Category

What can UX design learn from games?

The integration of game mechanics into web and other interactive media is not new. Elements such as progress bars, challenges and badges all tap into psychological motivations to make simple digital tasks more engaging and rewarding.  From encouraging us to complete our circles each day on an… Read More

Voronoi pattern masking with AI tooling

I’ve had a mild obsession with Voronoi patterns for a while. There is something about the way they naturally partition space with both an organic and mathematical feel that makes them a great design element rather than just a visual curiosity. Read More

You’re a designer, you must be good at drawing, right?

This was something someone said to me recently that got me thinking about the differences between art and design. Read More

Why human experience still matters

I have been designing for the web since 1994. In that time I have watched the industry transform beyond recognition, and nothing has shifted the ground quite like AI. Read More

Making personas more memorable

How can we best present our findings? There is a danger that a lot of work goes into the research, a dense report is created, and that report ends up in a drawer soon forgotten. Read More

CSS is growing up

I’ve been keeping an eye on CSS developments recently, partly because we’re in an interesting period where things that seemed impossible a few years ago are quietly landing in browsers. And partly because I’m curious whether we’ve reached the point where we can genuinely reduce… Read More

Creating disposable tools with Figma Make

Recently just before a client presentation, I realised I didn’t actually have an effective way to review a set of full-page website screenshots on my Mac. Preview, the Mac default image viewing app, works well enough for small images but long web page jpegs quickly become awkward… Read More

Interpreting character for digital

Organisations often spend a lot of time and money on their brand identity so it’s important that website designers effectively interpret that brand for digital. But, very often they don’t. Read More

Don’t use text in images

It's often the simplest option, but don't use pictures of words on your website. Read More

Does Agile methodology lead to poor interface design?

There has been a lot of finger pointing at frameworks such as Bootstrap for an apparent depreciation in design standards lately. But, I think that Agile methodologies have something to answer for as well. Read More

Are carousels that bad really?

I want to challenge current web industry thinking concerning carousels/sliders/galleries (which is - in a nutshell - they’re bad) with what, seemingly, most of the world thinks of them. Read More

Lovely data

We’ve been working with lots of data recently in several projects and it’s been a lot of fun. Trying to figure out how best to present the data has made us think about user interfaces and user engagement in ways that we hadn’t really had to do much before. Read More