Pixels of the Week – November 3, 2024

My curated weekly-ish online newsletter, where I share interesting articles, tools, and resources I found during the week. You can expect content about UX, design, user research, accessibility & tech, but also some processes, some inspiration, sometimes books, and a couple of videos and podcasts. Also, don’t forget to, subscribe to the newsletter to get notified, you will get the weekly links directly in your mailbox, and be notified when I publish other articles.

Now: what I’m currently up to

I’m currently working on some content on user testing to bring to the blog and the shop, I hope, by mi November. Or, at least, end of the year. I’m also having fun with illustrations, but, it’s a surprise, so for now I can’t show you anything. And, I’m sooo bad at keeping secrets, so, this is a challenge. What I can tell you: I’ve ordered some glow in the dark sticker paper. Muuhaha. Should be fun.

Most popular content this week

5 Funny Metaphors to Explain Why it Needs UX Professionals (7min) everybody can cook but you go to a restaurant, everybody can push a piano’s buttons but when turning on music, you listen to experts, everybody can cut hair, but you don’t let them, everybody can tell a fairytale, but you go to the theaters and Netflix for real stories, everybody can kick a ball, but you watch major league. Which one do you prefer? Personally, I like the cook one, because people relate to food, but I also once used a car rally metaphor to explain UX and design process to a stakeholder. The key is to find the metaphor that will speak to their own interest.

Interesting articles that caught my attention

UX Design and information architecture

• “UX is a joke, and it’s inexcusable” (5min) memes and people publicly mocking poor UX reflect valid, actual valid frustration that we should investigate. “If something becomes a parody, then we’ve really dropped the ball, and we should be focusing on fixing it.”. I agree with Mathew Wilson. I also think that this often happens when companies either don’t have designers in this “fail fast” mentality, think design is about putting pain on a MVP, or when designer proposals and decisions get thrown away, not implemented because budget, stakeholder decided to copy competition, you chose your flavor or the day. I’m not saying designers shouldn’t be blamed, but, there’s a whole team making products and product decisions that leads to those memes and satyrs.
• How I increased my visibility (4min) this article resonates a lot, because, I’ve mostly, the same strategy (even though I don’t like to call this a strategy to be honest). Just like Kent Dodds, I’m curious, share what I like, share what I learn, try to demystify things, and share often. Happy to see I’m not the only one with such a mindset!
• 5 Tips for Avoiding Confusing Category Names (6min) be descriptive, relatable, avoid made-up terms, check for overlapping categories, base them on user’s mental model, don’t rely on your instinct and instead do usability testing. (by Hoa Loranger and Taylor Dykes)
• The Ugly Realities of the UI/UX Design Industry (5min) I wouldn’t call those ugly realities, but more like “a list of the things they don’t tell you about a UX job at school”, including: the design process is never perfect, maturity level is low in many companies, you might end up being alone as a designer with no support, you will have to clean up other people’s mess, your work will often not be visible and might never make it to production, etc.This shouldn’t stop you from entering the field, just, be realistic about the fact that it won’t be that easy, and stay flexible.
• When traditional user research isn’t an option: non-traditional ways to collect insights (8min) if you can’t talk to users directly, you can find proxy ways to gather data. A couple of ideas: consider joining sales demo, check with the service desk for their insights, attend support calls, use analytics, use webinars or training sessions, gather feedback from people who left to a competitor, etc. by M. Rijkers
• Designing For Gen Z: Expectations and UX Guidelines (10min) according to the resources collected here by Vitaly Friedman, Gen Z expect designs that are more diverse and inclusive, that are authentic, accessible, mobile only. They expect subtitles, instant gratification but also want to be courage into more critical thinking.

Accessibility

• Six things NOT related to accessibility that will improve your disability inclusion efforts (7min) Offer continuous education, help people with micro-coaching sessions, create a psychologically safe environment, bring tools for collaboration especially with remote people, bring opportunities for leadership positions that are not about managing people (because non everyone wants to manage people but a lot of people want to go into more leadership positions).
• Native mobile app accessibility – choice of platform is essential (7min) hybrid apps while efficient, often lack full support for assistive technologies, leading to potential inaccessibility issues for some users. Bogdan Cerovac also makes a point about using such technologies to go fast, and often, when we go fast, accessibility gets forgotten.
• Why GOV.UK’s Exit this Page component doesn’t use the Escape key (11min) a super interesting example of why accessibility is a complex “it depends” topic and one solution (escape key) might not work in all situations)

Curiosity cabinet: non-design/tech rabbit holes I enjoyed

I wish this song existed when I was a teenager Jax – Victoria’s Secret: I know Victoria’s secret, Girl, you wouldn’t believe, She’s an old man who lives in Ohio, Making money off of girls like me”, Cashin’ in on body issues, Sellin’ skin and bones with big boobs, I know Victoria’s secret, She was made up by a dude!

Inspiration: fun experiments, beautiful art, and great ideas

• You remember every UX designer’s user testing nightmare, the square hole girl video? She’s back, with a spooky Halloween edition. Behold, usability testing nightmare Halloween pumpkin edition
• Helga Stentzel (Instagram) has a fun collection of  animals made out of drying clothes and houses with eyes.

Useful tools & resources

• Minimal Market: a list of minimal apps that you can use, ordered by categories: screen time, productivity, web, etc. Always nice to discover new tools!
• PicLooks if you feel comfortable using AI generated pictures, that tool offers some Midjourney v6.1 avatars for your mockups, free for commercial usage
• Mundango Dave Rupert made a cute game about enjoying the small things in life. And it plays a noise each time you check a box which is the most satisfying thing to me.
• Find your font match: a tool that lets you test and preview 2 fonts in real time, to check if they work with UI elements, and if they work together
• Am I blue: a little game where you need to match the color of the head with the background. Be careful, you can’t remove color, only add, which means, if you added too much of blue, yellow or magenta, it’s over

Tutorials

Graphic designers share their top tips for choosing the right fonts: understand personality, prioritize legibility and readability, consider technical aspect (like do you need italic, certain characters?), try it before committing, be mindful of license and budget, limit your selection to maintain harmony, do your research to understand what’s trendy and what to avoid, consider where it will be used and test across media, keep it simple.