UX newsletter — January 2019
Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.
Message from the Editor
Hi {!email}
Welcome to 2019! For many people, this is the first day back at work after the Christmas break. If that describes your situation, kick back with a coffee and enjoy Philip Hodgson's article on ways to help your development team get first-hand knowledge of end users.
January is also a time when many of us reflect on the year ahead and chart a new course. That's certainly the case at Userfocus where we have some major changes planned for our business. We've noticed a sea change in the UX industry, with less demand for consulting services but much more demand for training and coaching. So over the coming months we have some exciting plans to roll out on-site UX coaching, alongside our existing training courses in UX. Stay tuned for more.
If UX certification is on your agenda for 2019, then we have a final few places available on this month's BCS training course in London. Scroll down to find out more.
I hope you have a productive and enjoyable 2019.
— David Travis
Everyday consumer products continue to frustrate people. The failure of companies to fully embrace UX is partly to blame, but there is also another reason — one that is seldom discussed. Consumer product companies pay too much heed to their retail customers and, in so doing, they prevent the development team from getting first-hand knowledge of end users. Read the article in full: 12 symptoms of a back-to-front design process.
The new year is as good a time as any to review and improve the way you work. With a good user experience now widely seen as the key attribute of many high-tech products, it makes sense to review your own products to see how you can give them that user experience edge. Here are 20 quick, simple and virtually free ideas you can apply in this new year. Read the article in full: 20 things you can do this year to improve your user's experience.
What we’re reading
Some interesting UX-related articles that got our attention over the last month:
- Is the 10-item SUS too long for your study? Analysis shows that asking just one of the SUS questions can predict the SUS score with 90% accuracy; asking two gives you 96% accuracy.
- A collection of the laws, maxims and principles that designers should consider when building user interfaces.
- "It's anonymised" is never a guarantee of privacy. Anonymised data doesn't stay anonymous, says MIT study.
- Why Beginning Designers Don't Need to Learn Grids, Type Scales, or Color Theory.
- You don't need to understand WCAG to do a good job of accessible design.
- The W3C describes how to create Accessibility Statements.
- It was the year of Mark Zuckerberg, "…because I can't think about the love I feel for other people without wondering how it's being used to sell me shaving cream."
Like these? Want more? View our posts on Twitter or Facebook.
Upcoming UX training courses
In this fun and hands-on training course, you'll practice all the key areas of UX — from interviewing your users through to prototyping and usability testing your designs — while you prepare for and take the BCS Foundation Certificate exam. View the full syllabus: Foundation Certificate in User Experience.
A 5-day immersion seminar that shows you how Government Digital Services (GDS) plan and carry out user research within Government. You'll practice interviewing and contextual research, carry out usability testing, explore the bigger picture of assisted digital and discover how to plan user research on agile projects. View the full syllabus: User Research Fundamentals.
UX quotation of the month
"I believe that a designer's best and most creative work results when there are some constraints that serve to focus creative thinking. And what better focus than your users' goals, behaviours, and desires?" — Robert Reimann.
Did I mention I'm writing a book?
It's titled Think Like a UX Researcher and you can get free bonus content if you pre-order.
Hungry for more?
Read previous newsletters.
Want to receive your own copy of this newsletter?
Join our community of people interested in user experience. Sent monthly. No spam.
|