Tipping can be an emotional experience for users, design should embrace that. — People are naturally self-interested, especially during times of crises. Some may need to be reminded of who’s putting their health at risk to allow them to #stayhome. …

Think differently about what constitutes a persona and reevaluate their purpose — Perceptions of user personas, a frequently used tool in the world of UX design, need to evolve to help UX professionals discover and solve design problems more effectively — and more inclusively — than ever. Evolution is a good thing. Alan Cooper, the originator of personas, has said as much…

UX designers use personas to bring their understanding of users into their design work. …

8 of Pixar’s creative storytelling rules can help communicate user findings and solutions. — Why must I ‘resort’ to storytelling to present my work? A developer wouldn’t have to tell a story to sell their system architecture to the CEO, so why should a UX designer? Storytelling is in itself UX work. A UX role is about more than just designing a product. It’s…

Understanding how motivation and personalized learning can drive education innovation — As a new technology, the full capabilities of AI have yet to emerge. As they improve and become more accessible, it will have many applications for online education. At the forefront of this innovation is personalized learning. The important advantage to personalized learning is that all learners have different abilities…

Tone of voice is an important factor in designing better conversation. — What if the focus of voice-enabled assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant was less about what is said — but how it is said? Voice User Interfaces (VUI) not only introduce a change in the way people interact with technology, but they also raise the bar for the quality of…

How my psychology background helps understand users and create better design — Two of the greatest skills a researcher in a social psychology lab can have are observation and listening. I’m describing myself since these skills have served me well in my psychology degree — and very well in both UX research and design. Observation gives us objective data about users’ behavior…

A new redesign suggests designing for accessibility is inevitable — Mobile apps like Snapchat and TikTok relish in breaking design guidelines and best practice. When you open up TikTok, a random video of an amateur lip-syncing pre-teen immediately starts playing. You open Snapchat, and the camera opens by default, immediately ready to engage with. Since these apps are mobile first…

What Pixar can teach us about creative team management — “Creativity involves a large number of people from different disciplines working effectively together to solve a great many problems.” In the midst of Pixar’s Golden Age (1995–2010, give or take an Inside Out), Ed Catmull attributed Pixar’s streak of successful films to introspection and the sustainable management of creative talent. …