Journal entries
Expressive Design Systems
Here are some notes I made from Expressive Design Systems by Yesenia Perez-Cruz, a brief, straight-to-the-point guide to auditing, creating and managing design systems that are purposeful,…
Writing for Designers
Writing for Designers from A Book Apart lays out a process for designers to follow when writing copy along with some tips and tricks to help along the way. I found that the writing process outlined…
Just Enough Research
In Just Enough Research, co-founder of Mule Design Erika Hall distills her experience into a brief cookbook of research methods. The book does a fantastic job of covering different aspects of design…
Conversational Design
I’ve just finished reading Conversational Design by Erika Hall. It is a good reminder for the design community that conversational interactions are a mindset (not a chatbot) that can be applied to…
Content Design
Content Design by Sarah Richards is a good introduction to Content Design that goes through the process of a project, providing a great overview of the important tools that Sarah has used throughout…
EGG: The Human Centered AI Conference
I attended EGG AI conference yesterday – an AI conference which put the spotlight on real-world use cases and hot topics like machine learning interpretability, bias, and fairness. There were…
Getting design buy-in
Netflix’s new documentary series; Abstract: The Art of Design, takes you inside the minds of eight designers representing different fields in the industry. Episode 6 focuses on Graphic Design and…
The Abstract-O-Meter
Netflix’s new documentary series; Abstract: The Art of Design, takes you inside the minds of eight designers representing different fields in the industry. Episode 1 profiles Christoph Niemann, an…
Leading Design Conference
I spent three fantastic days in London for Leading Design Conference last week. The speakers and workshops were superb, and I met some lovely folks. I arrived home with a pages of notes to sort…
Designing Twitter Video
I’ve just read this fantastic in-depth case study on the design process behind Twitter Video. It’s a great insight into how the team work and the importance of quick prototyping, user testing…
Building stronger teams for better user experience
Last night’s Cambridge Usability Group talk on UX Leadership was presented by Lily Dart, a freelance user experience designer and user researcher based in London. Below are my notes: User experience…
Same But Different
Jock Butussil gave a talk on product management and UX design to Cambridge Usability Group last night. Here are my notes: My notes The product is a means, not an end. How successfully are users…
Build Me a Portal by Katy Arnold
I really enjoyed last night’s Cambridge Usability talk by Katy Arnold, Head of User Research and Design at The Home Office. The talk covered the journey that Home Office Digital is making as…
Nielsen Norman Group Usability Week
I recently attended Nielsen Norman Group’s Usability Week in London. The five day course was packed with great insights and useful take-aways, much of which revolved around usability, a fundamental…
The Future of the City
Here’s a brief write up of a CamUsability talk I attended yesterday evening about the future of cities given given by Sjors Timmer at Microsoft Research. Introduction Why do we talk about the future…
Bridging the Physical-Digital Divide
I attended an interesting Cambridge Usability talk by Jason Mesut last night, exploring how individuals and teams in the User Experience and Industrial Design community can connect, calibrate and…
Generate London 2014
I attended Generate London last month – a conference for web designers and developers, presented by net magazine and Creative Bloq. Here’s a brief summary from some of the talks. White Space…
UI Prototyping – The Power of Show, Tell & Experience
This post was originally written for my colleagues to give insight into the UX team’s process. A challenge we face when designing a new interface is how to “show” the interactions…
Hidden symbolism in logo design
I love clever logos that have subtle, deeper meaning. Below is a compilation of 40 creative examples of logos compiled by plastic card maker Oompa that portray some sort of “hidden message” . Have…
The beautiful Rolls Royce Wraith
I had the exciting opportunity to take a look at the stunning Rolls Royce Wraith this weekend. I’m no petrol head but I couldn’t help but fall in love.
UX Cambridge
I attended my first UX Cambridge conference last week. I learnt lots and met some great people. Below is a summary of the talks and workshops attended over the three days.
Design process infographic
A nice info graphic outlining the design process. It highlights the importance of exploring different options, team discussion and reiterations to ensure the design is fit for purpose and a pleasure…
Workshop: We Are All UX Designers
Last night I attended a CamCreative UX workshop given by Michele Ide-Smith and Anusha Iyer. The event was popular – with 60 attendees in a relatively small coffee shop it was a lively…
Cheeky EasyJet!
Here’s an example of ‘Dark UX‘ I came across today on the EasyJet site. It caught me out anyway…
Imagined Content vs. Real Content
I couldn’t help but smile in recognition when I saw the illustration below. As designers, we consider the core actions a user can take and how these flows and journeys work but there are always…
Even toilet seats can have great copy…
I saw this witty little notice on an East Midlands train travelling back from Nottingham last weekend. I love that:
a) Someone thought of it, and
b) It was approved
Simplifying an iOS User Flow
To save iPhone battery-life, I generally leave my cellular data switched off – only turning it on when needed. One slight frustration though, is the number of steps it takes to active cellular…
The 14 Hour Workday
I’ve just finished listening to 14 hour Workday by Tai Lopez where he talks about the importance of putting the hours into work you’re passionate about and diminishes the mirage of the 4…
UX talk – The Internet in your Pocket with Alberta Soranzo
I spent Thursday evening at an insightful UX talk: The Internet in your Pocket with Alberta Soranzo, director of UX at Friday. Focused primarily on information architecture the talk covered the…
How Snapchat Onboards Users
There are some really nice touches to Snapchat’s onboarding process. You can view the full Snapchat onboarding process (and many others) here.
Read More
Trends in UI, Interaction, & Experience Design
‘[Our designs] can be enabling or disrupting’ A fascinating documentary on User Experience and Interaction Design.
3 bits of advice every twenty-something needs to hear
A provocative TED talk given by Clinical psychologist Meg Jay. She gives 3 pieces of advice for how twenty-somethings can re-claim adulthood in the defining decade of their lives. The…
LG explains its UI for the G3
A really nice video by LG explaining the GUI for their latest smartphone, and the reasoning behind it. I love the graphical style of the video – it certainly makes a nice change…
Material Design
Material Design is Google’s new visual look for Android, Chrome OS, and more. The new look includes splashes of color, refreshed iconography, typography, and a more consistent…
On pricing
“A client recently asked me if I could design a cheap logo (for a restaurant). I asked him if he could make me some really foul-tasting food, to which he replied ‘Probably, but why would I want to?…
The $5 Logo
Designer Sacha Greif tries out Fiverr, a five dollar-per-logo service, and writes about his experience. Posing as a fictional company, he wrote a short brief that three designers responded to. The…
The art of designing Office for iPad
Microsoft’s design manager for Office for iPad has posted an interesting piece discussing the company’s design philosophy behind the software. Han-Yi Shaw writes about the scenarios that…
Designing with animation
The goal of animations in UI should be to help users better understand what’s going on and how to use your product most effectively. When used as more than just a subtle design detail,…
Questions I ask when reviewing a design
Designs are rarely right first time. It's only by continuously assessing, reiterating and refining design work that the best result emerges over time. This article by Jason Fried of Basecamp lists…
Design should support activity
A lot of focus in UX design is on user research deliverables. Although these undoubtedly have their place, in my experience, it's very rare to work on a project with the timeframe or budget for such…
Confused.com’s new Identity
Confused.com’s new identity seems a step backwards in my opinion. It’s important for something as mundane as car insurance to have emotional appeal and the old logo, whilst crast, was…
All Aboard the Cartoon Express!
This is crazy – the Taiwanese have raised the bar in public-transport advertising by making it possible, as Cartoon Network have done, to advertise throughout the inside and outside of a train.…
Tide for Windows Mobile
I have just discovered Tide, a beautiful surfing forecast app for the Windows Phone. I haven’t used the app personally as a) I don’t own a Windows phone and b) I have the surfing skills…
The Design of Everyday Things
‘…people feel guilt when they are unable to use simple things, guilt that should be not theirs but rather the designers and manufacturers of the objects’. I’m currently…
A Short Lesson in Perspective
Written by Linds Redding a few months before he died last year aged 52, “A Short Lesson on Perspective” is a must-read when we need reminders not to take ourselves too seriously.…
A Logo Design Master Class with Will.i.am
Will.i.am gives advice on logo design. This is either incredibly cringeworthy or comedy genius. I’ve not decided yet.
Honda “Hands”
Here’s a really intelligent and entertaining bit of marketing from Honda that celebrates the curiosity of its engineers over the past 65 years. The tone and style are perfect;…
Isleham Preschool Necklace
The logo I designed for Isleham Preschool has been recently crafted into a silver necklace by jewellery artist, Dizzydollylou – looks fantastic!
Authentic Design
Here’s an interesting article on the recently popularised ‘flat’ design style which is taking prominence over the, now dated and sometimes ridiculed, skeuomorphic style many of us…
On User Experience
“It’s not the product that should be insanely great, but the experience of being your user.” Paul Graham Read the full article here.
Tim Ferris interviews Neil Strauss
i “You get one shot at life, you have to do what you’re passionate about…ask yourself, what would I be doing if I didn’t get paid for it, and do that”…
Ajax Arena Logo
Here’s an interesting fact I learnt about the AFC Ajax’s logo (Dutch football team) whilst touring the Amsterdam Arena last week: It is drawn using eleven lines – one for each team…
A funky Amsterdam bar
Following on from my last post, here are some photos from a very unique bar just outside the Ajax. I love the attention to detail on the decor. Had to gatecrash a private party to get these snaps but…
More Case Studies Coming Soon
I’m currently working going through old sketches and development work to add to the project case studies on this website. Should have some more up by the end of next week!
What the #${b8bd296ca4651438bc43a0e80631385d12589602592b61f9d2d282e84c05cce8}@ is UX Design?
Here’s a great short video outlining UX Design:
Leap Motion
So it’s launch date has been pushed back slightly but not long now until the Leap Motion controller is available to order! Can’t wait to get my hands on (or over) this magical piece of…
Whoa, Google has Designers
I’ve just been watching the presentation below, where Jon Wiley, a User Experience Designer at Google, talks about Google’s visual refresh back in 2011. A very interesting insight into…
Pointing to the Future of UI
Remember the data interface from Minority Report? Well, it’s real, John Underkoffler invented it – and it’s about to change the way we interact with data. “That’s the old way,…