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design

Mar 07 2023

5 Soft Skills That Every UX Designer Should Have

Overview

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Creating a digital product is full of rewards and challenges. No two projects are ever the same, meaning that each individual one must be approached from all angles. There are certain skills that are crucial if one wants to be a successful designer. Skills like wireframing and prototyping are key, but soft skills are just as essential to good design.

The following soft skills are a necessary part of every UX Designer’s toolkit.

1. Empathy

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How can you build a product that accomplishes a users’ goals if you don’t understand their needs and desires? In order to be a successful UX Designer, it is paramount that you put yourself in the users’ shoes so you can truly design with their needs in mind.

You have to be able to design and solve for various types of users. Learning to empathize with them is a skill that will develop over time, but you have to feel what your users feel in order to shed light on what will be most beneficial for them.

One of the best ways to begin implementing this into your everyday practice is to speak directly to your users, whether it’s through surveys, user interviews, or usability tests.

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For example, the core of a usability test is not about understanding your product, but about understanding how your users use your product. What is the path they take to get from A to B? What frustrates them the most? What makes them happy?

Another great technique for getting to know your users is observation. Immerse yourself in their environment. It is your responsibility as a UX Designer to be empathetic toward all users of the product and make certain that their goals and needs are met.

2. Effective Collaboration

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You have probably found yourself in a situation where you were wearing a variety of different hats as a designer. You also most likely realized that relying on yourself to perform all these jobs was quite challenging or nearly impossible. This is because an individual cannot build a successful product on their own. It’s a team effort, encompassing roles from UX Designers to Product Managers to Developers to Marketing and so on.

As a UX Designer, you will have to collaborate with other teams on a daily basis. You will partner with developers to understand constraints, or connect with the marketing team to ensure you are consistent in how you communicate the value of the product to your users.

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Integrating with other teams means you sometimes have to rely on others to guarantee that everything goes smoothly. This is why collaboration is a skill you must possess in order to be an effective team member. If you know how to best utilize each team’s specialized skill and vice versa, you will create a mutual respect for each other. This will allow you to create an environment for the product to flourish and reach its full potential.

3. Adaptive Work Ethics

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The world is constantly shifting, which means that the most popular trends today are waiting to be replaced by tomorrow’s fads. There is a good chance that what excites a user now will bore them next week. As a UX Designer, how can you combat this unpredictability? First, it is your duty to plan and be aware of the malleability of trends in technology. It is critical to stay informed and up-to-date with the latest craze, while also not losing sight of what is truly important.

In order to keep yourself from drowning in a sea of uncertainty, ensure you are listening to UX/technology podcasts, reading recent articles, or planning lunch-and-learns with your team. Remember to not become too wrapped up in the “now” because that is likely to change. Instead, stay informed and keep that information in your pocket so that you are prepared for any situation.

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Each project brings new challenges that you may not be able to plan for. It’s important to not become frustrated or overwhelmed if some aspect does not go exactly as planned. If you craft a solution for a product and it does implement as intended, then have backup solutions. There is more than one answer to the problem, and planning for the unexpected will help you adapt more quickly. While it is nearly impossible to know every single problem that could emerge, you can be aware of these potential issues and plan out how you will solve them. You should be equipped with the necessary skills and mindset that will allow you the flexibility to make changes during any stage of the process.

4. Passion

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While being passionate is applicable in any field, it is especially relevant to UX; as a UX Designer, a lack of interest will seep through into the product. If you don’t have a passion for creating and solving problems, then you won’t be an effective UX Designer.

It takes a lot of patience to craft the right solution and you have to crave thinking outside the box and digging deep. You may need to come up with 100 different solutions before you have your “aha” moment. This probably means gathering more research, running tests, analyzing data, and creating wireframes. You have to possess that inner drive to create (and iterate and then iterate again). You can grow to love the field of UX, but this “soft skill” is more of an innate passion for design that you should already possess.

5. Open-Minded Approach

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This may not be a skill that immediately jumps into your head when you think of UX Design. Yet, if all UX Designers were narrow-minded, then it would be impossible to ever accomplish anything. How can you create a great product if you are not open to new ideas and other points of view?

You need to listen to your team members—and your users—and know when and how to utilize their ideas. You also have to be open to trying solutions that are unprecedented. The same solution is not going to work for every problem, so learning how to be accepting of new methods will go a long way. Be comfortable with the unknown and receptive to other ideas.

Tolerance for other perspectives is what separates a beginner from an expert. Think critically, but withhold judgment. Be inventive, without boundaries.

Closing Thoughts

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Soft skills are equally as important as technical skills, if not more vital. Being able to empathize with users or collaborate productively with your team is what will ultimately drive results and culminate a great product. As a UX Designer, you will be constantly faced with new challenges which force you to think outside the box.

Possessing these soft skills will help you clearly align your user’s goals with critical business objectives. Therefore, raising the bar on your overall successes as you continue to learn and grow as a UX Designer.

Written by Kaela Coppinger · Categorized: Design UX/UI, Learning and Development, Product Development · Tagged: best practices, design, Designers, INRHYTHMU, learning and growth, product design, product development, soft skills, ux

Jan 31 2023

Photography For UX Designers: The Top 4 Tips To Make The Most Of Online Imagery

Overview

Photography is a crucial part of designing a layout or banner. When thinking about an image to place with text, whether it be overlaying on the image or underneath, above, or to the sides of an image, a designer needs to consider two key factors:

  • Does the image make sense?
  • Does the image have a conversation with the layout?

Elements such as the dynamic imagery of people interacting, strong lines, action, or diversity are all ways that design and imagery can speak to each other.

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Using these elements helps create a story for the viewer to interact with and incite a more personal experience on a larger scale. To have a viewer relate to content is achieving the ultimate goal: Fostering an emotional experience is gold-medal status.

1. Ensure The Image Speaks To The Content

When developing the design of a page with photography in mind, the closer the image relates to the content, the more likely the viewer’s eye moves around the page in a pleasing manner.

Strategically placing images on either side of the screen will help the viewer have resting time between content, which creates a “visual storyline” for the page. The images also help the user stay engaged with the page.

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2. Photograph Composition Builds Directional Sight Lines

Make sure that the main element of the image—such as the people or subject matter— is placed to the right or left. (The exception being the positioning of the direction of the content in an advertisement or banner) If it’s in a layout, making sure to have the image point in the direction of the content that viewer’s need to be directed to focus on first, is crucial.

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3. Appropriate Image Content Enhances The Story

Make sure the subjects in the image are both dynamic as well as inclusive. All subjects should tell a story to help the user understand what the content will say, like the synopsis of a paragraph.

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4. Complimentary Color Theory Provides Both An Aesthetic And User-Friendly Experience

Studies have shown that a dark background with the text knocked out makes for a more eye-grabbing advertisement.

For example, if the image is being used for an advertisement, it’s easier for users to read smaller text if it’s dark text on a light background.

It’s imperative to make sure the section where the text sits is not too busy. The user needs (and wants) to authentically experience content without strenuous distraction.

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Closing Thoughts

Keeping all these elements in mind while looking for imagery to “illustrate” a layout or advertisement will help any user have a better user experience.

Written by Kaela Coppinger · Categorized: Design UX/UI, Product Development · Tagged: design, Designers, INRHYTHMU, learning and growth, product design, product development, ux, uxui

Jan 24 2023

The Importance Of UX Implementation In Financial Institutions

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Overview

As a UX Designer, one will experience a multitude of industries across their career. Two of the most historically challenging areas, across the board, to assert major design change have been Healthcare and Financial.

When approaching an expansive operational change pitch, its important to succinctly addresses the major pain points from a creative/UX view when working with corporate stakeholders that have a seemingly opposite set of skills and expertise (ex. math vs. art).

The challenge becomes: how do we shift traditional “path of least resistance” thinking to a mindset visualizing the importance of forward progress?

The following ten strategy points are key to informing a current and/or future financial services client of the progressive mindset behind updating their UX infrastructures:

1. View Design As A Methodology, Not a Package

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Banks and financial institutions perceive design as a package while fintechs see design as a consumer-centered approach, but let’s call it what it is; a lack of understanding.

Design has been viewed by many clients as “paint” and not “structure,” and that is specifically why it’s so important to educate stakeholders on Design Thinking and Methodologies. It is so much more than making a logo, picking colors, and playing with fonts.

Design-based decision-making should not be led by Product Owners, Project Managers, Developers, Engineers, or even Stakeholders. They can provide unique perspectives, present opinions on research, provide reasonable requirements, all while engaging with in-depth data and applicable feedback. But the rest should be in the hands of the Designer. 

2. Increase The Scope Of UX Design Influence

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UX experts are trained to be user-centric while curating and crafting experiences that ensure user satisfaction and delight. Thinking that “anyone can do this” is pure hubris. Yes, everyone can be creative. No, not everyone is good at it.

Hire the right talent and give them the freedom to explore.

Financial apps must be about ease-of-use and intuitiveness before tackling how pretty it looks or stuffing as many features in as possible. UX, as a design method, ensures that the user is fairly represented against the requirements of the need. Stakeholders typically have strong opinions on design, but they aren’t likely to be the ones using it everyday. It’s acceptable to push back, but you should have the research to support it.

3. Challenge The Banking Legacy

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We should remember that it takes two – Product Owners and UX Leads should be solidified as the cornerstone of every good project from the very beginning. You need both of them to always be present: the client advocate and the user advocate.

Traditional corporations rely on structured hierarchy to get things done. However, inserting the pragmatism of Design allows for individual agency and decision-making to happen on a more detailed level and that is where the trust is needed. Your UX folks are smart. Let them do their thing.

The core takeaway is that UX people are needed before the project kicks off and should remain attached during the entire duration to capture data, extrapolate findings, align with visuals, and prepare to iterate on the next version. They help tie it all together. Let the User Experience team understand how users experience your product.

4. Switch From Fragmentation To Ecosystem

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“Fintech”, as a label, is shifting to include any new products and/or brands that are promoting digital as the main primer for change within their organization and offerings. Banks are resistant to this type of change simply due to how their control of wealth is dependent on small static changes over long periods of time: Take money, sit on it, make interest, share dividends.

Fintech is breaking down walls that banks cannot adapt to, like cryptocurrency, DeFi, and other new concepts. Not all banks have invested in fintech, but all fintech have some form of banking service. 

Many traditional banks failed due to the inability to accept rapid evolutions as they typically desire stability and slow, predictable movement. That’s what happened in the mid-2000s when small banks couldn’t invest in online banking in a reasonable timeframe and/or provided a poor user experience. They “stayed the course” right into getting absorbed by larger entities to survive.

We know that embracing flexibility and new ideas can be risky, but a good risk assessment will show massive gains for a healthy investment in UX Research and Design.

5. Put UX Research First

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Fintech excels in Product Design which culminates research and data into a cohesive and consistently built system from the very beginning of the brand’s inception.

Naturally, creating multiple services on one product can be hard. The FDIC says you need this, InfoSec says you need that, Engineering wants to save time and use a 3rd-party API/iFrame, and so on. We are challenged to be in compliance and have a beautiful application for users to intuitively engage with. But that’s the reason why it’s so important to invest in your UX teams!

Make sure that you have the data to support a unified system of products and services while maintaining a Design Language to keep everything looking and operating the same on every page for every user. Consistency matters!

6. Provide A Unique Value Proposition

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Even if you’re “copycatting” products from other systems, your users are different and finding out what their needs are will increase engagement much more than assumptive design ever could. If you don’t know what people think of your product, you’ll never be able to pivot in the right direction. When they move, you move, just like that. There’s a big difference between qualitative and quantitative feedback.

Everyone wants to try to cram their entire product offering into a single app. It’s wonderful to have, but sometimes it’s just plain impossible to accomplish with the time and resources you’ve been given. We can’t always “make it fit” for everyone. The honest truth is that it won’t ever work for everyone and the individuality of your target demographics and focused segmentation should be the most valuable asset in your research arsenal.

Yes, you need a unique value prop, but only if it directly benefits your audience in a positive and engaging way. You want people to tell others about your product in a satisfied way. Bad reviews always lead to abandonment.

Take some time to compare what fintech and your direct competition is doing well and filter out how you can emulate those good ideas while staying on-brand and on-message. A good designer can help translate this information into a fully realized and custom experience.

7. Drop The Obsession With Banking Functionality

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We should try to fit in as much functionality as possible, but not at the expense of the product or its users.

Every customer should have a journey that offers a simple “happy path” to completion. In finance, complexity can often be a source of pride and exclusivity. That may not be the case with all of your customers.

8. Measure Results By Quality, Not Quantity

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Quality vs. Quantity is not a thing anymore. It’s instead the marrying of the two ideals of Quality and Quantity in a cohesive and engaging way.

The qualitative research that needs to be done should be exponentially impacted by the quantitative surveys and analytics gathered during initial research. For examples, we may lose quality when speed is priority, however this is why rapid user testing and prototyping is so important.

Test, review, rinse, repeat.

9. Focus On Emotions Instead Of Information

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Empathy will always be key. People have emotional connections to their finances and the institutions they invest that buying power into. Banks tend to overwhelm people with unfamiliar paperwork, nomenclature, acronyms, and fine print.

The future of finance is making informed decisions based on simplified communication and customer loyalty. Keeping the complex curtains up will keep curious people away.

10. Invest More In Customer Experience Than In Marketing

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The customers you have are worth more than the ones you lack. Marketing tends to focus on garnering new business while maintaining existing relationships are not as much of a priority. And that’s OK! But maintaining long financial relationships with contented customers far outweighs the risk of that unknown potential.

Let your product speak for itself through accessibility, effective UI, and an intuitive landscape. You want people to recommend your product to others. Curiosity and satisfaction go hand-in-hand; if you’re interested in something, would you rather find out about it from a banner ad, or several different family members and friends who all gave it glowing reviews?

Closing Thoughts

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UX, UI, Design, and Creative are not as highly valued or involved at an early enough stage of the project to make an impact. Financial companies tend to relegate those team members to Production Art and QA Maintenance asks due to a lack of understanding of how effective and powerful adding UX Designers can be. Keeping them out of the project loop will not only dull their edges, but have them looking for new roles elsewhere.

Fintech teaches us that looking at finance in a customer-centric way is effective, profitable, and mirrorable at the corporate scale for banking.

Written by Kaela Coppinger · Categorized: Design UX/UI, Financial Services, Learning and Development, Product Development · Tagged: best practices, design, Design Programs, INRHYTHMU, learning and growth, ux, uxui

Dec 20 2022

Top 5 Best Practices For Building Forms

Various forms like sign-ups, logins, or checkout pages are seen everywhere in applications and websites, but what attracts a user to fill one out? What exactly makes one click the sign-up or call-to-action button on the page? Forms exist to be filled out, but there are a surprising number of forms which—through poor design, excessive fields, or other factors—push users to abandon them, unfilled. Make your forms simple and easy to navigate, and watch the data come flowing in.

Here are a few best practices when putting together your own forms to keep engagement high:

1. Ask For Less Information (and have an easy login!)

If you have a page with a sign-up flow for a new mobile app, what do you want to know from your user? It depends on what the product is and why you need the information from them. As an example: a date or friend matching platform would want your age, gender, and zip code on one screen. The next page could be preferences about the person you are hoping to match with. All of this information is necessary for the app’s purpose, but connecting to Facebook or Google has also made it much easier to skip certain steps in this process, allowing for less info needing to be manually filled out.

The following demonstration shows just how easy it is for the user to access all of the fields needed—i.e. name, picture, friends—from the Facebook API instead of filling out the same information manually.

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2. Single-Column Ease vs. Multi-Column Stress

When you’re making a form, make sure it’s displayed in a single-column instead of a multi-column. This design element will make it easier for users to scan through and complete instead of trying to tab through different fields and with the potential of resulting frustration.

The following demonstration illustrates, the relative ease for a user to scan through one column, answering questions in a linear format instead of doing a Z-pattern back and forth.

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3. Automate, Automate, Automate

One of the best form practices for improving design is automation. Automation makes it easier for the user to go through fields, without worrying about switching from lower and upper cases. The only fields that should not be capitalized are emails and passwords, since those cause delivery issues.

4. Progress Tracker

A user who is filling out a form—unless it’s a simple sign-up—wants to know how long the process will take them, and maybe even if it should be filled out now or saved for later. For mobile and desktop alike, a progress tracker should be included, like the examples shown below.

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If the user is on a certain step it’s important to note that as well, all within an easily understood display of what they’ve already completed.

5. Testing (even when you don’t want to)

This is the step that many don’t even think of taking, since the design could be flawed and more time could be wasted in redesigning. The form you just created should be tested on a few different devices (at the very least on mobile and desktop) to see if it actually works and makes sense. What’s the point of developing a product that doesn’t work for the user?

The ultimate goal is getting the user to click on the “continue” or “submit” buttons in the end. By following these best practices, you can remove common roadblocks in form submissions and make the experience better for your users. 

Written by Kaela Coppinger · Categorized: Design UX/UI, Learning and Development, Product Development · Tagged: best practices, design, design patterns, Designers, INRHYTHMU, learning and growth, product development, UI, ux, uxui

Dec 20 2022

A Comprehensive Introduction To Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines

Overview

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Human Interface Guidelines suggest how interface components should look and how users will interact with them. There are as many ideas about interface design as there are proponents of any particular library or API. 

All interface designs share a similar goal, which is to create a unified user experience across the environment. To accomplish that, the guidelines help make their design’s interface intuitive, consistent, and learnable, both for the OS for its applications and tools. All interface elements and their guidelines should be included in an interface design document with usage examples, when practical. For example, buttons, checkboxes, dialog boxes, application views, buttons, bars, etc.

In Hamid Mahmood’s Lightning Talk session, we will breaking down the following topics:

  • Overview
  • Human Interface Guidelines
  • Customer Impact
  • Live Demonstration
  • Closing Thoughts
  • Additional Resources

Human Interface Guidelines

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Apple was one of the first companies to use “look and feel” in their literature when referencing the MacOS interface in the 1980s. As technology advanced, ideas on interface design also advanced.

Today, Apple has “Human Interface Guidelines” that establish how an application should look and feel to users on all of its platforms.

Apple’s HIG is an extensive document covering all aspects of application look and feel across the entire Apple ecosystem. There is a platform-specific HIG for each Apple OS environment: 

  • macOS for MacBooks
  • iOS for iPhone/iPad
  • watchOS for Apple Watches
  • tvOS for Apple TV

Apple’s HIG is organized by platform and technologies. Each platform is subdivided into sections. For iOS, for example, the sections cover architecture, user interaction, system capabilities, icons and images, bars, views, controls, and extensions.

From the iOS section topics, it’s evident that Apple is invested in ensuring that applications on their platform have that certain Apple “look” and that those applications function in a consistent manner. 

Consistency is an important factor in user uptake of new applications. When UI elements function similarly, it’s easier for users to transfer their operational knowledge between applications. 

Using the HIG helps maintain the quality of applications by guiding UI decisions to support the application’s operation. Following the HIG will improve engineering and design decisions by helping programmers anticipate what most users will expect from an application’s interface.

It’s important to remember that the HIG does not dictate how an application operates, it describes the user/application interaction through visual cues, controls, and application feedback.

Customer Impact

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When followed, the Human Interface Guidelines ensure that the components of an application’s UI are understandable to the average Apple user through familiarity with the OS and with other applications.

Maintaining a consistent interface helps create an application interface that is more rapidly accepted and gives users an increased feeling of being in control, which creates a positive user experience. A side benefit is that an application will complete the App Store approval process in a more timely manner because the UI and its controls appear and operate in the manner expected by the reviewers.

Live Demonstrations

Hamid Mahmood has crafted an intuitive walkthrough demonstration of the advantages of application coding within Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines:

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Be sure to follow Hamid’s entire Lightning Talk to follow along with these steps in real time.

Closing Thoughts

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Apps in this era of phones, laptops, tablets are not restricted to one device. Nor are users.

Therefore, it becomes imperative to adhere to some consistent UI guidelines to ensure a seamless experience and broader adoption by users. The cut-throat competition between iOS and Android has been good for both, making them more polished, more feature-packed and technologically potent. The best design services know how crucial it is to keep these guidelines in mind when designing interfaces on iOS and Android.

Happy coding!

To learn more about the implementation of Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines and to experience Hamid Mahmood’s full Lightning Talk session, watch here. 

Additional Resources

  • Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/

Written by Kaela Coppinger · Categorized: Design UX/UI, Learning and Development, Product Development · Tagged: best practices, design, Design Programs, Designers, INRHYTHMU, learning and growth, product design, UI, ux, uxui

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