How to build a gamification system the right way and how Fitbit, Waze, and Duolingo use it to enhance their products. — When I was young, I remember my mother telling me I can go play only after I finish my homework. Which was goddam frustrating at the time. But thinking about this, I realise that most of the things I was doing back then were automatically classified into 2 groups: a…

Short analysis on the current state of affairs and a few tips to keep in mind. — You know how it works. Casually watching a review on Unbox Therapy about this mug that apparently is unspillable. I’m having a laugh but by the end of the video I’m also intrigued what people ask for it. There it is on Amazon. On sale at $14.99 from $24.99. For…

An essential guide for efficient UX and product designers on why, when and how to create and manage a Terms and Statements Inventory document. — Imagine a meeting in which several members of the product team try to agree on the features of a new platform. There are two UX designers, one visual designer, two front-end developers, a back-end developer and a project manager. Put together, that’s probably more than 60 years of experience in…

Why experiences require speed of use alongside ease of use. — This article was originally published on UXPin. Today’s product experiences are becoming blazing fast. We expect speed. We demand no more than a few minutes for Uber car arrivals, same-day deliveries from Amazon, instant upload time of huge images on Facebook and not a single millisecond of buffering when watching…

An overview on the implications of integrating the Endowed Progress Effect into the task design of any UX process. — What is the Endowed Progress effect? It was described in 2006, in a research paper called “The Endowed Progress Effect: How Artificial Advancement Increases Effort”, composed of a few experiments. The authors, American professors Joseph C. Nunes and Xavier Dreze, explained the endowed progress effect as: “a phenomenon whereby people provided with artificial advancement toward a…

An overview on how to apply the mechanism of priming to enhance the user experience of your designs. What is priming? Priming is a nonconscious form of human memory concerned with perceptual identification of words and objects. It refers to activating particular representations or associations in memory just before carrying out an action…

I was arguing earlier that, because there are too many ways to add a reminder using Google products, Google actually needs to concentrate their efforts and create a dedicated app for them. One of these ways is Google Calendar. Powerful, complex and one of Google’s core apps. At the time…

Once Material Design came into existence, Google had to redesign all its products so that they fit the new clothes. Basically, they had to dump the no name sleeveless shirt look of the old apps and go for the more polished Levi’s slim fit shirt feel that came with the…