3 min
How Much are People Reading Online?
Last week, Jeff Alpen, Blink’s Client Engagement guru, asked me if I could quickly pull together some existing research for one of our clients.
Articles
4 min
Mind Mapping as a Useful Tool in Navigation Studies
Usability studies are great for identifying issues that prevent users from getting things done, however our goals for user research often encompass trying to gain insight into what users understand about the overall structure and layout of a system. Recently I used mind mapping in a body of work around mobile navigation and found it was an effective and helpful research tool.
9 min
Getting Started with Apple Music, Pt. 2
I spoke with six active digital music listeners about how they typically consume music. These six participants were then asked to look into Apple Music and provide feedback on their overall impressions of the service and its features after using it in the session.
3 min
Getting Started with Apple Music
It’s highly probable that I’m part of the last generation that remembers walking into a music store and purchasing a physical thing that plays music. Whether that’s vinyl, cassette tapes, or CDs, these tangible relationships we had with music are quickly fading away.
10 min
Trade-Offs In Moderated & Unmoderated Usability Testing
At Blink we practice evidence-driven design. That means that the design recommendations and decisions we make are grounded in solid data and sound reasoning. But what counts as good evidence? What are the data and reasoning that stand behind a well-motivated design decision?
7 min
The Future Will Not Be What You Expect
This week I had the honor of giving the commencement address for the 2015 University of Washington’s Human-Centered Design and Engineering Department graduation ceremony.
5 min
Eight Tips For UX Projects In Complex Domains
How do you provide value quickly to your client or to your product team? How do you confidently argue for findings and steer designs when you are new to that industry’s domain? Below I share a few tips from Sarah Barrett, a few colleagues, and myself.
6 min
Up & Running: 3 Tips For An Awesome Onboarding UX
The onboarding process is a critical step in setting your users up for success with your product, but there are a number of considerations and hard decisions to be made when you are designing your onboarding to define how best to get your users familiar with your product and its value.
5 min
What is a User Persona and How Do You Keep it Alive?
3 min
Three Steps To Better Dashboards
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.
5 min
Saying What We Mean: Evidence-Driven Communication Practices
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.
7 min
Comparing Apples and Peaches: Why great UX is important for business success
3 min
Work Practice Matters
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.
8 min
Visual design tips for non-designers: using color
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.
7 min
Tips for Success in Complex Field Research Projects
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.
2 min
Three Essential Components of Persuasive Design
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.
1 min
What's Next for YOU in UX?
Close to 250 people from around the world gathered together for the third-annual ConveyUX conference. Visitors arrived from Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Korea, Mexico, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the USA. More than 30 presenters shared their knowledge and ideas in over 40 sessions throughout the three days
3 min
Fundamental Dimensions of Contrast
Designers know that using contrast is an effective way to direct attention to a specific design element. But what makes it so effective?
5 min
Path-Finding in Software: User Assistance in Mobile Apps
How do people find their way through applications? Generally, words and images carry much of the weight when it comes to path-finding in software. It doesn’t matter whether it is an enterprise-level desktop application, a consumer web site, or a mobile app — text and graphics play an important role in directing the user in performing tasks.
5 min
Sweat the Details: Animation and Microinteractions in Mobile Apps
Crafting a useful, usable, and beautiful app takes a lot of work and a willingness to throw your designs out the window again and again until you get things right. Even if you get that far, there are usually at least five other apps out there that already do what yours does. Why is yours better? What sets it apart?
3 min
How Blink UX Inspires Corporate Social Responsibility In the Workplace
A recent NPR campaign asked Millennials to define themselves using single words — words like adventurer, optimist, eco-conscious, and activist were among the most popular ways we describe ourselves. These really resonate with me, and I can say without a doubt there is one thing Millennials care a lot about: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
7 min
The fine art of creating experience maps
Here are more details about how we think about target users and their engagement with products to inform experience maps.
5 min
Dear (Digital) Diary: A Powerful Tool in User Research
These days, diary studies can be much richer and more flexible by taking advantage of digital, connected technologies. At Blink we’re developing a suite of internal digital tools that help researchers and designers be more effective; one of these tools is our Digital Diary.
7 min
UX and SEO — A love story
If you want to design the best experience for your users, you need to know their stories. Here at Blink we recently wrapped up a project that demonstrated how the “qualitative story” of user research and the “quantitative story” of SEO and analytics can be paired to produce powerful insights that provide the evidence you need to craft the right experience.