UX is about people. It might seem obvious, but I just want to reiterate that. It’s about making things that people will use and enjoy using, or be able to use without obstacles and difficulties.

There’s been a phrase I’ve known since starting out in Design 20 years ago. It’s a phrase that has mainly been associated with 20th-century modernist architecture and industrial design, but it’s totally relevant for most of today’s design disciplines:

Form Follows Function

Helping people achieve something

As a UX Designer, when creating experiences for people, I need to help them achieve something. Be that find something out, input something…

Learn the art of making your tofu taste amazing, with this sesame based vegan recipe.

Ingredients

1 block of extra firm tofu
1/4 cup soy sauce or tamari
1/8 cup rice vinegar
2 tablespoons lime juice
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon boshed fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
1 chopped up Birdseye chilli (2 if you’re feeling spicy, or non if you’re keeping cool for the day)

Method

1

Grab a block of extra-firm tofu, drain it, put it between two plates, and put some weight on it [like the Lord of the Rings trilogy or…

Giving the users what they want, before they know they want it

Between the ages of 9 and 11 years old, I would spend most of Saturday’s going out to work with my Dad.

At the time, he was a builder, so I’d go along and be his right-had-lad. We’d set off around 6am and head for wherever he’d been working that week. Sometimes we’d be renovating old houses, others we’d be fitting shop interiors or at the workshop making the things that would in time, be installed into whatever was the current project.

It was during these years that…

The nice attendees* of the second Critiq Designer meet-up (write-up available here) undertook a workshop to help us answer the big question:

How can Critiq attendees and speakers interact before and after the events.

*Nice attendees meaning that everyone who attended was nice, not meaning that only the nice people partook in the workshop!

Rolling back a week, we had planned to deliver a workshop to help us create the brief for the Critiq website. However, after some thought, particularly around this month’s subject of getting a a good brief, we stepped back, and asked ourselves, is it even a…

It’s not a logo or a stationery set!

I was away camping at the weekend, and while talking to a close friend who I don’t see very often — He’s busy, lives in West Yorkshire, I’m busy and live in Teesside.

We were discussing business branding — he has an online shop selling engineered products. He was saying that he doesn’t need a brand, doesn’t think a brand would help him sell more products as he’s pretty busy as it is, (which is great) and doesn’t see what a brand would do for his business.

He also told me that…