UX Design Rants Quarterly Recap #1
This is the first instalment of my quarterly recap from my side project UX Design Rants. Every few months I’ll be replaying five highlights from my Instagram and Twitter feeds to the experience design community on Medium.
Without further ado here’s my top five:
Number 27: “There is no such thing as “Doing the UX.” It’s a practice not an output! And requires you to actually speak to real people”
UX isn’t something you simply do — it should be married with your approach to research, design, and strategy as a whole. Everything you create should be mapped onto the needs and requirements of the people who use your product or service. Speaking with them will enrich anything you create — ignore them at your peril!
Number 37: “We (designers) need to make the world a better designed place! Never settle for a poor user experience!”
User experience design isn’t limited to digital — as designers we have a duty to design the environment around us for the benefit of everyone. If something doesn’t work in the way that it should, for the people that use it then we have the ability to challenge that whether it’s at work or in the wild.
Number 49: “Don’t just accept the brief interrogate it! Make sure you identify the real problem at hand.”
As practitioners we have a duty to question briefs — taking them at face value can be harmful to our reputation, our clients’ businesses and the people using the solutions we craft. As designers ‘no’ and ‘why’ should be words we say frequently. Taking this approach will allow us to design smarter and better and ultimately get to the bottom of the real problem we need to solve and not just what can be comprehended by the client.
Number 54: “Development is not a thing that we only consider after the design! It’s an integral part of the design process.”
Developers should be involved at every stage of the project — work to avoid hard stops or rushed handovers at the end of projects. Expose them to user research, endorse collaborative working with designers, and develop streams of mutual understanding. This will ensure that the best possible experience is created for the end user and that teams do not remain siloed.
Number 74: “During the design process you will need to experiment with micro-interactions and animations. This enables you to define how the UI feels.”
You don’t have to saturate your design with micro-interactions and animations. But, experimenting with them can help give your designs personality and create moments of delight for the user when they engage with the UI. Remember: how an interface feels is as important as how it looks.
Hopefully you’ve enjoyed my first UX Design Rants recap. I’m already looking forward to sharing the next one with you! Clap as you see fit or feel free to share your own UX Design Rants in the comments below.
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