Taking the time for self-improvement, self-education, and inspiration on a regular basis is a sort of thing important for professional growth as well as keeping aware about the latest trends in your trade. However, very often we find ourselves to busy with current problems and tend to miss some news and interesting publications. In this case, recommendations on the most useful things that don’t have to be missed in the constant and fast-paced flow of news can become a helpful way to get updated.
Meeting requests from Tubik Blog readers, we are starting the Tubik Reading List for designers as well as all the other people who are involved or interested in the design process, techniques and secrets. Every week we will share our recommendations on articles and books which we find useful for our readers.
This time our set of recommended articles and the book of the week are concentrated on the issues of user experience design.
Recommended articles
Classic Landing Page Mistakes You’re Probably Still Making – the article analyzing the stuff that typically needs improvement to make a landing page bring higher conversions.
Key thought: In general, your landing page should absolutely be as minimal as you can make it because distractions (ie. anything that takes users and leads away from your page goal) will cost your site money.
Can you Code this UI Concept? Vol. 3 – a fresh set of challenging UI design concepts in their CodePen implementation. We are happy to mention that one of the designs featured in the set belongs to Tubik Studio designers.
Key thought: UI concepts do get your inspiration running, are great practice and are not always impossible to code! Kudos to the talented designers and developers behind them!
Understanding UX Strategy – a thoughtful article by a professional product designer and UX strategist providing basics of strategical thinking applied in user experience design.
Key thought: The best-looking design in the world is worthless if you haven’t made an effort to figure out who your users are and what they need.
Microinteractions in Mobile Banking – practical tips dealing with the importance of the correct design of microinteractions in terms of interfaces for e-commerce.
Key thought: Easy is good. This can make an annoying and clumsy app, a great app. And this goes from the functionality to the IA.
How To Become a Great UX Designer Without a Degree – the flow of stepping into a UX career on the basis of practical tips rather than theoretical education.
Key thought: Unfortunately, UX design isn’t something you can learn without some work experience. Fortunately, it is something that you can learn without a degree.
Microcopy: Tiny Words With A Huge UX Impact – the informative article considering the essence of microcopy and its role in designing positive user experience.
Key thought: At a glance, these tiny clusters of words seem insignificant when compared to the overall app design. But surprisingly, those tiny words have a huge impact on conversions.
7 UX Tips for Effective Conversion Rate Optimization – the post analyzing good ways of improving conversions via solutions improving usability.
Key thought: Drop the assumption that there are any best practices or that they are applicable to everyone. Take every bit of advice given here […] with a grain of salt. Learn, implement, test, and debunk them.
Experts Weigh In: What Are Your Non-Negotiables When It Comes to Designing Great User Experiences? – a great bulk of advice from well-known design experts revealing their secrets of creating positive user experience.
Key thought: There is something really powerful and often underestimated about beautiful, polished design in the UX world.
Infinite Scrolling, Pagination Or “Load More” Buttons? Usability Findings In eCommerce – the article considering various design solutions and their efficiency for positive user experience in e-commerce based on actual usability studies.
Key thought: We’ll see how search results need to be implemented differently from category navigation, along with several pitfalls with implementation and examples from leading e-commerce websites.
5 ways to get the most out of mobile UX – the post discussing some points essential in the process of creating an effective design for user-centered mobile applications.
Key thought: Today, designers boast about the “ease of use,” “intuitiveness” and “addictiveness” of their apps, as if these traits were worthy goals in themselves. I’d like to propose a more empathetic goal for mobile UX: earn the user’s respect.
Design must-read book of the week:
UX Strategy: How to Devise Innovative Digital Products that People Want by Jaime Levy
This informative book provides a comprehensive vision of UX strategy that implies the thought-out application of business strategy techniques in the process of user experience design. Contains both theoretical basis and practical examples. Highly recommended for all the representatives of the UX design process (UI/UX designers, product designers, information architects, user researchers, managers, marketing specialists, strategists) as well as everyone who is interested in the UX design theme.
Enjoy your reading and get inspired!
