7 design principles, attitude to design trends, UX-designer portfolio, ...
The best ideas of the two weeks of TheDesignTimes Telegram channel.
UX Designer Portfolio
The main task of the UX designer is to understand the task and design the optimal solution. Therefore, any of your case should begin with the task.
In the middle of the project, try to convey your thought process. Describe how you conducted the study, which audience you counted on and why you chose it. It will be useful to add outline interfaces or text files.
In the finale, the person who is viewing your case should have an understanding that you were able to solve the problem posed at the beginning.
Dribbble and Behance are not the best option for creating a UX designer portfolio. Therefore, pay attention to text platforms where you can better describe the process. Among them, I note Medium, VC.ru, Habr.
The ideal option is your separate site. You can do it using the popular WP, Tumblr platforms. I advise you to pay attention to the Semplice product made by Tobias van Schneider. This is a WordPress theme with a very convenient visual editor.
Estimation of the cost of a design project
The easiest way to calculate the cost of the project is to think about how many hours it will take from you and multiply this amount by your bid. Designer’s bid usually ranges from 500 rubles per hour. Based on this, you can calculate the cost of the project.
At first, you may make mistakes in planning, but in the future you will more accurately determine time costs and will be able to use a fixed price for various services.
For example, you can evaluate the design of the main page at 5,000 rubles, and for each subsequent take 2,000 rubles. So it is with the mobile application. You can evaluate the development of the visual style at 5,000 rubles, and take an additional 2,000 rubles for each application screen.
But there is one more point. When your client is big, money is not as important for him as confidence in the quality of your work. Therefore, if you have great authority in the industry, then you can increase the cost of the project several times. Yes, it takes years to reach that level, but this is definitely worth striving for.
Release testing
One of the most important tasks of a modern designer is to control the implementation of your ideas into reality. Many people don’t think about it, because they live only in their own world, far from reality, where design is a tool of business, and not a way to satisfy the ego by gaining more likes.
Programmers work sprints for 1-2 weeks. After the completion of each sprint, a release will take place and new developments "roll out" into the product. In order for the product to realize all your ideas in the right form, you need to test it regularly.
Someone will say that testers should do this work, but testers will never be able to 100% understand the designer's idea, so if you are concerned about the success of the company, then you need to do it yourself.
The easiest way to do this is by looking at the list of innovations of the developers and taking turns testing each of them. Collect all the defects found in a separate list and pass them to the person responsible for the product.
Direct product development line
For several years of grocery work, I have formed a philosophy that I regularly use. I called it the Straight Line.
It consists in the fact that during the project all team members will receive ideas on adding new functions or changing existing ones.
Often, this is temporary nonsense, which greatly slows down the development of the project. If you visualize this thought, it turns out that the emerging ideas deviate the development of the project from a straight line, which is why the achievement of the goal (final release) is distant.
Therefore, it is very important to ensure that the original plan is implemented. And, if a new idea arises in the team, and you are not sure of its suitability, it is better to postpone this idea and do what was planned.
Design trends
In all of our beautiful professions, I am most perplexed by the occasional hype surrounding design trends. This happens towards the end of the year or at the beginning of a new one. But even more surprisingly, many follow.
Design trends most often relate to visuals, but how can you predefine the visuals of an entire industry if each business needs its own visual style?
Design trends are a good entertainment for dribblers, but almost useless thing in the real world. If a client can sell a design, arguing it is a temporary fashion, then the real people using your product wanted to spit on trends, since they only need to solve their problems and it’s good if it doesn’t take much time.
7 fundamental design principles
Last week, I re-read Donald Norman’s book, Design of Common Things. I’m publishing an excerpt from it in which the author shares universal principles of design.
- Visibility. The user understands what actions are possible and in what state the device / system is currently located.
- Feedback. The user all the time has complete information about the results of actions and the current state of the product or service. After completing the action, it is easy to understand what is the new state of the device.
- Conceptual model. The design provides all the information necessary to create a good conceptual model of the system. This provides insight and gives the user a sense of control. The conceptual model provides greater visibility and simplifies the assessment of results.
- Opportunities. Opportunity determines what actions are possible. The product has the right features that allow you to perform the desired actions.
- Meaningful. The signifier conveys to us where the action should be taken. Effective use of signifiers guarantees visibility, and also allows you to convey feedback to the user and make it understandable.
- Projection. The connection between the regulators and the actions that they perform is built on the principle of creating good projections and is strengthened, as far as possible, by the correct spatial layout and temporal correlation.
- Limitations Providing physical, logical, semantic and cultural constraints directs user actions and simplifies product understanding.