UI/UX Articles and Interesting Tidbits of the Week
April//19//2019
Here are some interesting finds on UI/UX of the week!
1.https://designmodo.com/transactional-emails/
Ethics in Design. An interesting dissertation/article on the relationship between Ethics and Design. It’s an insightful look at how ethics can permeate and influence the design process, but also how a concept such as ethics can be brought forth as a trendy catchphrase, in order to just be commercialized as yet another “catchphrase/expression of the season”. Highlight of the article includes:
“So if in your design you are careful and mindful, the product has a better chance of having a careful and mindful effect. When we design, we shape people’s visual perceptions and people’s thoughts about what they are observing. And we shape how they interact with it. That’s the essence of design. We shape people’s actions. There is an eminent ethical dimension to design, which is maybe why this ethics and design, these two notions, have started finding each other. There is a hidden connection between these two. If you are mindful in your design process if you take the time and if you take care, then it may have that effect when it is used.”
2.https://www.fastcompany.com/90335048/the-fight-to-regulate-dangerous-design-is-heating-up
Regulating Dangerous Design. Hailing from Fast Company, this article focuses specifically on the concerns and regulations that are emerging around children’s privacy online. With all the current discussions around misappropriation of data, fraudulent appropriation of users records, among many other topics of similar nature, this article sheds light on the regulations being put in place that focus specifically on safeguarding children’s privacy across the breath of social media. The article also gives some insight into how some dark patterns within interfaces, capture not only children’s but also adult’s attention and data, in ways that are not immediately perceptible. Highlight of the article includes:
“The proposal’s 16 principles, called the Age Appropriate Design Code, would ensure that internet companies turn on the strictest privacy settings by default, provide bite-sized explanations of how a company is using a child’s data, collect as little data on kids as possible, and generally design their services in the best interests of children, according to existing standards set by the UN. Each of these elements would be based on a child’s age, and the code lays out recommendations for how companies can be compliant for each age group: pre-literate and early literacy (ages 0 to 5), core primary school years (ages 6 to 9), transition years (ages 10 to 12), early teens (ages 13 to 15), and approaching adulthood (ages 16 and 17).”
3.https://blog.marvelapp.com/7-deadly-sins-user-research/
Issues to Avoid in User Research. An insightful article from the Marvel blog, focused on issues to avoid when tackling user research. It’s particularly relevant, since it tackles issues such as credulity, bias, dogmatism, obscurantism, vagueness among others. It points out issues, but also advocates for more insight, strategy, observation, merger of research sources, to name but a few crucial findings. Well worth a read. Highlight of the article includes:
“Quantitative data tells us what people are doing. Qualitative data tells us why people are doing it. The best kind of research combines the two kinds of data. For example, you might choose a survey to validate personas you’ve developed through site visits. Or you might choose multivariate A/B testing to fine tune a landing page that you’ve developed by usability testing. Triangulation is like having different camera angles in a movie. It would be hard to understand the full picture of what is going on in a movie if every frame was shot as a close-up. Similarly, it would be difficult to understand the story if every image was shot as a wide angle view. Like movies, you want your research to show the close-ups but you also want to see the bigger picture.”
