UX design

UX design

I want my designer to be intimately aware of both customer feedback and how money flows through a system. Design is becoming more engineering-focused with new tools, but designers should really focus on Product-Market Fit. A CEO told me this in an interview, which mirrors what I've heard from design leaders. While everyone's talking about "vibe coding" and designer-developer hybrids, executives are quietly looking for something else: designers who think strategically.

As a longtime Linux user, my opinion of the Windows UI has never really wavered: I think it's pretty dismal. Given that Linux has a cornucopia of desktop environments from which to choose, it makes perfect sense that someone who enjoys a good aesthetic would look at Windows and snub it like a cat snubs the new food you just bought.

Recently, I was asked to work on a platform for an industry facing real headwinds. Layoffs and overwork have left many people drained, and the question from the client was simple but profound: can design ease some of that mental burden for the people using our platform? Not with gimmicks or forced fun, but with subtle sparks of relief. When we talk about ease, two factors consistently emerge in both psychology and design research:

Where do we stand now? Emotions run high and some feel strong about the one solution to our current predicament. Designers that are strong visual designers say: taste will save us. It's the last frontier in our fight with AI. With endless options generated by AI, someone will still need to decide which option is best. That would be us, with taste as our unfair advantage.

Seeing your life as a Hero's Journey can make you happier, more resilient, and more fulfilled. But these same principles can also transform your digital products, helping you create more motivating and meaningful user experiences. In this article, I'll share insights from a recent paper on the psychology of the Hero's Journey. I'll explain what it is, guide you through a simple exercise to help you experience its psychological effects, and explore how you might heroify your own digital products.

Real-time dashboards are decision assistants, not passive displays. In environments like fleet management, healthcare, and operations, the cost of a delay or misstep is high. Karan Rawal explores strategic UX patterns that shorten time-to-decision, reduce cognitive overload, and make live systems trustworthy. I once worked with a fleet operations team that monitored dozens of vehicles in multiple cities. Their dashboard showed fuel consumption, live GPS locations, and real-time driver updates.

During our user testing sessions, I watched one participant solve complex spatial puzzles in under ten seconds while expressing frustration that the game wasn't challenging them enough. Twenty minutes later, another participant struggled with what I considered the simplest tutorial level. Both users had the same diagnosis. Both were part of our target demographic. But their cognitive strengths and challenges were completely different.

When 252 participants rated each version, the results were clear: screens that looked more attractive were consistently judged as easier to use. The correlation between beauty and perceived usability was strong ( r = 0.589), while functional factors showed almost no link. The researchers called this gap apparent usability versus inherent usability. Their conclusion: users don't judge ease of use by logic alone - appearance biases perception. This became known as the aesthetic-usability effect: if it looks better, it feels better.

Cars have evolved far beyond simple transportation, becoming mobile offices, entertainment centers, and quiet retreats from the chaos of daily life. Yet most automotive interiors remain frustratingly static, designed around assumptions about how everyone should use their vehicle rather than adapting to individual needs and preferences. Fengrui Wang's Xiaomi Flowing Oasis concept, developed as a thesis project at TU Delft, takes a radically different approach by reimagining the car interior as a modular, user-customizable sanctuary.

Design Systems have hundreds (sometimes thousands) of design tokens, complex UI components, as well as guidelines for usage-making it easy to feel buried in the workload. That's why creating an audit structure upfront is so important. In this stage, you'll set the scope of the audit, select tools to use, and identify the accessibility standards to measure your Design System with.

UX designers frequently work in ambiguous spaces, most notably the discovery phase. We collaborate closely with product managers to identify new problems, understand users' goals and frustrations, and strategically develop solutions to address their needs. However, the best solutions aren't always straightforward, and with AI being embedded in every new product and feature, it makes things a bit more challenging. Just as we get comfortable using AI, something changes or evolves. This makes AI features unpredictable and difficult to document requirements for.

Google is testing alternatives to the title "People also search for" at the bottom of the Google Search results. I am seeing "Related your search," "Search for next," and "Also search for." I am sure there are more. I was tipped off to the "Also search for" variation by Sachin Patel on X but I am able to replicate all of these, here are my screenshots.

Poorly designed support flows frustrate users, but smart, intentional redesigns can turn a help center into an intuitive, self-service space that feels like a natural extension of the product. This improves the customer experience while reducing live support needs and helping internal teams spot common problems and solutions. Help centers are no longer afterthoughts; they're now core to digital product experiences and key drivers of user satisfaction, retention, and brand trust.

The human face is efficient to a degree that most digital products can only dream of. A shift in micro-expression lasts less than half a second yet conveys authentic emotional states. Designers of apps and platforms spend millions trying to approximate that kind of fidelity with loading animations, progress bars, or notification pings. But the face does it effortlessly, in real time.

Usability testing should always be part of product development. Ideally, it is conducted before release, but in practice it can be useful at different stages. It's worth pointing out that, "testing" isn't a goal in itself. Without knowing exactly what you want to measure, you risk ending up with feedback you can't interpret or act on. Every usability study can focus on a different aspect of the experience, and the right metrics depend on your research goals.

As someone who recently worked partially in the sustainability industry, I was pretty upset to find out that my portfolio was emitting a hecklot of CO2. But that was just the tip of the iceberg of why I decided to dive into the portfolio topic again, years after I wrote an extensive guide on designing better portfolios. Tldr? Standards have changed. And I think it's time you knew about it.

Last month, I watched a junior designer generate 47 logo variations in under ten minutes using Midjourney. They were technically proficient, aesthetically pleasing, and completely forgettable. Meanwhile, across the room, a senior designer spent three hours sketching one concept by hand, researching the client's cultural context, and questioning whether a logo was even the right solution. Guess which approach led to the breakthrough that landed the client?

Yet this loss doesn't mean design is gone. If anything, it requires us to find meaning in the turmoil and ask what design truly is, and what it still has the potential to become. Here's the difference - AI can generate outputs. It can mimic styles, assemble patterns, and even simulate decisions. But it can't create meaning. Meaning is rooted in memory, context, and emotion.

Here's a nutty idea: designing terrible solutions makes you a better designer. I know that sounds backwards. Designer portfolios share only the most pristine of examples. And we're taught about efficiency and time savings. Best practices tell us to move fast, fail fast, and get to good solutions quickly. So why waste your time thinking about the worst possible option?