articles

Why UX teams need diversity

Lulu Xiao

The best UX professionals and teams have a diversity of skills in their arsenals that they use to research, design, and communicate effective design decisions.

Target These Three Innate Needs to Improve User Engagement

Geoff Harrison

We set design objectives for creating engaging products that will keep a user’s attention, encourage task completion, and be enjoyable to use. However, of those objectives, we find “enjoyable to use” the hardest to design for and measure. This is in large part because humans perceive experiences differently – what one person thinks is clever and clear, someone else may see as complex and opaque.

Should You Use a Focus Group for Product Design Research?

Siri Mehus, Ph.D.

At Blink UX we perform qualitative research to inform the design of digital products. Focus groups are a familiar form of qualitative consumer research. But while the focus group has a place in our research methods toolkit, we rarely pull it out. Why is that?

The Client Debrief, Part Two: 7 Steps to a Successful Meeting

Trista Meehan

Now that the benefits have been covered, let’s talk about the nuts and bolts of running an effective research debrief meeting with your clients. A little smart prep work can save a lot of time and effort when analyzing/reporting research results, especially when your time and budget is limited.

The Client Debrief, Part One: Purpose & Value

Trista Meehan

One of the important aspects of customer research is talking about the observations with clients afterwards—what worked well, what didn’t, as well as “ah-ha” moments that generate lively discussions and ultimately innovation.

Innovating in the Field: Agribusiness and UX

Roxane Neal

Farmers and those involved in agribusiness have historically been early adopters of technology to help increase yield, reduce time, and save costs. Going all the way back to 1793 and Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin we see farmers using design thinking for new solutions to wide and common problems.

Mind Mapping as a Useful Tool in Navigation Studies

Tom Satwicz, Ph.D.

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.

Trade-Offs In Moderated & Unmoderated Usability Testing

Siri Mehus, Ph.D.

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?

Eight Tips For UX Projects In Complex Domains

Roxane Neal

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.

Up & Running: 3 Tips For An Awesome Onboarding UX

Tristan Plank

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.

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.