Pixels of the Week – October 20, 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

Hello folks, I’m (sadly haha) back from Japan. It was an amazing trip, I miss the food already. I’m back with tones of inspiration for illustrations. For now, I’ve put a couple of pictures on Instagram stories, expect, fooood, design, temples and fun: highlight 1 and highlight 2.

Meanwhile, it’s almost end of October already, wow. So, for my spooky cute and pumpkin spice latte friends, I’m running some sales on all my Cute Spooky Cats for Halloween.

Get some cute stickers

Meetup season is back too. So, if you want to learn how to create products that are more robust, inclusive, and adaptable to real-world scenarios, then don’t miss my next free webinar Designing Beyond The Happy Path, October 22 2024, 6:30 PM (Luxembourg time). Login with your Figma account to register.

Most popular content this week

Choice is not the enemy (10min) real estate is an interesting example of where users don’t need simplified interfaces, but instead, an interface that helps them take more thoughtful decisions. Which means: filters, customization, instead of over simplification. I’m not sure about the whole “don’t make me think is a lie” part, though. I don’t remember that this book was pushing for over simplification. (by Ivan Sipilov)

Interesting articles that caught my attention

• What to do when qual and quant disagree? (4min) You analyze both together, keep an open mind, try to took at the problem from a different angle! by Archana Shah
• Becoming a better designer (8min) “Design isn’t just about creating something beautiful—it’s about leading, collaborating, and bringing clarity to complexity.” couldn’t agree more, designers evolve from only executing and delivering, to exploring and validating solutions and ultimately to defining both the problem and solution in ambiguous situations. By Jian Wei
• How Gmail solved the “impossible” problem (5min) a blast from the past, but sometimes, finding inspiration offline is the best way to solve digital problems: UX Designer Kevin Fox found inspiration in stacked index cards, for Gmail’s thread problem. (by Elizabeth Laraki)
• Turning the Tables on AI (8min) A couple of clever tricks to get the most out of an AI tools and use it to help improve your writing. I like the idea of having ChatGPT (or any other AI tool) ask you questions instead, to help you with your writing. Also, ask it to critique your work.

Interesting frameworks and concepts

How to Organize User Feedback with a Severity Scale (8min) An example of a severity scale and how to rate items, to help you prioritize and address the most critical issues by Nick Lioudis. It comes with a free GoogleSheet you can reuse.

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

Dopamine, a song in 2 languages at once. you will need headphones, French in left ear, English in right ear, yup, dopamine is the right word.

Inspiration: fun experiments, beautiful art, and great ideas

• Fishbowl – Save the fish  amazing fun demo in the browser with a little fish you need to save by adding water in the tank
• Yolande Mutale a world of colorful illustrations, print, and cards
• Gyotaku: Japanese fishermen in the 19th used to ink fish, and press them onto paper to both keep record of their catches and compare size. This became an amazing art form.

Books

Lapabooks: a collection of free books for designers to help you develop your skills. And if you want more, go and check-out My favorite 10+ free eBooks for designers. I also share a way to access books for free or a small fee using public library registration.

Useful tools & resources

• Redirect Checker an online tool to check your redirections
• GraphicSauce Free Illustration: a collection of 200+ free illustrations in SVG and PNG format for your projects. They cute samurai, traditional Japanese , barbarian and spartan characters
• Procedural Planets: a fun procedural rendering of a planet with tones of options to play with
• ​​LinkStack a cool self-hosted open source Linktree alternative for your business and social media needs (you can also chose to host on their servers, starting for $1/month)

Latest news in the industry

Searching for a New CSS Logo (3min) I really like the hotpink proposal with the 3 little radii, yes please!