Category Archives: From the Instructor

10 UI Design Patterns You Should Be Paying Attention To

This is an article from 2009. While the article itself refers to these as UI (User Interface) design patterns most of them are more related to UX (User Experience) Design.

Smashing Magazine

10 UI Design Patterns You Should Be Paying Attention To

Design patterns were first described in the 1960s by Christopher Alexander, an architect who noticed that many things in our lives happen according to patterns. He adapted his observations to his work and published many findings on the topic. Since then, design patterns have found their place in many areas of our lives, and can be found in the design and development of user interfaces as well.


http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/06/10-ui-design-patterns-you-should-be-paying-attention-to/

UI Design Patterns

10 Great Sites for UI Design Patterns

You don’t want to spend your whole life redesigning the wheel do you? No, neither do we. If you are looking for a design that solves a problem that has been solved inside a different application before; then the template for your wheel is probably already out there. That’s a design pattern to you and me.

https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/10-great-sites-for-ui-design-patterns

User Interface Design patterns

User Interface Design patterns are recurring solutions that solve common design problems. Design patterns are standard reference points for the experienced user interface designer.

http://ui-patterns.com/

10 UI Design Patterns You Should Be Paying Attention To

Design patterns were first described in the 1960s by Christopher Alexander, an architect who noticed that many things in our lives happen according to patterns. He adapted his observations to his work and published many findings on the topic. Since then, design patterns have found their place in many areas of our lives, and can be found in the design and development of user interfaces as well.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/06/10-ui-design-patterns-you-should-be-paying-attention-to/

9 Crucial UI Features of Social Media and Networking Sites

The main function of a good user interface is to provide users with an intuitive mapping between user’s intention and application’s function that manages to provide a solution to the given task. Basically, user interface describes the way people interact with a site and the way users can access its functions. In fact, usability is a biproduct of a good user interface and it determines how easily a user can perform all of the functions provided by the site. Usability is a crucial part of every design, especially on websites with a large amount of functions and users.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/06/9-crucial-ui-features-of-social-media-and-networking-sites/

Inspirational Showcase of UI/UX Design Presentations—From Line 25

Line25

Inspirational Showcase of UI/UX Design Presentations

Taking the time to present your work to clients or to simply display the project in your portfolio can drastically increase its value and really show off the hard work and expertise you’ve put into it. Today’s post showcases a bunch of designers who have produced some wonderful presentations for their UI/UX projects. These inspirational case studies give you a detailed insight into the project development and give a walkthrough on how the app works. Be sure to click through each one to see the full picture!

http://line25.com/articles/inspirational-showcase-of-uiux-design-presentations

10 tips on how to make slides that communicate your idea, from TED’s in-house expert

TED BLOG

10 tips on how to make slides that communicate your idea

—From TED’s in-house expert

Aaron Weyenberg is the master of slide decks. Our UX Lead creates Keynote presentations that are both slick and charming—the kind that pull you in and keep you captivated, but in an understated way that helps you focus on what’s actually being said. He does this for his own presentations and for lots of other folks in the office. Yes, his coworkers ask him to design their slides, because he’s just that good.

http://blog.ted.com/10-tips-for-better-slide-decks/

Interaction Design Foundation—Personas

Personas

This is another article that offers clarification on the use of personas.

The persona method has developed from being a method for IT system development to being used in many other contexts, including development of products, marketing, planning of communication, and service design. Despite the fact that the method has existed since the late 1990s, there is still no clear definition of what the method encompasses. Common understanding is that the persona is a description of a fictitious person, but whether this description is based on assumptions or data is not clear, and opinions also differ on what the persona description should cover. Furthermore, there is no agreement on the benefits of the method in the design process; the benefits are seen as ranging from increasing the focus on users and their needs, to being an effective communication tool, to having direct design influence, such as leading to better design decisions and defining the product’s feature set (Cooper, 1999; Cooper et al, 2007; Grudin & Pruitt, 2002; Long, 2009; Ma & LeRouge, 2007; Miaskiewicz & Kozar, 2011; Pruitt & Adlin, 2006).

https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/personas

Understanding Personas

Understanding Personas

A persona is a fictitious identity used to represent one of the user groups for who you are designing. They are created by taking both qualitative and quantitative data from; analytics, surveys, interviews user testing and other research techniques that the UX designer uses to craft a sketch of an ideal user.
A good persona needs a name, photo, realistic and research based motivations and goals, and a backstory rooted in reality.

Usability.gov—Personas

http://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/personas.html

Building data based personas

http://www.sitepoint.com/create-data-backed-personas/

How To Create UX Personas (video)

http://uxmastery.com/create-ux-personas/

An Introduction to user personas—UX Lady

http://www.ux-lady.com/introduction-to-user-personas/

UIACCESS.COM—Example Personas

http://www.uiaccess.com/accessucd/personas_eg.html

Free Persona Template

http://fakecrow.com/free-persona-template/

Understanding Scenarios

Understanding Scenarios

A scenario is a “day in the life of” one of your personas. It should include both the persona’s daily working tasks as well as how your app or website fits into their lives.

Writing a scenario is as simple as taking your research and extrapolating from it to document the tasks that your persona’s perform when using your product.

A step by step guide to scenario mapping

http://www.uxforthemasses.com/scenario-mapping/

Using Scenarios

https://uxthink.wordpress.com/2010/11/30/using_scenarios/

Usability.gov—Scenarios

http://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/scenarios.html

UIAccess.com—Example Scenarios

http://www.uiaccess.com/accessucd/scenarios_eg.html