DesignR

If you think good design is expensive, you should look at the cost of bad design.

Flying solo can be daunting, but it also offers plenty of benefits. It’s worth pushing past the initial discomfort. For one, you are free to schedule your days exactly as you’d like, attending sessions that interest you and skipping those that don’t. More importantly, flying solo makes it easier to connect with other conference-goers. Without the comforting-but-protective bubble of a friend or group of co-workers, you are inherently more approachable.
Here are a handful of tips for thriving at a conference at which you don’t know anyone.

Users do not want to spend time working out how they can achieve their goals according to the constraints of the system; the user interface design must take this pressure off them, freeing their attention up so they can move and interact (largely) unconsciously to complete their system-based tasks. Don’t forget to consider states, and theming. For more, check out material.io

The Four Categories method entails dividing ideas according to their relative abstractness, ranging from the most rational choice to the 'long shot'. The four categories are the rational choice, the most likely to delight, the darling, and the long shot. This method ensures that the team covers all grounds, from the most practical to the ideas with the most potential to deliver innovative solutions.

FOR POST IT VOTING. Write all of the ideas which the participants have chosen on individual Post-its. Then you give all participants a number of votes (around three to four should do) to choose and write down their personal favorite ideas. Participants vote by using stickers or simply using a marker to make a dot on the ideas they like. This process allows every member to have an equal say in the shortlisted ideas. You can also use variations in color in order to let participants vote on which ideas they like the most or which they dislike the most.

Invite the user (or your team-mates, during a discussion session) to provide open feedback by coming up with three kinds of statements. Gather and share the lessons you have learned with your team. Then, start a brainstorming discussion on how to synthesize the feedback you have received. The next step is to go out there and create your next prototypes. Remember to have a bias towards action! Keep iterating your prototypes by constantly testing and integrating your findings, and eventually, you will reach an optimal solution that addresses most of the key areas of your user needs.

At some point in your ideation sessions, you’ll have reached a critical mass of ideas, and it will become unproductive to attempt to keep pushing for more. The aim is spotting potential winners, or combinations of winning attributes, from a number of ideas. The Six Thinking Hats method will help you work through the pile of ideas that you’ve generated and selected the best ones, which you can start prototyping and testing. The technique provides a range of thinking styles to apply to idea selection.

We live in probably one of the most divided worlds we’ve ever lived in. It’s challenging. It’s scary. There are things happening socio-politically. There are things happening militarily. There are things happening culturally that are pushing us all further and further apart. The divisions, the fissures that are cracking between each of us are terrifying and they are not getting any better. And I’m not here to tell you that empathy is the only way to solve that. But it’s a start. It’s the beginning of a process. It’s the beginning of inquiry. It’s the beginning of getting to a place where you can start to understand each other better. And perhaps pull some of those fissures closer. The clock is ticking. I hope we’ll do it together.

With agility, energy, and speed working in their favor, the challenge comes when showcasing originality, ingenuity, and quality. It’s the latter elements that make the difference between impressing the prospect and actually closing the deal.

A good pitch Tells the client a story. A great pitch Tells the client a story they haven't heard before. A winning pitch Tells the client a story they haven't heard before and substantiates it with data. Getting the edge isn’t just about showing you’re hard-working, but that you work smart. Here’s are some rules for you:

Everyone wants to be liked, except for Tim. Tim doesn’t give a sh**. I’ve been a people pleaser. It took me many years to realize I didn’t have to live that way. This is a tough topic to write about because we stand in our vulnerabilities which then forces us to examine our true selves. I recently read this article on thenuschool.com , and it resonated to my core. As we are all aware, there are givers, and there are takers. I am in the process of learning how to practice relationship reciprocity. Although we would like to believe in purely altruistic acts and while I’m sure they exist – I believe on some level whether consciously or unconsciously there is a component of reciprocity to be gotten. Any healthy relationship must have this component. There has to be a natural give and take flow to it. Next time you get the urge to go above and beyond, ask yourself the crucial questions and invest in your relationship in a healthy and fulfilling way. It’s making me happier and allowing me to be on the receiving end of life as well. And, of course, I have to mention that I’m not a shrink, a doctor, or a member of Mensa. I’m in my own way, trying to pay it forward!

It’s crucial to understand what this means. Most business people think of a project as a discrete event with a start and a finish. Like building a new home — there is a design phase, followed by a construction phase, and then the project is complete. Most of the investment is behind you, as only maintenance is required going forward. The keyword in *product design* is Cycles. In theory, everything makes sense and should work smoothly, right? But the reality can be different, there are a lot of factors, and each part has its own challenges and problems to solve in order to avoid bottlenecks. Developing, for example, has plenty of techniques and approaches to be always more efficient (like Scrum). Design on the other hand… let’s face it, folks, we can do it better. With the right budget and right team, anything is possible.

No matter what profession you are in, you need a strategy to go from A to B. Strategy will help you tremendously, even if you have nothing to do with business development. If you want to develop YOU Inc. (which we all want to do), then you must pick up these books and read them through. Illustration by Patrick Hruby

The following 10 principles can help unlock the potential strategic leadership in your enterprise. These principles represent a combination of organizational systems and individual capabilities — the hardware and software of transformation. You may have already adopted some of these tenets, and think that’s enough. But only when you implement all of them together, as a single system, will they enable you to attract, develop, and retain the strategic leaders who’ve eluded you thus far.By following the 10 principles we’ve outlined here, you will give yourself the skill and influence to pave the way for others who follow. That’s fortunate, because the ability to transform amid societal and business challenges and disruptions is essential to your company’s success — and perhaps even to its survival

My belief is that while creative professionals bring deep expertise to the table, so do our clients; it’s just that our areas of expertise are different. You know a lot about designing brilliant solutions to your clients’ problems. Your client knows more than you do about their audience, strategic goals, and internal processes – so let them guide your thinking on those things, and guide them on how to make the most of your strengths. If you can help everyone focus on their areas of expertise—and to support each other in doing what they’re best at—you’ll have an efficient, effective, and probably very happy team.

“Systems run the business, people run the systems.” (Michael Ge**er, The E-Myth Revisited). No systems = no quality control, no customer experience consistency, no profit, no sleep. It all starts with systems. Even if you are a full-time freelancer, you should create systems for the way you operate your business. It may take a little bit of work, but it will save you stress and time trying to manage yourself through each project. 📊 Once your systems are in place, hiring becomes easier too. Instead of hiring someone to fulfill the ambiguous needs of your business, you look to hire people who are capable of running your business systems. 🙌

As a fast-moving team, Figma has eventually launched its own plugins. If you haven’t had a chance to explore them yet, here’s a list of helpful Figma plugins as for now.

MVP: Minimum Viable Product | 💫 MVP refers to a product development approach where the product is released when it has all the features to satisfy the early adopters. The final, complete set of features is only designed and developed after considering feedback from the product's initial users. You can define the most valuable features by conducting research, and analyzing the data with user journey maps and using the prioritization matrix. For a successful MVP, you need to make a difference between what the user WANTS and what the user NEEDS. How about you? Do you believe in releasing MVP's or you prefer to wait and launch with more features?

I believe in collecting information on every important topic and verifying it. This is why we are here—in the spirit of inquiry. Be open to new ideas, new suggestions, new ways to do things. Avoid seeing crises as insurmountable problems. Accept that change is a part of living. Move toward your goals. Take decisive actions. Look for opportunities for self-discovery. Nurture a positive view of yourself. Maintain a hopeful outlook.

The key to success in any relationship is good communication, but most of us are not taught the fine art of really listening to another person. Taking the advice to listen to understand instead of to reply is very important in relationships with coworkers, partners, parents, and anyone else in your life.
asks “What's more valuable - questions or answers? When dealing with a new client, it can be difficult to diagnose their issue. They might come to you and say they need a logo redesign or a brand strategy, but instead of agreeing and pricing that outcome, an expert would get to the route of their problem before making any diagnosis.
How do you gain a better understanding? By asking questions. The more relevant questions you ask, the more clarity the client will have of the solution and therefore the easier it is for you to achieve it for them.
Clients (and ourselves) often know the answer to the problem, but they need someone to guide them into surfacing it. We lack objectivity and logic when it comes to things personal to us, and being asked the right questions by an outside source can help us gain perspective.
Next time you're on a sales call with a new client, try asking them questions so that both parties can understand the root of the issue and arrive together at the best way to solve it.
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A comprehensive shortcut list of public design systems of the world’s top companies.

Brands need to build products that deliver value to your customers. And to do that, you need to get to know them first. Developing products that actually have value requires an insight-driven process. That’s a much more successful approach than building a product in isolation and trying to market it later on.

Just the word itself conjures up an image in the mind of intimidating, omnipresent, dark forces, lacking any clear form, lying in wait & perpetually plotting to destroy your fragile little business with a mere swipe of its hand. We talk about The Competition a lot, but what role does it actually play in product design? And what role should it in fact play? It’s important to define your direct and indirect competitions. Pin your competition in the appropriate circles!

says “Design is a popular subject today. No wonder because, in the face of increasing competition, design is often the only product differentiation that is truly discernible to the buyer. The introduction of good design is needed for a company to be successful. However, our definition of success may be different to yours. Striving for good design is of social importance, as it means, amongst other things, absolutely avoiding waste. […] A product must be functional in itself but it also must function as part of a wider system. Good design must be able to coexist. […] You cannot understand good design if you do not understand people; design is made for people. It must be ergonomically correct, meaning it must harmonize with a human being’s strengths, dimensions, senses, and understanding.”

Anyone who tells you their product was a success because of the intuitive design they created is overselling their skills. There’s no such thing as intuitive design. We are socialized to understand our experiences. Any “intuitive” design is simply a combination of signifiers and affordances we’ve come to understand from previous experiences. We didn’t grow up knowing that a hamburger menu means more options. Heck, we didn’t even know it was called a hamburger menu until someone told us. Why would anyone unfamiliar with the concept ever assume that a stack of 3 lines is called a hamburger menu? But the hamburger menu, like many other signifiers that we’ve learned over time, is a universally understood design asset we should use to our advantage. It’s our job as designers to understand why something works and make it just different enough to be new and interesting. When you have a consistent design, there’s no arguing about what something should look or feel like. This isn’t to say our designs should be inflexible, but there should be a defined reason behind the experiences we create. Beautiful consistency is a nod of respect to your users.
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It tells them you care about the ease of their experience but you also want it to be fun to play with and visually appealing as well. Creating beautiful consistency comes with a deep understanding of the fundamentals of design and the reasoning behind a user’s experience.
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How to be consistent? Here’s a few tips on how to make your design consistent: Introduce strong visual hierarchy, with the most important things big and bold. Align everything nicely along the grid, or introduce any other kind of visual order. Use a consistent < ahref=”https://www.invisionapp.com/inside-design/quick-guide-color-palette/”>color scheme throughout the app. Keep the navigation consistent across all screens/ Re-use the same elements for different situations. For example, design a sample notification and color-code it for different situations. Consistency and structure will help the user feel at home

There is no UX vs. UI…as if they are two separate things. You often see people erroneously try to separate the two by defining UX as “how the product functions” and UI as “how the product looks.”
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If you are completely dedicated to the idea of defining UX and UI as two separate elements, it must be done, at minimum, in this manner: UX and UI overlapping as two contributing parts to the whole. -
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The fact is that the user experience “encompasses all aspects of the end-users interaction…” The UI (user interface) is inside of the UX (user experience). Along with everything else that contributes to the user's interaction with the company: visual design, motion design, interaction design, information architecture, etc.

“User experience encompasses all aspects of the end-users interaction with the company, its services, and its products.” — Jakob Nielsen and Don Norman

Credits: and .

DESIGN TOKENS, popularized by Lightning Design System and helpfully explained by Nathan Curtis, are a valuable asset to any organization, particularly large ones with many products/platforms to support. Think of each token as a relatively static value representing a design decision. The heading’s color, the padding on the text input and button, and the space between the components can each be represented by a design token. Those decisions can then be stored in a generalized form, typically JSON or YAML, and distributed in whatever formats necessary — SaSS variables, Javascript objects, Sketch palettes, etc.
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THEMING is a powerful concept that aids in applying component styles consistently. By making your theme configurable, you can maintain that consistency while allowing your components to be used in a wider range of applications. For example, each product using the design system could have its own theme to differentiate from one another while still clearly belonging to the same family. Material’s case studies do a fantastic job of illustrating the power and flexibility of theming.
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In a design system, relative values, like the variation of the color, are generally a much more important design decision than the absolute values, like the color it's based on. Themes are always changing, but the tokens stay the same.

The purpose of the pitch is to present a good potential bet. 💫 It’s basically a presentation. The ingredients are all the things that we need to both capture the work done so far and present it in a form that will enable the people who schedule projects to make an informed bet. There are five ingredients that we always want to include in a pitch, as listed in the post.

Who should be involved in a design system initiative? The people that create and manage products and services need to work together. What goes into the system should be validated by either those who lead the design system initiative or the final decision-makers. Also, there are many involved in the end-user research, brand research, customer insights, analytics, sales, marketing, testers, and customer services, and these people might not use the design every day. Having a constant feedback loop of actionable customer insights flow-ing into the system can significantly raise its value.
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If you find yourself repeating, “it’s not just for designers,” maybe it’s time to call it a service/product system, or an experience system instead. Most organizations give their system a name that ties it to their brand or organization. For example, Adobe “Spectrum,” ABB
“CommonUX,” Centrica “Nucleus”

If you’re working as a Product Designer or if you are familiar to Product Design, you have probably heard about design systems.
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“Design has always been largely about systems, and how to create products in a scalable and repeatable way… These systems enable us to manage the chaos and create better products… A unified design system is essential to building better and faster; better because a cohesive experience is more easily understood by our users, and faster because it gives us a common language to work with.”
– Airbnb
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But what the heck is a design system? It is not only a classification of components but a whole process that is built and maintained by a company to help them develop superior user experiences and strengthen their brand.
Those will help to: reduce design debt, eliminate Inconsistencies, save time. The more people are on the same page, the fastest the process is.
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What are your tips and best practices when it comes to working with design systems?

Jakob Nielsen's 10 general principles for interaction design. They are called "heuristics" because they are broad rules of thumb and not specific usability guidelines. Credit: Jakob Nielsen.