💥Design Brief #100: Design Systems, DesignOps, Bad UX, Brand Design, Accessibility, Bots Are Dumb and User-Centered Design

Distinct Design Systems

The author takes a closer look at design systems, their potential uses, and value. He shares his observations from previous projects and presents a quick inventory of a handful of design systems and the components they contain. Will we see a lot more innovative and interesting design systems pop up in the near future? Read more

DesignOps: The Questions You’re Probably Asking Yourself Now

As design teams start to scale in size (and the design process in complexity), our industry turns the spotlight to DesignOps: a new nomenclature for an old profession that is becoming increasingly important for every company seeking to create great, consistent, and efficient work. Here’s a 5-min guide to the topic. Read more

Bad UX Roundup #18: You Had One Job!

The Bad UX Roundup series aims at presenting the perilous nature of UX, and the sheer number of ways in which you can damage it. In this article, the author has compiled five examples of products that had all the pieces there, but nonetheless failed to assemble them into something useful. Read more

The Unseen Value of Brand Design

It’s not easy to see the value a strong brand brings to your company. You have to see your brand as a long-term investment. Something that will give back every time you use it and every time people come across it. The author shares a variety of past experiences, observations and takeaways from launching a brand in the first city outside of its initial market. What can you learn from him? Read more

How One Designer Motivates Others to Build More Ethical Products

The article is a part of the Side Project Series, an attempt to spotlight designers who go the extra mile to finish their passion projects. This story is about Cat Noone, the founder and/or CEO of three apps focused on design accessibility. Here’s a peek into her projects, along with tips on how to include as many users as possible. Read more

I Built a Bot and Now I Know Why Bots Are so Dumb

Good bot design takes a lot of thought. You wouldn’t just throw together a UI without any sort of planning or wireframes, so you can’t expect to build a conversational UI that way either. This is the main lesson learned from designing the Lamp bot, a chatbot that allows me to control an internet connected LIFX lightbulb in my office. What else can you learn from the story? Read more

User-Centered Design: Process And Benefits

In the design process, we should not forget about the environment we move in. The users are the most obvious reality for designers. But if we go behind the scenes of the design process, we’ll discover what user-centered design is and all its benefits. This movement started in the 1980s, when designers and computer scientists began to work together towards focusing the design of computer software around users. Want to learn more about it? Read more