Project goals, processes, and responsibilities should be clear to everyone on your team. Don’t focus on a unique design per se, unless that’s the main feature of your product, and collaborate with other designers whenever possible. When two people are thinking about the same problem, they will deliver better ideas. In this article, Boyan Kostov shares his story and lessons learned from redesigning a digital interior design shop.
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Data tells us that there are more mobile than desktop web visits. However, mobile conversion rates are still lagging behind those on desktop. As more mobile visitors flock to your website, every step leading to conversion needs to be optimized for convenience, speed and security. If your checkout is not adeptly designed to mobile users’ specific needs and expectations, you’re going to find that those conversion rates drop or shift back to desktop. In this article, Suzanne Scacca will dig into why your mobile visitors are willing to ditch their purchases altogether.
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What do data-driven personas look like, and how do you make one? Creating personas based on actual user data is a great way to build internal consensus, improve your product’s UX, and make your design team more effective. But it is a challenging project that takes time and dedication. In this article, Tim Noetzel will show you how to create and use data-driven personas to improve your design process.
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Finding people to participate in qualitative UX studies can be an elusive task. We tend to hear about studies and their findings, but we don’t hear how researchers recruit study participants. We need to access users and potential users in order to effectively conduct research. You’ll want to become familiar with each of these and adapt your approach based on your product, budget, and timeline. In this article, Victor Yocco will help you resolve this mystery.
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Designers tend to get lost in the details until they have everything mapped out. This is not recommended, as the design process is an iterative one. By establishing a high-level process to kick off the design phase of your projects you can work more efficiently to get a clear framework in place. Focus on establishing a clear design direction, and some clear user goals, before getting into the details. In this guide, Christopher Murphy will help you stay on track.
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User research should be a core part of every designer’s activity. There are a number of research methods that can help designers to both design new products and, as will often be the case, redesign existing products. In this article, Christopher Murphy will take a closer look at the importance of undertaking user research.
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You can’t afford to skip testing, because even a simple round of testing could make or break your product. Investment in user testing is just about the only way to consistently generate a rich stream of data on user behavior. Testing provides the inspiration, guidance and validation that product teams need in order to design great products. That’s why the most effective teams make testing a habit. In this article, Nick Babich will show you some tips that can be applied to different types of testing.
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When soliciting and listening to user feedback, you will inevitably run into bias on both sides of the coin: Biases will influence the people providing feedback, and your own biases will influence the way you receive that feedback. Bias is universal, but so too are the methods you can take to avoid it. By simply understanding what each bias is and by breaking down the ways that it appears during the feedback process, you can put measures in place to overcome misleading preconceptions and gather the most impartial feedback possible. In this article, Hunter Jensen will take a closer look at four of the most common types of cognitive biases that pop up when collecting and interpreting UX feedback — and how you can nip these biases in the bud, before they skew your production process.
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Quantitative research methods come with effective statistical techniques for determining a sample size. Qualitative research methods currently have no similar commonly accepted technique. Yet, there are steps you should take to ensure you have collected and analyzed the right amount of data. In this article, Victor Yocco will propose a formula for determining qualitative sample sizes in user research. He’ll also discuss how to collect and analyze data in order to achieve “data saturation.” Finally, Victor will provide a case study highlighting the concepts explored in this article.
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Previously, Bruce Lawson’s tried to make some supply-side improvements to web standards so that websites can be made to better serve the whole world, not just the wealthy West. But there are other challenges, such as ways to get over creaky infrastructure in developing markets, to surmount, and Bruce will also look at some of the reasons why some of the offline billions remain offline, and what can be done to address this.
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