A design filing system for greater collaboration
Do any of these problems sound familiar?
Frankenstein files
Designers can’t find the correct master files, so instead of recreating files based off production, they hack together pages using a combination of screenshots and Sketch components. This problem is perpetuated by other designers who continue adding pieces to the frankenstein.
Knowledge dependency
File names are inconsistent or unintuitive, so designers largely depend on others’ knowledge to locate specific files.
Corrupt Sketch files
Multiple designers opening the same Sketch file create conflicts and corrupt the original. Designers gradually lose trust in the system and duplicate files locally as a precaution.
File organization is unfortunately one of the less…
A practical workflow to manage design projects
“What’s your team’s design process?” This is one of the most frequently asked questions by interviewees and one that I’m excited to share! Though it’s easy for me to answer this question now, previously I had a hard time conveying design culture because process was nonexistent. In fact, this lack of shared process presented several challenges within our team.
Problem 1: Unclear team culture/vision
Lack of process was a symptom of deeper problems around team culture. Even though we belonged to a team, it didn’t feel like we united in vision. Without clear purpose and structure, design get-togethers dwindled and the team felt further fragmented.
Problem 2: Designers worked in silos
…
Help users make fewer errors through design
One night while driving through a dark desert road, I missed a sharp right turn and ran straight into the ditch. The warning sign, placed shortly before the turn, was barely visible under the cover of darkness.
Think about the last time you intended to take some particular action (driving for instance), but it didn’t go quite as you had planned. In general these are called errors, and it’s fairly common for people to make errors like mine. …
Quick tips for visual design newbies
I’ve noticed a trend after screening dozens of junior designer portfolios. Designers (mostly from bootcamps) were heavily focused on UX and evangelizing the Design Thinking mindset popularized by consultancies like IDEO. What lacked was the ability to breath life into designs, and portfolios fell flat in showcasing visual design fundamentals taught in art school.
As of April 2017, a quick search on Glassdoor reveals that companies are hiring more Product Designers capable of end-to-end design.
A beginner’s guide to running your first user testing session for $0
User testing is expensive. Designers, researchers, product managers, and developers are often tasked with performing user testing on limited budgets. As a designer, I’ve worked on numerous projects under similar constraints and I’d like to share some tips and tricks I’ve learned throughout the years.
Though I’ll focus on testing methods for digital products, the general concepts can apply to services or physical products. The goal is to show ideas to users early to evaluate, iterate, and validate assumptions.
What is user testing?
User testing, also known as usability testing, is a process that identifies issues with a product by testing it with real…
