🎊 Design Insights #18 Designing complex products and most popular articles of 2016

🌟 Interactive prototyping for web and mobile apps is very important and has grown significantly over the past decade. There are many prototyping tools to choose from and this provides design agencies, designers, entrepreneurs and businesses with more options. To make life easier we would recommend the following evaluation criteria to select which prototyping tool works best for you as there is no one right tool that works for everyone. 

🤷️ After the overwhelmingly positive interest in my Designing Data-Driven Interfaces article, I decided to write about this related and equally important topic: managing complexity. You know that…

👀 So how worrying is it that every website now seems to be a carbon copy of another? I can already hear the screams and the flaming torches of the angry Internet mob raging towards me as I say this, it’s OK! 

💼 When you or I have a problem, it’s pretty easy for us to imagine a solution. And that solution is filtered through our experiences and responsibilities. 

⌚Whether it’s my iPhone or my grandmother’s couch, having to cover it up indicates a design that breaks the “Form follows function” motto. Design goals and business goals sometimes rightfully win out over perfect function and usability.

💡Whether you’re an entrepreneur, UX/UI designer, product manager, or part of an intrapreneurial team, this book teaches simple-to-advanced methods that you can use in your work right away. Along with business cases, historical context, and real-world examples throughout, you’ll also gain different perspectives on the subject through interviews with top strategists.

💰By applying the Pareto Principle to user research, you can identify the top percentage of your product’s usability issues and feature gaps, then jump in and fix them. Imagine if you could make a tiny code change, and vastly improve your product UX. Oftentimes, you can. In my case, the principle was startlingly accurate. Our research showed that 18% of our core product areas were causing 83% of our clients’ frustrations.

💯If you’re an outsider, you’re still getting to know everyone involved in the project at the same time you’re navigating which research activities to take on. If you’re an insider, it can be the same story.

🏆 There are three different scenarios for UI multiplatform adaptation: retaining brand consistency; aligning with the conventions specific to the platform and seeking a balance between the two. We decided to analyze these three approaches by looking at the most popular apps out there so that you get some insight into what method might work best for you.

🔔 A good and delightful UX is easy to understand, navigate and interact with. It looks great but is also usable. It does what users expect while offering a few surprises along the way. You have to imagine and create something that people will want to touch and engage with, time and time again. Sounds easy, right? The key to delighting users is to think like one. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel with every new design project; use tools and techniques that users like and understand to make the process a little easier and give you more time to focus on other visual elements.