In this week’s UIEtips, I explain what makes an experience innovative. Here’s an excerpt from the article: Everyone assumed the old way of long lines was how you did it. They built their stores with dedicated space to accommodate the lines during busy periods, such as after the holidays. Apple’s new approach meant their architects [...]

Ever wonder how many “World’s Best Coffee” signs exist in the world? The world is a big place, so that claim may or may not be entirely accurate. These days, with social media being so prevalent, it’s important that your messaging is truthful and that your product or service delivers on those promises. Otherwise you run the risk of losing the trust of your customer base, and scaring away potential users.

In this week’s UIEtips Jared M. Spool discusses three radical redesign approach strategies. Here’s an excerpt from the article It’s your most loyal customers who will hate your flip-the-switch redesign the most. Designers are quick to declare, “Users hate change.” But that’s not it at all. Your loyal users have invested a lot over the [...]

In this week’s UIEtips Kevin Cheng discusses how to communicate ideas using comics and sketches. Here’s an excerpt from the article Having everybody reading the requirements document before a project starts isn’t just bureaucratic nonsense; it also ensures there are no surprises at the end. The problem is that requirements documents use words like “community,” [...]

In this week’s UIEtips, Jared discusses the cost effectiveness of responsive design vs. creating a separate mobile version of a web site. Here’s an excerpt from the article Which is more expensive: a responsive design web site or creating a separate mobile version? This is a constant debate among many organizations. We can answer it [...]

With so many teams and divisions within organizations, falling into a pattern of designing within your own silo is incredibly easy. Mobile teams are focused on the mobile products. Desktop teams are concerned with the desktop experience. But customers interact with your product or service from an increasing variety of touchpoints. They expect a seamless experience across channels and devices, but this is often not the case.

Before Cirque de Soleil, if you thought about a circus, you thought about elephants and lions and poodles that jumped through hoops of fire. The animals were there to make the kids happy. Cirque decided to do something different: no animals. Because they chose no animals, their costs dropped tremendously. It turns out that moving, [...]

Thanks to Marco Dini for translating this post to Italian. Co.Design published an article asking why business schools are still teaching the four Ps of marketing when three of them are dead. Great article if you ignore the premise, which I think they got completely wrong. For those of you who haven’t stumbled across the [...]

Mark Schaefer loves Home Depot. He wrote this blog post about how much. However, in that same post, he talked about a breakdown in the experience of being a Home Depot shopper. I’ve been going to Home Depot for 20 years and have spent untold thousands of dollars on home improvement and landscaping materials. I [...]

“Meetings are a waste of time.” “Meetings, ugh—I have real work to do.” Heard these? The perception of meetings worsens when you have an unproductive one. The entire team feels like their time could have been better spent.