Fighting Deceptive Patterns

Deceptive patterns can be hard to spot, but they are all around us: Social media apps forcing us to connect our phone numbers, “free trials” that automatically turn into paid services without a reminder, or prompts where the “no” option is well-hidden. The list could go on. Luckily, there are some great initiatives out there that take a stand against Deceptive patterns.

One of them is the Dark Patterns Tip Line. To raise awareness of the harm that manipulative design can cause, it crowdsources stories of digital manipulation. The goal is to help policymakers and enforcers hold companies accountable for their practices. So whenever you come across a dark pattern, don’t hesitate to report it to the tip line.

The hall of shame by Deceptive Design also collects stories from users who had to deal with deceptive patterns. The same goes for the Dark Pattern Detection Project. Their goal is to develop an open-source, AI-based text analysis tool that detects deceptive patterns automatically and redesigns them in a personalized manner for the respective customers.

Playbooks For UX Designers

Whether you’re a student looking to land your first job in UX design or a design manager growing a design team, Playbook answers common questions that UX designers might encounter at any stage of their career to help them achieve their career goals.

The Playbook shares tips and actionable advice about getting your first product job, growing as a design manager, building a design system, and being a successful freelancer. The action items come from the people who know best: product designers, founders, design managers, and consultants from small companies, just like global players such as Google, Facebook, and Adobe.

https://askplaybook.com/

The Best UX Research Methods in a Pinch

Jordan Bowman wrote a great post to help you find the right UX research method for your project. In “The Best UX Research Methods in a Pinch,” he takes a closer look at six methods that don’t take much time or money but give you the insights you need, quickly and effectively.

https://uxtools.co/blog/best-ux-research-methods-in-a-pinch/

Usability Heuristics Frameworks

For many UX designers, Jakob Nielsen’s “10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design” is the go-to evaluation approach. However, sometimes you might discover discussion-worthy user experience problems that don’t fit the mold.

Michael Kritsch was in the same situation and started searching for alternative usability heuristics frameworks. This led him to the question: How to choose the appropriate method? To help you make an informed decision, Michael explored, categorized, and standardized ten heuristics. He summarized his findings in a comprehensive article.

https://uxdesign.cc/usability-heuristic-frameworks-which-one-is-right-for-you-1962387b7cc

The Design Systems Guide

Getting a design system right is hard. There are so many different types of design systems and so many ways of setting up one and maintaining it over time. Fortunately, there is plenty of incredible resources all around design systems. But where do you even start? What would be a good process to use to make sure that your efforts don’t hit the wall of tough deadlines and final tweaks? The Design System Guide, kindly released by Romina Kavcic, has got your back. The guide is a very comprehensive interactive book on the foundations of design systems, design metrics, design tokens, checklists, and handy resources for managing design systems.

https://thedesignsystem.guide/

NFTs and Video Games – a short-lived idea for 2022 / 2023?

NFTs…. Love them or hate them? I hate them, personally.

Polygon ran an interesting read just recently: unfortunately for studios salivating at the idea of getting in on the crypto action in 2022, players largely revolted against it. Most plans for NFT integration were a disaster. And NFT controversies in the gaming world were so big this year that it even became a subplot of the Apple TV show Mythic Quest this season.

But it wasn’t just gamers who rejected crypto this year. The crypto market itself also went bust. The promised Web3 revolution that much of Silicon Valley was manically chattering about in 2022 not only never arrived, it actually collapsed into a speculative puff of smoke, thanks to a series of major economic crashes. And the world of blockchain technology, in general, is looking so grim that investors are, yet again, wondering if the entire space is over for good.

Read more: https://www.polygon.com/23521430/nft-video-games-crypto-failed-decentraland-axie-infinity

Designing Accessible Data Visualizations

Accessibility should be at the heart of every product, and it’s not any different for data visualizations. By making your graphs accessible, you not only ensure that everyone can use them but also that they are easier to understand.

Sarah L. Fossheim develops and designs software for the education sector and previously worked in cancer research. In medical software, for example, an inaccessible or confusing graph could lead to critical mistakes, such as giving the wrong medication to a patient.

To help everyone build better and accessible data visualizations that prevent confusion and misunderstandings, Sarah summarized ten dos and don’ts to keep in mind whenever you’re designing a chart or a graph.

https://fossheim.io/writing/posts/accessible-dataviz-design/

Dashboard Design Patterns

Dashboards present complex data sets at a glance. But what does effective dashboard design look like? How do you find the right balance between displaying everything that’s important and ensuring the dashboard is easy to use without overwhelming the user?

The interdisciplinary research lab VisHub at the University of Edinburgh published a set of dashboard design patterns to support the design and creative exploration of dashboard design. It dives deeper into every aspect of dashboards — from components and meta information to visual representation, interaction, and page layout. 

https://dashboarddesignpatterns.github.io/patterns.html