes
4. Prototypes with wireframes to sort out the pain points.
5. Then jump into sketch/Figma and do the final UI

Jumping straight into sketch is tempting and all the other steps look like a waste of time but I feel these steps are more like breaking down the product design into manageable modules that lead up to the final UI.

For user-flows you could try draw.io or whimsical.co (personal fav). For wireframes, maybe Balsamiq.

-The Design of Everyday Things (Donald Norman)

-The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web (Jesse James Garrett)

-The Smarter Screen: Surprising Ways to Influence and Improve Online Behavior (Shlomo Benartzi, Jonah Lehrer)

-Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation (Tim Brown)

-UX Strategy: How to Devise Innovative Digital Products that People Want (Jaime Levy)

-About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design (Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann, David Cronin)

-User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product (Jeff Patton, Peter Economy)

-Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (Scott McCloud)

-Articulating Design Decisions: Communicate with Stakeholders, Keep Your Sanity, and Deliver the Best User Experience (Tom Greever)

-The Best Interface Is No Interface: The simple path to brilliant technology (Golden Krishna)

Am I the only one who finds flutter apps to be a little bit laggy. I mean check their gallery app, some of the animations are quite jittery. This can heavily affect the user experience.

Also, I tested their app on Pixel 3.

I'd assume they're using InVision, it says it's for an InVision project in the description..

>Here is another ui design I did for the secret InVision project. Stay tuned for more stuff.

I've never used InVision but Pixate (mentioned by /u/LobotomizedGeek) is free and fairly simple and could pull off something very similar.

No degree needed, but definitely a decent portfolio. I would start here with learning.. https://www.designbetter.co/ https://www.invisionapp.com/inside-design/

and learn as much as you can. Pick a current design tool (Sketch, Figma, Invision Studio) and get some online freelance gigs. If you can present 3 or 4 well rounded projects and prove you understand modern concepts, youll have no problem getting a gig.

> to get a better understanding of people’s concerns about fitness apps

I wouldn't bother with a survey - go where these communities are that use the apps, and see what the complaints are that are surfacing naturally. There are plenty of subreddits to choose when it comes to fitness, go hang out in some and make a spreadsheet of all the things people complain about- app, hardware, offline processes, whatever. This will help you tabulate all the disparate feedback on discussion forums, turning anecdotal feedback into data. I just took a stab and the first guess r/fitbit has 69.1k users, so that might be a good start if Fitbit is something that interests you.

There's also app store reviews, which are basically open-ended survey answers to the question "what do you think about app x", e.g. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.fitness&hl=en_AU&gl=US .

Tonnes of reviews there, sort by 1 star, then go through each with a qualitative technique, like create a short post-it note summary of each major pain point in each review, then affinity diagram them into groups of similar problems to see how much an audience feels a specific problem. You could do it physically to get some nice photos of post-its on a wall (heh) or digitally with something like Miro.

I wouldn't go straight to surveys when the data you're looking for is likely already surfaced on the internet somewhere. It's hard to get anyone to fill a survey out when they're not motivated, e.g. if the survey is from the app company, looking to add new features.

Hope this helps!

GIMP?

https://www.gimp.org/

It's free. Pretty popular among photographers.

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Are you using a business account? The complete adobe CC package (all programs) is only $52 a month for personal users. That's what I use. $79 for a business license. That's a pretty solid pricing considering back in the day each program was a few hundred each.

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I host my portfolio on GitHub Pages. I've seen a few other UXers host through it too. My experience with it was pretty much hassle-free. There are simple instructions on https://pages.github.com/ and anything not there is easily found through Google or on Stack Overflow. It took me at most an hour to set things up iirc.

The one downside I can think of is that employers can cycle through your folio revisions on GitHub, but this hasn't been an issue for me.

If you have a good-looking free template to use, or your own good-looking theme already (or easily) built, then I'd say Pages is a great choice.

i would strongly advise against getting JAWS. they capitalize on selling overpriced software to the disabled. NVDA is a free open source screen reader that was developed by a couple of blind guys. its roughly as popular as JAWS and the two are nearly interchangable. unless you want to make a career specializing in accessiblity JAWS is unnessisary. learning the basics of NVDA is definately a good idea for anyone who wants to make sure the sites they make are accessible.

 

another problem with blowing your budget on JAWS is that it would only cover blind people. there are a lot of other types of disabilities out there. i would imagine that creating a website that can be navigated entirely using only a keyboard is even more important than making your site screen reader compatable. there are a lot of people out there that don't have the motor-control to use a mouse, some of them don't even have hands.

 

if you are really interested in learning accessilibity your best bet is Deque University. For about $300 USD per year you can get access to all their courses. the courses aren't perfect. they only really cover the basics. but they are easier to follow than most courses and give you a good foundation for accessiblity. it should suit you well if you aren't looking to specialize in accessiblity.

 

once you have finished with the Deque stuff you should be ready to write the IPPA certification exams to get some certifications in accessiblity. the exam fees + the deque university subscription will probably come out to cost a little more than $600 but it would probably be easy to talk your employer into paying for it. its a useful set of skills to have.

 

edit: also, if you are going to use NVDA you should try to use some of that budget to donating $100 to them or something. they are a non-profit doing really important work.

For more on the Refactoring UI topic itself, I'd recommend the book — it delves deeper into many of the tidbits that the author went through in his videos.

For practical examples, I'd suggest to peruse the Tailwind CSS (and its productized version, Tailwind UI) site, since the author co-created this product and poured a lot of the UI design knowledge into it. There are also plenty of sites like Screenlane that collects UI designs in the wild across different industries and platforms; once you get past a certain point, it's more about putting the knowledge into use to develop your skills.

Everything else, I think you will likely get more diverse responses from /r/UI_Design than this subreddit.

>The problem is I don't really know how to build it from an UX designer's perceptive.

Try replacing UXD with user perspective. No paper. No grid. No site. No code. No software solution without an extraordinarily keen understanding of some user problem. The technology will get into the project, that is not in question.

We've had too much user experience with solutions scouring the landscape in search of a problem. Of an app that hasn't found its purpose in life.

Everybody's got an excuse for an app. An excuse to use the framework they (surprise) happen to favor. An excuse to learn UXD. A way of throwing their voice to a ventriloquist dummy.

Try a user. With a problem. Instead of working inside, out, and force fitting the app, try working from the outside in.

Stop assaulting the user with excuses for you to learn stuff. Stop assaulting the customer with excuses for asking for money.

UXD tip: Never try to put lipstick on a pig. It wastes your time and annoys the pig. Lipstick on a Pig is Not UX is flat out wrong -- it is the dominant UX out there. Both online and offline. It is the user experience side of inventoritis.

For low fidelity wire frames, I print out a bunch of these Printable Templates and just use pencil.

For slightly higher fidelity, I just use my design tool (Sketch or Figma). I try using the Material Design or iOS UI kit or our team’s existing component library to quickly arrange components, or just draw rectangles to see what it feels like.

Abby's book is great, as is Lisa Maria Marquis Everyday Information Architecture

Dan Brown's Communicating Design is also good

As a junior in college you're definitely not running low on time to choose your career field. If you start working on a portfolio now and really dedicate your spare time to learning then you'll be in a great position to get a summer internship.

There are two books that I'd recommend if you're getting started in UX: Rocket Surgery Made Easy and The Design of Everyday Things. The second book is probably available in your university's library.

My advice would be not to focus on tools but on methodology. If your university has a professor who teaches Human-Computer Interaction then he/she is a great person to ask about what other reading and research you should do. Look at products you love and make notes about what those products do well. The next time you use a website that confuses or frustrates you, analyze why that happens.

I've been in UX for about 4 years and really enjoy it. I work at an agency so there's a lot of variation in what I do on a daily basis. Sometimes I get to do pure analytical research, sometimes I get to conduct user testing, and sometimes I get to do prototyping. My job lately has involved a lot of interface work because one of our clients really likes my design style. Some jobs will want you to be a generalist who does both UI and UX while others will let you specialize in one area.

Try ProtoShare (http://www.protoshare.com/ - has mobile view on device. Prototypes are HTML, CSS and JS so they run on any mobile. We also just released a plugin for JIRA. https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/com.protoshare.jira.plugins.protoshare-jira

If you haven't yet, then The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman.

What's true in physical design is true tenfold in UX.

https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0465050654&pd_rd_r=D705Q3CWE6WPCVYA94P7&pd_rd_w=WBYHj&pd_rd_wg=xga3O&psc=1&refRID=D705Q3CWE6WPCVYA94P7

> I feel like designing a good Landing Page is like creating a piece of art

I'd challenge that. The goals of a landing page are quite different to those of art. What are the objectives of your design? How well does it accomplish that goal?

It's totally up to you and your organisation about whether the objective of your design is purely aesthetic appeal but I suspect it's not. Other stakeholders might be able to give you more input into what is trying to be achieved by the page, or from users about what they are trying to do on the page, such that you can come up with a more complete understanding of your goals which will lead you to a better design. I would strongly urge you to consider that the best landing pages you've seen weren't designed with the sole purpose of being pretty. "Looking great" is such an open criteria that it's not going to lead you to a good conclusion.

For example, Stripe has a great landing page. But not just because it's pretty. If the inspiration you took from it was just to try and make yours look as good you'd be missing why it's effective.

I took pride in doing mine from scratch, just because I like being in control of what I build and I enjoy making websites, free from the constraints of project managers, stakeholders, etc., etc.

That being said, I just DO NOT have the time anymore! The latest incarnation of my site uses a template built on Grav (which I can highly recommend - Wordpress without the database: getgrav.org).

In two (admittedly long) nights I had re-purposed a template to fit my needs and published it. Can't argue with speed like that. As long as the quality is there. Which it is.

This allowed me to focus on the content rather than the presentation, which hopefully has resulted in a better portfolio site :)

If this is interesting, please hang with https://www.bemyeyes.com/ for a bit. Sighted users anonymously drop into tiny video calls to answer small but essential questions like, "tell me which can is beans."

Try Figma. It's got nearly everything Sketch has except very specific plugins which only advanced users use but it works on every platform because it's web based (But has better performance than Sketch TBH).

It's a huge waste at this point to invest in a Mac OS just for Sketch.

Yep Github Pages will be fine for you. You can use Jekyll on Github pages, so it's quite easy to set up the structure for a multi-item portfolio, or case studies, etc.

I host a number of projects on Github Pages, and use Jekyll on a few too -- most notably my blog is Jekyll/Github Pages.

Jekyll is very easy to use, and you can even get pre-made themes if you're not very technical.

The point of good interface design is actually to make something so intuitive you don't need to think about it. We design things that people can form habits around.

What you don't realize is that habits aren't some awesome way that lazy people get to be more lazy, but an actual shortcut system that has allowed our brains to develop the ability of complex thought.

If you'd like to learn more about this (although let's be honest, you don't) I'd suggest reading the book The Power of Habit.

I am part of a fairly large UX team, in which most people have some sort of qualification in HCI, human factors, or a related area (either undergrad or post-grad degrees). I have a background in HF, and it has helped me tremendously.

In my opinion, any UX group worth its salt will place emphasis on an understanding of how people think, how to address biases and failures of human cognition, and how to evaluate designs with these aspects in mind. You will not get that from studying web development and visual design alone if you want to become a UX designer.

That being said, you can certainly read a lot, and depending on what you do with that, it can help. I would check out The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman and also the NN group, which has a number of good resources.

Do yourself a favor and uninstall the Facebook app and download Metal. Waaaay easier on battery, pretty customizable, and no intrusive facebook data mining like with the app. There's also a paid pro version that's ad free, has an updated theme, and a couple other features, its like $1.99 or something like that, totally worth it.

That's true and unfortunate, but the app is built on core OSX services so it's not liekly to be built on windows for the mean time.

However...

Avocode and Zeplin both allow windows users to view sketch files, and the Lunacy editor is free (it's a bit buggy though), it can import, edit and export sketch files - maybe you should try it out and leave a review here: https://icons8.com/lunacy

Here's one on Cousera. It's not an open session yet, but I believe it was scheduled to start in August 2014...

This is another one by Alan Dix. They're mostly just short videos, but they're free and will give you a general overview.

No worries. Invision breaks it down pretty well. Use Sketch for the UI, and Invision to make it interactive. Check out Invision, I just use my office's enterprise account. But, I believe they have a free version. https://www.invisionapp.com/

Sketch is more for UI design than prototyping, but overall it's taking more and more of my workflow.

At this point you're much better off spending $99 on Sketch, it is much more prevalently used (it is literally everywhere and super streamlined for UI design). Alternately, Sketch is terrible for doing flows so I use Omnigraffle or (god forbid) PowerPoint or Google Slides (only if I need to collaborate with product owners).

Sketch + murathan’s iPhone X mock-up

Designs are in a separate file, I export the artboards and plop them in the linked mock.

The mocks are flat, so it’s best not to use them for “real-world” product shots etc. (e.g. the classic coffee table product shot)

I would recommend reading/watching something on HCI.

The HCI book by Alan Dix is one of them.

If you are looking for a free video series, check out the HCI course on Udacity. All you need to do is create a free account.

Wait, I'll just post the link below.

https://www.udacity.com/course/human-computer-interaction--ud400

Found his comments here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8024073

'• Running Django on Heroku • Coffeescript, jQuery • SASS • A lot of webkit transitions & some animations • A souped up version of pjax for loading pages • Getting the data from APIs from Moves, Runkeeper, Withings, Foursquare, Github, Instagram, etc. • The run maps are a set of coordinates passed to Mapbox to make the map tiles & Leaflet for creating the SVG line. • D3 has really nice geo stuff, I use their mercator projection to convert lat/longs to points on the map of the world'

I just use Sketch so I can make something that is both illustrative of the concepts I'm trying to portray, and visually appealing to be presentable to the client. These are a couple of user flows I made for a current client, and this is the ui kit I got to help me make them quickly.

How can I make the (top right "User Intent") filter function buttons pretty AND intuitive?

See how it functions as a filter here:

https://www.twinword.com/ideas

Doesn't need to be buttons actually, just stands out and intuitive.

Note: if you go to the "Import" tab, you can see how if a button is "0", then it becomes greyed out. How can we make this intuitive?

Xtensio has a handful worth checking out, but their subscription model is a bit greedy for what they provide in my opinion.

I've taken to just making everything in Figma. It's faster/easier than anything Adobe and has uses way beyond prototyping screens. It's my go-to for everything you mentioned.

No problem, some good questions.

In my company the high level KPIs are set at board level for the senior leadership teams and linked in with bonuses.

Heads of /Directors of product have generally defined North Star metrics for us. More here https://mixpanel.com/blog/north-star-metric/

Commercials = 💰

If using a JS-powered dropdown is the right way to go, why do you have to bribe your CTO? Chosen and Select2, among others, are known quantities and are much better in certain scenarios than the standard chrome versions.

I agree with alerise, above. I would be lost without my actual notepad. I also like using things like UXPin. There's a free trial on it- but if you'd like a free ten days, I can send you a trial link from my account; which would extend mine as well. Just a thought. Here's an article from Unpin, actually, that I liked; it has gotten me re-working all sorts of things, and learning a lot. Let us know of your progress and best of luck. Happy designing!

Best,

ahappyname

I've asked myself a few times whether I should get a tablet, so I decided to answer it with UX (disclaimer I'm not currently employed)

I use Harvest to track time, expenses, and invoice people. It was pretty modern 3 years ago or whenever I started, now I'm sure there's better options, but it does the job and comes across as professional. It's free. People can pay me via Paypal / Stripe if I want them to, which is nice.

OP I can recommend this book . Read it myself (I consider myself to be someone who’s strength is critical thinking) and I’ve learnt interesting things. Also work with a wonderful designer who struggles with critical thinking and decision making (she’s awesome if she’s given direction and someone else makes decisions but lacking if she has to make them), and it has transformed her approach.

Decision making is a skill, just like any other so practice is what will help and this book gives you frameworks of sorts, like a template for things to consider and ask.

Hope it helps

It sounds like you may be quite conservative with your pricing. I bet they think they are getting a good deal.

I follow a few loose rules when it comes to pricing:

1. The client should think it's expensive, but worth it. As in, their eye should twitch a little the first time you tell them your pricing, but tell you after the job is done that it was worth every dollar.
2. If they don't push back on pricing you left some money on the table. There are entire books on negotiation (my fav) but if they don't negotiate it means they were likely willing to pay more and felt like they got a deal and didn't need to negotiate.
3. Negotiating on pricing isn't a confrontation. You want to work with them, they want to work with you, it's simply a civil discussion around the terms.
4. If they get mad at your pricing do you really want to work with them? That means they may be trying to manipulate you or negotiate in bad faith, or they don't think you're worth the cost. Both are excellent reasons not to work with someone.
5. People will pay what you convince them you're worth. They don't know what a good UX writer is worth, it's your job to tell them and convince them that $XXX/hr is worth it.
6. If it feels like you're charging too much and it makes you nervous to present the price, you're probably doing great. Everyone -- big famous agencies included -- are essentially faking it and trying to get away with charging as much as they can. It's all a big game basically, so why not aim for the fences.
7. Once you set a price you're kinda anchored there, so set it higher to start. The worst thing they can say is no.

Hope this helps!

For what it's worth, Samsung modifies Android so heavily it's probably more accurate to say the device's OS is Android-inspired. They offer Android in the same way Taco Bell offers Mexican food. Try a Pixel - the experience is completely different (and 1000% better in my opinion).

Or you could just tweak things to the way you want it with something like Nova Launcher.

This is a great question. I consider the time constraint, how important the feature/design is, and how common/widely accepted the principle is.

For example, if I get a request for an icon for a "process improvement funnel" (whatever the hell that is) with a two hour turnaround time, I will deliver a text label and cite 2-3 sources around icon usability. Here's why:

A) I don't have time to think about what a process improvement funnel is and what that means to our users.

B) It is likely that this icon really is not that critical to the success of the entire product.

C) It is widely understood that text labels tend to be easier and quicker to understand than icons.

In this case, it's not worth it to come up with an icon and test it against the label because the requester probably doesn't even want to invest the time into testing, and I'm almost 100% certain that users will respond more positively to the text label.

For finding sources, I keep a bookmarked folder of articles I come across, and I rely on my prior schooling. Nielsen Norman Group is generally a good place to start, and Universal Principles of Design is also a great book to cite.

I'm reading the book About Face 4 right now, and the concept of using personas as a design tool seems incredibly powerful. If there is no time or budget for research, you can use provisional/ad hoc personas.

However, since you're working primarily on visual design, you could refer to underlying principles in for example color theory, gestalt psychology and typography best practices. Books like The Design of Everyday Things and About Face contain a lot of useful design principles and patterns and are must read for every serious designer. Furthermore, you could refer to existing design guides like the Human Interface Guidelines by Apple.

I agree with some of these other comments. You'll have trouble finding a step by step guide to performing surgery, for example, because the steps dramatically change based on the type of surgery you're performing. You will however find volumes written about the shared concepts like anesthesiology or proper aseptic technique. The same goes for User Experience Design. There are fantastic books about user research, analytics, and product development out there. However, I haven't found a book that covers all of these subjects in a way that would yield exceptional results.

I will recommend this book- "The Lean Startup". It gave me an amazing perspective on user centered product development and I promise it will have the same effect on you. This perspective is the first step to being a good user experience designer and will have a greater impact than a step by step reference.

Not sure what you're driving at. Pretty much everything that can be manipulated by people is designed. Sometimes you don't notice the design until it fails but it's there. Highly recommend Don Normon's The Design of Everyday Things for more on that subject.

Start here:

The Design of Everyday Things

and here's an interesting class (actually just a video and a project):

Design Thinking at Stanford

Same. You have to have faith that whoever is hiring understands the difference--spending a few weeks in a bootcamp and thumbing through The Design of Everyday Things is incredibly different from spending a couple of years in grad school.

It's still a little irritating, though. :)

The Design of Everyday Things is definitely a classic. However, I think it's a victim of its own success - it's been so influential that I didn't find that much in it that I hadn't heard before.

Ouch. Send another message and if no reply send to other recruiter. Right now I would not assume you'd be interviewing next week since nothing is scheduled and they may ask you for 5 more dates. If something was scheduled you'd get an email asking you to confirm.

Also check Linkedin to make sure the recruiter you were talking to was still at Facebook. Someone CC'd a recruiter who had already left Facebook (I knew because I was talking to that recruiter at his new company!).

The passing to the second recruiter is normal. The ghosting for two weeks isn't...

When I gave my availabilities, the recruiter forwarded it a scheduler that day. The scheduler was supposed to get back to me within 24-48 hours (and she did). And I also booked a dry run that day.

Did you not do a presentation run for your second round + app critique? Since idk how prepped your recruiter prepped you, at the bottom of this there's a prep guide they should have emailed you about your presentation so you can start working on it.

I make some content regarding on my page :

https://www.instagram.com/kimalban

Here’s my hub of resources with courses, guides and things to know from folks in the field:

https://www.notion.so/Learn-UX-XR-3D-deb13998560c439ba80e2d81f3ba80cb

So you're looking for some thoughts on how to go about making it look appealing? Try Robin Williams' The Non-Designer's Design Book. Good, quick intro. Then look at similar apps for inspiration. dribbble.com has some good stuff.

Most of this list is open access. I'd be honoured if you'd take a look. Feel free to get at me with follow up questions or critiques. This stuff snowballs and some papers create more questions than they answer.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Caitlyn_McColeman/publications

I'm an online student in an Intro to Human-Computer Interaction course (available free on Udacity: [here](https://www.udacity.com/course/human-computer-interaction--ud400)). For one of my assignments, I am evaluating a prototype interface with a study.

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The prototype is designed to be used on a laptop/desktop computer (as opposed to mobile or tablet devices). The interface is designed to help locate documents, replacing the search or navigation views in Google Drive or Sharepoint/One Drive.

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The study is set up as a between-subjects experiment. So visitors are presented with one of two different interfaces. The study takes about 10-15 minutes and records data regarding how long tasks take.

This is actually a really solid article. A lot of it is parroted by this starting lean course offered free on udacity. I did it for a management class I had in Uni and it offers a counter view to startup culture that I think people really need to understand.

Really helpful article!

Thank you u/apuxui ! I actually found this lesson on Data Analysis made by Facebook, so I guess I'll start by taking the free course.

I think the answer depends entirely on how familiar you are with coding and what you're willing to invest in yourself and your portfolio. If you're somewhat proficient in html/css and enjoy learning about it, then by all means code it yourself from scratch. Is doing something you enjoy a waste of time? Even when it's going to produce something of value? Do you mind spending a Sunday afternoons playing around with a text editor, watching tutorials and self-educating?

I ended up switching from an extremely versatile theme to a hand-coded site because I was tired of troubleshooting why my css was being overridden be the theme. It was a significant time investment but I think it was worth it to have the ability to turn a design into a real website without making the compromises that templates and themes impose. My javascript competency is still kind of weak but I've become very comfortable with html/css, I'm not miles away from being able to call myself a front-end dev - another feather in my hat.

I found it helpful to create a codepen account so you can find examples of things you like and save them for later - lots of good demos for reference like this. Also, use some sort of version control like Github from the start. It's a lifesaver if you cock it up and decide you want to restart from the version you had yesterday. Pairing Github with Netlify CMS is a pretty user-friendly way to roll out changes to a live site,

I think the general consensus is that if you're looking at a UX position then whether or not you hand-coded your portfolio site isn't very important, but it's a nice touch and definitely doesn't hurt.

A way to get full (or nearly full) control over the design without coding would be to use Webflow. It actually generates good code, whereas pretty much every other site builder generates code that's kind of cringe-inducing.

Ah ok, I totally understand that online courses are difficult to keep up because the pressure is rather low. I thought the course you linked is completely online as well.

If you actually have group projects and so on this might be worth it. That makes it much easier because you have some pressure with deadlines which keeps you going and you work in a team. Team work in design is a very good lesson. You can learn to discuss designs, distribute work bases on skills and give each other feedback while not taking it personal. It's also great for building a network in that field.

I found another course about HCI on Coursera. Solid syllabus and it's free.

If you don't have any background in CS/UX, you should consider if you interested in learning web technologies like HTML, CSS, JavaScript. This always come in handy as a "UX person" and can only make you more employable. However, some people don't like the technical aspect which is totally fine.

Also the sidebar has some good resources in it.

Whatever you do, remember this: If you want to get good at UX you should practice it. Work on projects and do stuff. I would guess that most courses will include some assignments. Do them and take it serious. Try to do a good job and learn whatever it takes on the side. Need a prototype? Draw paper prototypes or learn some basic html and javascript. Need icons for the project? Spend some time in Illustrator to create them yourself. Need Wireframes? Maybe use/learn a software like Axure. It doesn't need to be perfect but you will get much more out of the education than if you do the bare minimum and just try to get that certificate/degree.

I'm not sure how much less extensive it is, but starting in June, the University of California, San Diego is offering a Coursera certification program in Interaction Design starting in June. It's a lot less expensive, or free without getting an official certificate. It looks like it would beneficial for someone in your position to check out. It can be found here.

In one of the other posts, someone suggested this one: https://www.coursera.org/course/hciucsd - whilst it has ended you can still go through the lectures etc. I'm currently doing that, and it's quite interesting. Keen to compare notes later on.

Stick with PC. There are plenty of similar apps to Sketch, my preference is Figma (win/osx/linux, or in your browser). The team I work with uses it because we don't want to support software that promotes walled garden ecosystems, along with needing machines that are more capable than what Apple offers for motion graphics and animation.

If you really feel the need to run Sketch there are plenty of options. The first thing that comes to mind is a Virtual Box with OSX installed on it. You could even run OSX from a flash drive if you wanted to. These aren't ideal solutions, but buying an entire computer computer for one or two apps is just silly.

Jason Rhoades did a great presentation on this at amUX a while back. Here's his deck: https://www.slideshare.net/toolbox9/giving-your-users-super-powers

You want to ask question that you think will give you worthwhile information. What do you want to "probe deeper" about? Do you want their first reactions? Will that get you the information you need? Maybe look into doing a desirability study.

Two links to look through.

https://www.xdstrategy.com/desirability-studies/

https://www.slideshare.net/megangrocki/desirability-testing-analyzing-emotional-response-to-a-design-11262575

If you're looking to have everyone work in one file, you can just use the wireframing project and create components (right click group, create component) to create a library of components local to your project.

If you're working across multiple files, you can either publish a component library (I believe you need a paid plan for that) or use a pre-made plugin that everyone could use to stay consistent across files. I found this one here as an example: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/wireframe-for-figma

I know VERY few (maybe zero?) people who are excellent quantitative AND qualitative researchers. It is good to have an understanding of both approaches and even better to have basic competency in both, but I would focus on really developing your skills on one side or the other.

As far as school goes: * Any HCI/CHI etc courses. * Any research methods courses (both quant and qual). Some of the departments that tend to offer these are public health, psychology, anthropology, sociology. If you want to go quant, any actuarial or economic modeling courses would give you a good background.
* This was JUST posted and I would sign up for it: https://www.coursera.org/course/hciucsd * If your school has any good design courses consider that too.

Beyond that do the standard stuff, attend any local UXPA or meetup.com groups around UX or applied research. Similarly internships are crucial so see what you can get going on that front. As other mentioned start reading on your own too. Steve Protigal has some awesome books.

I have used Hotjar for studying how users use my hybrid apps.

You can create funnels, forms, heatmaps and record "video like" sessions where you will see their screen and their actions on the website. The last time I used their service it was completely free when you stayed in some given quota.

For the lazy: Link to Hotjar

>PS: And despite all this, the website is not on the front page for its main keywords, far from it... This is really bothering me.

That sounds like more of an SEO problem? What's the link profile of the site like? Done any checks to figure out the domain authority for the site? Usually the main ranking factor that would hold back an otherwise keyphrase-rich site.

What about tooltips when you hover over the icons themselves?

I like ThreeHolePunch's suggestion of a key below, or you could use an icon that looks like a tiny legend (ignore the swords and shit): https://www.iconfinder.com/search/?q=legend

I know it's not available in Canada, but Simple really solves a TON of the issues we have with online banking. I think the biggest problem isn't just in the online banking - it's with the mass of hidden fees and obstacles banks provide. Get rid of those, and you have a much easier time helping users understand what they should (and could) be doing.

Interesting. There are some icons which are combination of two shapes, like this icon from FontAwesome. I think that sometimes it works ok because it has become a fairly common usage of that icon (or something like it) to indicate file import, but I think that any time you have two shapes combined there is a cognitive load which requires the user to perceive and understand both shapes and then combine them. If the combined shape is common or easily recognized, maybe it isn't so bad, but if it is something that the user hasn't seen before, it might detract from the learnability of that icon. I guess if it is clear enough, it might be easy to remember which would somewhat counteract the initial difficulty.

Alfred. Personally I don't even use the dock. Takes too long to fiddle around with the mouse just to launch an app.

You can of course use Spotlight instead but personally I enjoy the additional power of Alfred.

That software doesn't really exist. You could maybe get answers from a palette chooser site like this by inputting values of colors you already have.

The key for text visibility, aside from sizing, is just high color contrast compared to whatever the background is. Colors can carry some meanings (red for stop, green for go, etc, etc), but it doesn't sound like you're concerned with that.

I see. Now my go to app for fast wireframing and discovery is Concept on an iPad with pencil.

It close to the feeling of actually drawing with the benefits of working with vector.

https://concepts.app/en/

I'm surprised no one has said this.

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Their community tab in the app is filled with their official tutorials. That's how I learn all of the new features when they come out.

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Here's one on variants: https://www.figma.com/community/file/903303571898472063/Figma-Variants-Playground

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They release these tutorial documents the same day the update the app with the new feature. They're very well made.

We're using Figma at my studio now and whiles it got a bit of a curve, it's working out well.

URL for publish prototypes. Co-authoring Web and desktop experience Mobile mirror for realtime comp/protos

Just takes a minute to figure it out... use 'frame' for anything you want to link together.

I would start by asking why you specifically need to use Sketch? There are many other great UI design tools out there that support .sketch files. It seems like a lot of trouble to go to when you can use something like Figma: https://www.figma.com

However, I have ran sketch within a virtual machine before. I simply used virtualbox and the latest OSX iso. (this may be a problem as I believe you can't purchase Mac OS on disk anymore, you'll need access to a mac to get this). This was the guide I followed: https://techsviewer.com/how-to-install-mac-os-x-el-capitan-on-pc-on-virtualbox/

Do some research on Storybook: https://storybook.js.org/

That's what my company uses, but there are other style guide generators that can be used with React. If you're familiar with the Bootstrap css framework, you can go to the website and it shows an example component with basic instructions on how to implement it.

Storybook (or whatever styleguide builder you use) creates something similar, but custom to your specific needs.

If I had to go to that drop down more than once to select multiple names, I would probably quit the application. I'm not really sure I would appreciate multi-select in a drop down either, and that's usually because you never know if that's a possibility. Personally, I would make one text input field that holds all the names that would get the broadcast. You could do autocomplete with a drop down to help fill in the contents. If there's uploading to be done, I would have a button out to the right. When the upload is complete, there's two options that I could see: (1) auto fill the input field with all users or (2) add the users to the stored list of all users, and allow the user to pick and choose from that - this could also be a radio/checkbox option near the button to pick between 1 and 2. For the third tab, I would just allow manual entry in the same input field.

Take a look at this example in vuetify that demonstrates the auto complete with chips.

I've been looking at http://purecss.io/ but to be honest I haven't use it in production. Playing around with a framework is much different than actually using it to solve real design challenges that crop up. There is always http://foundation.zurb.com/ as well. I've heard good things about the latest release. I don't mind Bootstrap, I still really like it's push/pull system, maybe I am just getting bored with it :P

There are so many responsive frameworks now though, you could spend days just trying them all out. Each got a little different advantage, and something they are probably not telling you. Watch out for Flexbox frameworks that are really popular now (unless you know for sure that you don't need to support older IE).

That I agree. Waterfall in software environment doesn't really fit in for I believe the iteration process needed truly exemplifies the need to use of Agile/Scrum methodologies . But I wonder though, is getting Agile Cert from this website is good enough? Because I read from this article that there is better prospect for product designers if they have Project Management background. Here's the link: https://www.invisionapp.com/inside-design/hiring-survey/?utm_campaign=Weekly%20Digest&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=74265664&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8PvNv12doCJ_OdWvZ9zXpKA30ELKJUylDbxdueUbfEr2sRPIS9N_VvmBm39_l6W6vAGuLgtx...

I'm in a similar situation with an early stage startup, so can't offer too much advice, but this article has been quite helpful: https://www.invisionapp.com/blog/only-designer/

I would also imagine a bulk of your time there will be informing the rest of your team about the importance of UX or design in general, and getting buy-in for your decisions.

I'll second Figma and Studio, note that Studio and Sketch will be supported in the upcoming DSM by Invision so working in a team with both mac and windows might get a lot easier if people are using Studio and Sketch

Oh I see. Yeah, if you're the only UX person, it really is impossible to do things the right way. I was on a fairly large UX team in my last job, and we still had the same problem. If you're working on more than two products, it's not likely that you'll be able to work efficiently in all of them.

With this, you have to be an expert communicator and pick and choose your battles. You can't be everywhere, so things will go out without UX having much involvement. If you have established good relationships with devs on different product teams, start teaching them to consider the user in the way that you would, so that they're keeping an eye on things when you're not able to.

Also, read through this to see where you organization stands. When you're working alone, it's hard to really be effective.

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ux-maturity-stages-1-4/

Edit: this is also a good read about how to adjust your process across multiple teams

https://www.invisionapp.com/blog/40-40-20-design-process/

As someone mentioned, Craft is great for syncing libraries between designers. You might also check out Abstract, which is sort of like Github for design teams.

UX designer here - telling a founder (who typically already does not have a lot of time) to learn 7 tools, several of which do the same thing is horrible advice.

• Balsamiq is great for wireframing, but to not have to learn an extra tool you can wireframe just as well in Sketch
• You would typically not learn both Photoshop and Sketch for UI/UX design, most modern designers are heading towards Sketch
• If you are already familiar with Adobe products, they released Adobe Experience Design
• You would typically not learn Flinto, Principle and After Effects for animation, probably choose between Flinto and Principle
• After Effects has a steep learning curve and is overkill for a founder (and for most other designers)

As a founder, your time probably shouldn't be spent on the animation tools anyway, if your idea and/or experience sucks, flashy animations are not going to save it.

I prefer using only two apps; Sketch for wireframing + visual design, and InVision for interaction and subtle animation.

You could use a combination of 2 or 3 of this list, never anywhere near 7.

You can clearly tell whoever put this together does not actually know the design industry, this is poorly thought out and bad advice.

edit for app links

If you know how to use adobe, learning sketch should not be a problem. You can find some good tutorials on youtube.

I've heard good things about the Craft plug-in for sketch and invision prototyping.

There's no doubt that chatbot in website help to improve the user experience. As the bots provide 24/7 support for your audience/customers, it makes the website incomplete without it. It also helps in selling your products or services by creating a personalized experience.

I really like using Airtable for relating and organizing data. It is similar to Excel, but more robust while also being simpler to use. You can create relationships between tables/items/images/etc, and filter/group/search/organize the data many different ways.

Looks like the old version of XMind

Someone else said Omnigraffle...I've been using Omnigraffle for nearly 10 years and I've never seen it look like OP's post so I highly doubt it is Omnigraffle.

I use workflowy for notetaking and task lists. Simple, keyboard navigable, just enough structure to be useful, good across devices.

You're right though, it's a tough space.

I always tell beginners to start with Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug

I've never implemented one over the whole 5 days, but I have facilitated a lot of sessions using pieces of the sprint framework that I cherry pick based on what I need to get out of the time.

I think there are some really great exercises in the sprint framework, and I also think the time boxing and strict agenda can be super powerful. I would also say that the concept of diverge/converge work time is amazing for getting lots of great ideas quickly. And finally, I think the collaborative aspect really helps not only the outcome (way better design) but also the sense of ownership and interest in the success of the project from the other stakeholders, and helps me as a designer gather many inputs/ideas/constraints efficiently so I can understand the problem quicker and at a deeper level.

Some of my favorite exercises off the top of my head:

• Crazy 8s / Story boarding
• Problem statements
• Goals/Anti-goals
• Job stories
• Journey mapping
• 'How might we' generation
• User ranking

I don't go back to the Jake Knapp book often (even though I like it) but every time I have to facilitate a session I always go back to this:

https://www.amazon.ca/Design-Sprint-Practical-Guidebook-Building/dp/1491923172/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=design+sprint&qid=1615253593&sr=8-2

As for types of projects I use this stuff on, I would say it's usually when the problem is quite broad, or complex, or not well defined.

I find myself using the exercises often.

I would also say that generally I don't follow the "design and test in 2 days" part. I've found that those pieces generally take much longer to do well regardless of how well the sprint exercises went.

Hope this helps!