It is a common misconception that design thinking is new. Design has been practiced for ages: monuments, bridges, automobiles, subway systems are all end-products of design processes. Throughout history, good designers have applied a human-centric creative process to build meaningful and effective solutions.
In the early 1900’s husband and wife designers Charles and Ray Eames practiced “learning by doing,” exploring a range of needs and constraints before designing their Eames chairs, which continue to be in production even now, seventy years later. 1960’s dressmaker Jean Muir was well known for her “common sense” approach to clothing design, placing as much emphasis on how her clothes felt...
Depending on the type of industry, being upfront with information can extend beyond these basics. For example, when comparing several courier services, users expected to see estimated delivery windows in addition to pricing information — just as you would expect to see an estimated pickup time
At first, you might think that such an innovation in the field of reverse logistics should not be discussed in a UX article, but many pieces of the user experience are improved by optimizing this backend operation. A traditional UI-only solution to the problem of high demand would be to clearly
First time practitioners are often apprehensive to include anything that is not a verbatim finding from research in their need statements. However, it is important to remember that our users will not always directly say or even know precisely what they specifically need or why. Instead, it is our
When Will You Be Able to Use Cryptocurrency to Buy a Pack of Gum?
Ten tumultuous years later, the vision of a universally accepted cryptocurrency remains just that: a vision. Along with the enthusiasts who focus on the potential, listen to the pragmatic voices pushing for cryptocurrencies to address their flaws. When you see a cryptocurrency token that steps up
A 60-Second Trailer of the 60-Day Report on Cybersecurity
Melissa Hathaway came across our radar recently when President Obama tasked the former Bush administration aide with leading a 60-day review of Bush’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative; a largely classified, purported $30 billion, multi phase plan to address cybersecurity issues
3 Reasons Decentralization is the Future of Currency
Governments have all sorts of tools at their disposal affect currency rates. If they merely print more money—as they did during the recovery from the last crash—the value of the currency will fall. If they change interest rates, they affect the supply of money available, also changing its
Progress Indicators Make a Slow System Less Insufferable
Provide a general time estimate. (Don’t try to be exact, as it will inevitably be inaccurate at some point and the site’s credibility will suffer.) A simple, “This might take at least a minute” or “About 3 minutes remaining” can be enough to inform the user and encourage them to wait it
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Progress Indicators Make a Slow System Less Insufferable
A user’s wait time begins the moment when she initiates an action, whether by tapping the screen, clicking a mouse button, pressing a key, or speaking a voice command. Immediately, the system should give some visual feedback to communicate that it has received the request. For example, a button
Help People Create Passwords That They Can Actually Remember
Organizations and individuals want to protect their online privacy and information, and thus usually have some respect for their passwords. If there is a high commitment level to the website or application, people will tolerate some of the difficulties the accompany them. But it is better to so
Decision Making in the Ecommerce Shopping Cart: 4 Tips For Supporting Users
Having a full shopping cart would hardly have been necessary as a usability guideline in the old days where everybody did so, but today we need to tell designers to do so. Some sites only allow users to view the shopping cart in a minicart view that appears as an overlay or as part of the checkout
6 Rules for Persuasive Storytelling
Thinking about how to build a product usually involves feature lists and backlogs. Stories bring user pain points and goals to the forefront of the conversation and help teams create a shared language of why they’re building a product or feature and whom it benefits. These stories can also be
Five User Requirements for Online Ads
Respondents often complained about ads that “delayed” or “blocked” access to content of interest. Examples of such ads include prevideo advertisements, modal ads, or ads that slowed down the loading of the page. The inability to skip an ad hinders access to primary content. The additional
Introducing Revolution Pro, the First Block-Based Genesis Theme
Using the new Gutenberg post editor with Revolution Pro, developers and designers are able to create custom, reusable modules for design and content. As we continue to release new block-based themes, we hope users will find it easier to dive into their creative projects more quickly and build
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WordPress for Good: The Price of Water .
This year, WP Engine partnered with The Lovie Awards to bring Lovie For Good, a project highlighting digital experiences bringing positive change to the world. From an algorithm to promote compassionate leadership to campaigns recognizing the importance of fresh air, these winners are using the
How to Recover Abandoned Shopping Carts for WooCommerce Stores
Many of those abandoned carts are probably lost for good because you don’t have any contact information from the shopper to try to win them back to checkout. But for a percentage of the carts, your shopper will have gotten far enough along in the process that you’ll have an email address (or
5 Steps to Service Blueprinting
Add the process that employees rely on to effectively interact with the customer. These processes are the activities involving all employees within the company, including those who don’t typically interact directly with customers. These support processes need to happen in order to deliver the
Design Thinking Builds Strong Teams
This shared vocabulary comprises words, concepts, ideas that refer to common team experiences and processes. For example, during the empathize phase of design thinking, the team strives to understand what users think and do when they try to accomplish a specific goal — “Sam is our new user and
Small Pictures on Big Screens: Scaling Up from Mobile to Desktop
For example, as the screen gets wider, scale the image up in width, height, or both, but stop before the image becomes either disproportionately large or hard to understand. Then, crop the image so it works in the new screen dimensions and start expanding this version until the image needs
The Positive Evolution of Your Business Depends on the Tech Revolution
With technology on your side, you’ll also have a better understanding of your financial needs and how to better use resources like time and physical space. Using technology in your warehouse, lets you understand how to manage your storage costs. Today’s busy executives can hold online meetings
13 Major Vulnerabilities Discovered in the Popular IoT OS FreeRTOS
In the case of open source components, only Software Composition Analysis (SCA) tools can identify open source components that have vulnerabilities associated with them, even if there is one buried deep in one of its dependencies. Being able to catch a risky open source component early in the
Is Data the Next Front in the Trade Wars?
While tariffs may be the focal point of the ongoing trade war, a brand-new front focused on data is opening amid growing concerns about the reach of the Chinese state and its accompanying private sector companions. Whether for security, espionage, or social credit, the Chinese state has shown
Meet Meural, Fine Art on My Walls at Home
If you were unlucky, you were also terrorized by these frames in the parents room, family room and the pool-table room. It would be very difficult to study and graph the ptsd these little gems may have caused through the years. With the beautiful Meural — you are welcome to help your children
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Here is Why Your Business Should Take Digital Adoption Seriously
The next step is choosing a system that takes employees on a personalized training journey, adapting itself to each person’s pace, strengths and weaknesses. Once employees are comfortable with the platforms critical to company operations, they’ll be more satisfied, have a greater context for
SEO DIY: Optimize Your Startup’s Website Yourself
Anyone who pays attention to the world of search engine optimization knows that maximizing your company’s search results on Google and other search engines is not something you can do with a quick pin here and a hasty status update there. It’s a full-time job. But if you’re
Design Thinking 101 | Banner Blindness: The Original Eyetracking Research, 10-year research overview
Banner Blindness: The Original Eyetracking Research, 10-year research overview
As the replay shows, the user did fixate once within the ad, but at that moment, the ad is obscured by a pull-down menu. In reality, the user couldn't see the message; the fixation was clearly a mistake that occurred while she was trying to reacquire the menu after briefly looking away from the
The Illusion of Completeness: What It Is and How to Avoid It
When viewing a landscape through binoculars, we know there are vast expanses of scenery in each direction — and that we may need to move our binoculars to spot the elusive bald eagle. But on the web, users have to rely on the design of the page to understand what possibilities for exploration
Computer Screens Getting Bigger
The 1024×768 became the leading monitor size in 2004 and has only just been dethroned by a (slightly) larger screen resolution of 1366×768, according to StatCounter. The change over from 1024×768 to bigger screens actually occurred in 2009, but there were so many different larger-resolution
