articles

What is a User Persona and How Do You Keep it Alive?

Kathryn Kitchen

Three Steps To Better Dashboards

Heidi Adkisson

Not that there is anything wrong with making a dashboard visually appealing—it’s a key part of the user experience. But I’d suggest an approach to designing dashboards that begins with the what before getting into the specifics of how to present the display.

You CAN Design For Both Trust & Conversions

Brian Essex, Ph.D.

Recently at Blink we made an online purchase without understanding all of the terms and conditions. We bought 200 attractive, customized mugs for our office, however, there was one unrecognized flaw: After putting them in the dishwasher, some of the imprinted ink came off.

Saying What We Mean: Evidence-Driven Communication Practices

Sarah Miller

Communication: It’s how we talk to each other. How we talk to clients. It can be nebulous and squishy, yet it’s important and impactful. Communication is directly related to the quality of the projects we deliver, how well we meet our clients’ needs, and the satisfaction we have with our work.

Comparing Apples and Peaches: Why great UX is important for business success

Tom Satwicz, Ph.D.

Work Practice Matters

Heidi Adkisson

The person hovered over OmniFocus at the start of each day? Yes, that would be me. Rewind 20 years and there I am again, but this time lugging about a three-ring Franklin Planner. Suffice it to say that planning and I go WAY back.

Visual design tips for non-designers: using color

Peter Stern

In an effort to do my part and help increase the world’s number of well-designed presentations, I’m starting a series called “Design Tips For Non-Designers.” These tips aren’t intended to make designers out of non-designers. They are simply to help folks who don’t have design training become better at visual communications. This is for all the project managers, researchers, and marketing folks out there who want to improve their deliverables. You know who you are.

Ask Your Clients What They Need, Every Day

Karen Clark Cole

It’s my goal to build a company that people love. Employees love working for us and clients love working with us. It all boils down to building relationships — myself building meaningful relationships with each employee, and everyone in our company building those same kinds of relationships with each other and our clients.

Playing Legos With Kids Makes You A Better Employee

Karen Clark Cole

A friend told me he usually goes into work late because he’s busy playing Legos with his son instead of racing out the door to work. I thought to myself, “I bet he’s a great employee and gets a lot done.”

What Gets You Fired?

Karen Clark Cole

It sounded absurd to me, but apparently no one at Blink had any idea what gets him or her fired. “Oh dear,” I thought. “That’s a problem.”

Tips for Success in Complex Field Research Projects

John Dirks

We user researchers often find ourselves in unusual places doing unusual things: in homes watching strangers set up media equipment, in passenger seats noting how drivers use in-car technology, in manufacturing settings observing CAD/CAM fabrication, in hospitals interviewing medical staff, just to name a few.

Three Essential Components of Persuasive Design

Brian Essex, Ph.D.

In the projects we work on here at Blink, our clients have specific actions that they would like their users to take on their website or app. For example, one goal might be for a user to download software from a website, while another might be to complete a registration form.