Congrats to Nick Bluth for winning last month’s UX book giveaway. Nick chose Why We Fail by Victor Lombardi. Interesting side note: I’ve done 5 book giveaways and 3 of the winners picked this book. This month, Busy Building Things has generously donated their inspirational art blocks and prints to give away to two lucky readers. Enter for a chance to win. Have a great week,
– Kenny
Articles
The Interface Layer: Where Design Commoditizes Tech
Just as there is a layer of tech over everyday life, there is now a layer of design over everyday tech. The success of companies will be designer-driven, and the greatest user experience will win.
Change Blindness: Why People Don’t See What Designers Expect Them To See
People often overlook new visual details added to an existing screen but you can dramatically minimize the likelihood of change blindness with a few tips.
Do-it-yourself usability tests for creators
Usability testing is important but not everyone does it. Here are 5 simple steps to start conducting your first test.
Making Simple Ideas Simpler
Jenny Reeves writes that designers should create experiences with the psychology of the user in mind by deconstructing user interactions, and finding the path to simplicity.
Could you really be a User Experience Designer?
Are you somebody who designs experiences for users or do you design user interfaces? Paul Boag offers some advice for UI designers looking to get into UX.
U.S. Smartphone Use in 2015
Lots of great data on smartphone use. If you don’t have time to read the whole report, at least read the sidebar for the key themes.
Tidal needs to get their UX together
Music’s biggest stars got together to declare a new high quality streaming service to compete against the likes of Spotify but according to one user, they will need to drastically improve their UX.
Designing for Apple Watch: Getting Started
I wrote a primer on designing for the Apple Watch.
Sponsored Links
Busy Building Things
Busy Building Things (BBT) is an inspiration shop for a community of designers, doers, and sleepless dreamers. We make beautiful items to motivate your hustle day in and day out.
Interested in sponsoring a future issue? Contact me.
Tools & Resources
Adobe Comp CC
A lightweight iPad app that lets you quickly wireframe ideas for print, web, and mobile using actual assets
Apple Watch GUI for Sketch
An awesome template by Meng To with Apple Watch devices, icons and clocks in 100% vector.
Media
UX Tree
Video Courses geared towards designers – their Prototyping iOS Apps in XCode course is free.
UX Portfolios
Jake Kushner
Jake is a student at Carnegie Mellon University but his portfolio is already off to a great start with case studies of his projects displaying his process and deliverables.
UX Jobs
UXswitch
UXswitch decided to humanize the job description and put the experience back into finding a UX job.
Last But Not Least
Hipster Testing
I had to include one April Fool’s link. UserTesting has a new addition to their test panel demographic filters in the form of hipsters.
“I strive for two things in design: simplicity and clarity. Great design is born of those two things.”
— Lindon Leader
