Design

As I explained in my previous post, user experience design is a multidisciplinary activity which includes psychology, user research, information architecture, interaction design, graphic design and a host of other disciplines. Due to the complexity of the field a user experience team will typically be made up of individuals with a range of different specialisms.

«Digital news is broken. Actually, news itself is broken. Almost all news organizations have abandoned reporting in favor of editorial; have cultivated reader opinion in place of responsibility; and have traded ethical standards for misdirection and whatever consensus defines as forgivable. And this is before you even lay eyes on what passes for news design on a monitor or device screen these days. […]»

… makes it easy to quickly create high-quality custom controls for your iOS apps, Mac apps and for the web.

Low-contrast font color and unreadable texts? To hell with them!

Designing websites and related media for kids presents plenty of opportunities for Web designers. Openings are available at many businesses and schools, as well as through parents and kids themselves, giving designers many ways to find work on electronic and print projects that appeal to kids. The types of work range from interface designs for video games to websites for birthday parties.

In this installment of my column, I’ll take a look at one of the most important visual design elements for graphic user interfaces: typography. I’ll concentrate on general guidelines for the effective use of typography in the design of applications for children between 3 and 10 years of age. What considerations do we need to take into account when working with digital typography when children are its primary interpreters?

Free design resources layered PSD, resizable vectors, PNG icons

«[…] The more I work with flexible images & grids and media queries, the more I appreciate what can be achieved. […]»

Usability is ridiculously important to your website. It doesn't matter how cool your website looks or how amazing your content is if visitors can't quickly, easily, and enjoyably access and use it. Many of them will eventually just give up and look elsewhere. So how do you make your website as usable as possible? Well, you're in luck, because this article features 20 usability tips for your website. Technology will always change, thus changing the usability tips. So make sure you share your own tips and tricks with the rest of us.

Planning and communication are two key elements in the development of any successful website or application. And that is exactly what the wireframing process offers: a quick and simple method to plan the layout and a cost-effective, time-saving tool to easily communicate your ideas to others.

… and a preview of what’s to come

Direction, Design & Motion

"Sometimes I put my log in information into the register fields." "Me too! I hate that not only do I feel stupid, I have to retype everything again." For one of my side projects, Leafy Chat, we have just added the concept of user accounts. This includes the need for registration and log in (as well as log out and forgot password and so on). Leafy Chat only requires an email address and a password for both registration and log in, so it would be great to have some clever way to have both forms on the homepage. Some things...

A user-contributed collection of ready-to-use UI components and design patterns built using Balsamiq Mockups.

Download the desktop version of Balsamiq. Works offline, one-time purchase.

The design session - an article about collaborative workflow

Interface Collection for Design Inspiration

Resolution Independent UI (Apple Developer)

Big Player opens UI Library