exploringdigital

[exploringdigital]

Key rules of UX design

Since I have to make websites for my Web Authoring course, I decided to know more about UX design and came across a good article by web designer Daniel Schwarz. In his article, he introduces 7 golden rules of UX design and I would like to briefly them here for you (you can read a full article clicking this link: https://www.creativebloq.com/features/7-golden-rules-of-ux).

1. Design for users.

We have to make not what we like or we think will work well. We have to find out what our user wants and needs.

- User testing

We can’t be sure that our design provides the best user experience if we don’t know how users actually interact with our design.

- Gathering feedback

Getting face-to-face with users is extremely useful. It can be done either in real life or using remote user testing tools (e.g. Typeform, Google Forms) and free feedback management tools (e.g. Trello, Asana and Google Sheets).

2. Provide absolute clarity

Our users shouldn’t be confused. Confusion leads to a desire to leave the website as soon as possible. Also, users begin to trust the brand less. To establish clarity it’s important to consider such design principles as colour, contrast, repetition, proportion and proximity.

3. Give users control

Users want to customize their experience, so it’s better to provide them with different filters and additional features. For example, it’s better when a user can edit the order him(her)self, instead of having to contact the support.

4. Predict, then adapt

The interface should help users to find all the necessary information and make decisions faster. If it takes too long, the users will feel frustrated and go away without buying our product/service. One way to minimizing users’ way to the most important (for them) information is keeping layouts conceptually and visually minimal. This increases the likelihood of conversion.

5. Maintain consistency

People expect things to make sense, and can quickly become frustrated when they don't. When it comes to design, it’s extremely important that, for instance, all the submit buttons are of the same colour. Otherwise, users can easily get confused and make a mistake, which will make their experience with our website quite unpleasant.

6. Treat users as customers and vice-versa

Once users become customers and buy our product, we shouldn’t stop caring about them. If we do stop, they may never return and we definitely don’t want it.  Follow up with free updates, feedback requests, or simply just check up on the customer to see if they're doing alright or maybe they need customer support. Let them know you are always ready to answer all their questions.

7. Communicate value proposition

While filling in some boring forms, users constantly look for some encouragement and motivation. If they don’t see any, they will probably close the tab and move on. If we can use the interface to remind the users of the positive outcomes and value of our product during the most boring interactions, the chance of conversion is much higher.  

Don’t forget about these rules while making your websites guys!

[exploringdigital]

How to choose a colour palette for your design project?

Have you ever experienced struggle to choose colours for your website or any other projects? I’m pretty sure you have. Luckily, there are services which can help us with this dilemma. One of them is Happy Hues. It shows you what colour combinations work best in design. Also, you can read about every colour’s psychological impact on people. And you can easily copy the hex code for any colour to use it in your project, which is extremely convenient. Go to https://www.happyhues.co/ and give it a try!

[exploringdigital]

Games for web-designers

Hello guys! I’ve brought you a selection of games for designers today. So, if you have a minute between your assignments, spend it wisely! 

1. Kolor http://kolor.moro.es/

Here you are asked to match a colour you see with the same colour out of four options below as fast as possible. This seems easy at first glimpse. Of course, you can see a difference between red and yellow. But how about four very similar shades of dark blue? 

2. Shape type https://shape.method.ac/

This is a letter shaping game for people who are interested in typography. You are given a “deformed” letter and you need to fix it using curves. This is a good way to test your ability to judge by eye and feel how difficult it actually is to create a type.

3. Brandseen http://brandseenapp.com/

Here is a logo colouring game. You are given discoloured logos of famous brands and you should remember what colours should be there. A good way to train your memory. 

4. I shot the Serif  https://www.tothepoint.co.uk/us/fun/i-shot-the-serif/

This is a simple shooter. You should shoot all the serifs before time runs out. Don’t shoot sans serifs though! After playing this game for a while, you will definitely be able to tell the difference between Serif and Sans Serif quickly. It’s also available in the App Store.

[exploringdigital]

Ready-to-use backgrounds for your website

I’ve found a new instrument that is completely free to use and may be handy for the web-designers. Bg Painter offers 12 ready-to-use templates which can be used as the background for your web-page. You can find some interesting backgrounds there, for example, the background with floating objects. Moreover, each template can be customized. You can change the colour pallet, position etc. When you finish your customization, just press the “Pause” button and download the background. 

Here is the link: https://bg-painter.com/ 

Hope you will find it useful too! 

[exploringdigital]

Agency of the year

Today I would like to tell you about the digital agency from a pretty small Russian town (so patriotic of me!)

The agency is called Red Collar, and the reason why I mention it here is that they became the agency of the year in 2017 according to the international design and development award platform CSS Design Awards (https://www.cssdesignawards.com/ - another website to follow, btw). 

Red Collar has a pretty interesting website https://redcollar.digital/  And I would really recommend to have a look at some of their projects, which can bring you some inspiration. For example, I find the design they’ve made for Digital Thinkers Conference (that will take place in New York this November) very impressive: https://nyc.awwwards.com/

[exploringdigital]

Resources with photos, icons and colours

Hey, guys!

Today I brought you some really useful resources where you can find stock photos, icons and gradients which are things we often need in digital design.

Cool photo stocks:

1. Unsplash

https://unsplash.com/

Freely useable images 

2. Superfamous Images 

https://images.superfamous.com/

The Superfamous Images are available under the conditions of a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. This means that you can use the work for your own purposes if credit is provided.

3. Stocksnap 

https://stocksnap.io/popular

All photos on StockSnap have been released under Creative Commons - CC0. This license allows you to download, copy, modify, and distribute the photos, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

4. Icons8

https://photos.icons8.com/

Really love this one. Here you can also find some collages, transparent PNGs, memes, and backgrounds. Everything is conveniently organized in categories. You can use them for free but need to link Icons8.

Free icons:

1. IconStore

 https://iconstore.co/

Can be freely used in personal as well as commercial projects, no attribution needed.

2. Noun Project 

https://thenounproject.com/

3. Flaticon 

https://www.flaticon.com/ 

Gradients:

WebGradients 

https://webgradients.com/

It’s a free collection of 180 linear gradients that you can use as content backdrops in any part of your website. There are also packs of gradients for Sketch & Photoshop.

Colour schemes:

Pigment

https://pigment.shapefactory.co/

Helps you to choose a colour scheme for your website (or any other digital project). Can be really handy. 

Hope you will find this helpful! 

[exploringdigital]

Today I would like to share with you guys an article you will definitely enjoy just looking at (try it)! Also, it’s good to be aware of current visual trends :)

[exploringdigital]

Irrationality: A History of the Dark Side of Reason

In my Research Methods class that I’m currently taking at Griffith College, we got an assignment to pick any topic on https://www.bridgingthegaps.ie/audio-shelf/ and listen to the discussion. I chose a podcast with Justin Smith, Professor of history and philosophy of science and the author of the book titled “Irrationality: A History of the Dark Side of Reason”, as I have always been interested in how we think, how we make decisions, how to make this process more efficient and if it’s even possible to always be rational.

Professor Smith defines irrationality as the failure to make the correct inferences from given premises. Irrationality is a peculiar feature of human life because it blends both cognitive and moral elements together at the same time. This is a failure that is rooted in something more than ignorance. Sometimes we are simply refusing to acknowledge what we in fact already know.

What seemed to me the most interesting in this discussion is Professor Smith’s view on how digital technologies affect our rationality. Today we have social networks, social media platforms which enable us to engage with a large amount of content quickly and easily, to find knowledge and information. But at the same time, these systems can also be enablers of increased irrationality of society.

According to Professor Smith, in the past 10 years, we have seen the final refutation of a dream that started hundreds of years ago, which is that we can outsource a good bit of our reasoning to machines, have the machines do it for us and thereby make our lives better. Many of us continued to believe that in the 2010s, but it is clear now that the Internet only made the world more chaotic and uncertain place. Right now twitter and facebook are just vivid displace of the destructive power of the irrationality. For example, during the last presidential elections in the USA, we saw the power of the internet to play on people ignorance in a way that directly affected their voting behaviour. This sounds paradoxical because these digital systems are here to make us better informed, assist us to find the right information at the right time, to make the right decisions. Here is the question: is the impact of these systems totally opposite to what it should be? Not exactly. They are still a good thing. When you are walking down the street and start thinking about something you would like to know more about or have some question, you can immediately go to Google or Wikipedia. And 20 years ago that was impossible and you would likely forget about the question that came to your mind and would never know anything about it. In Professor Smith opinion, the problem is that all this known scientific information about the world is there, but in general it gets rejected and people prefer to live with myths and to use the Internet only for reinforcement.

There are some more interesting thoughts from the podcast to reflect on:

1)      It is not possible to eliminate irrationality from human life. It exists at two different levels. There can be a society that is structured rationally or irrationally. And within that society, there can be individuals who are rational even though the society is structured irrationally (and vice versa).

2)      Irrationality is ineliminable because we have a historical proof that in all attempts to eliminate it at the social level there has been nothing but terrible failure. And as individuals, we are also healthier if we are not constantly subject to a discipline of reason. Even Greeks who invented reason were not that rational (for example, they had bloody sacrifices, mystery cults of all sorts and strange religious rituals).

3)      There is a view that the brain has two thinking systems. One is fast and brings us to our decisions quickly, but it is full of our biases. The second system is slow, but it is thorough and allows us to have deeper insights to arrive at a better belief, a good decision. It is slow and costly.  One of the reasons why irrationality is ineliminable is that we are responding to signals we are not even aware of that make us make basic decisions. Knowing that we have one cognitive system that is based on instincts, things like smell, for example, it’s a good idea to train ourselves not to act quickly based on that quick system. But that system is there for a reason, it has served us well in many circumstances.

A lot to think about! Do you agree with Justin Smith’s point of view? By the way, you can find more interesting discussions on  https://www.bridgingthegaps.ie/audio-shelf/

[exploringdigital]

7 websites every digital designer should know about

Hello guys! 

I want to start this blog with some inspiration, hooray!

If you have just started exploring digital design like me (ESPECIALLY if you have just started), it is extremely important to develop an eye and taste for good visual design. What is the best way to do it? Looking at works of professional digital designers, of course!

When I was doing a digital design course at Moscow Digital Academy, my teacher, who is actually an expert in digital design, said that he always started his day from looking through several websites which show the latest trends in digital design and the most successful works. Today I want to share  some of these websites with you guys . Let’s become experts together!

1. https://www.siteinspire.com/

This one is probably one of my favourites. Here you can find some simple minimalistic websites.

2. https://land-book.com/

There are some really good examples of landing pages and portfolios.

3. https://www.instagram.com/design.bot/

4. https://www.instagram.com/welovewebdesign/

These two are technically not websites, but this is even more convenient. Just follow these accounts on Instagram to get some web-design inspiration straight from your Instagram feed. You will find some good design cases there.

5. https://www.awwwards.com/

Here are works of the best web designers, developers and agencies in the world recognized by the professional community. That's the website I would really recommend visiting every day, as every day they choose the website of the day. Also, if you make a great site you are proud of, you can also submit it and maybe become a winner.

6. https://dribbble.com

There is a collection of web-pages and certain design elements.

7. https://www.behance.net/

This one is probably familiar to you. Still have to mention it, as this is the most popular resource for designers. You can not only look at others’ works there but also create your own portfolio.

I hope this post will be useful to you!  Learn by copying they say. Seriously,  a ton can be learnt by copying and reconstructing work you admire ( only as a learning tool, of course, not for plagiarism).