📰 3 ARTICLES
What is Business Empathy?
- “Business Empathy” is described as the ability to understand the unique context of the business for which a product is being designed, thereby enabling the creation of user behaviors that lead to business outcomes.
- This goes beyond user empathy: it requires an in-depth understanding of what drives the business, including customer types, unique value props, revenue strategies, and more, allowing designers to craft UX that strategically aligns with the business's goals and contributes to its success.
- “Making things easier or reducing clicks does not give certainty of business success. Users still may not onboard, perform transactions, sign up for offerings, or want to pay you just because the experience of using the product is easy. To be able to craft business-centric behavior, what does it take?”
Synthetic Users: If, When, and How to Use AI-Generated Research
- UX trailblazer Jakob Norman takes an insightful look at the tool Synthetic Users, which creates AI-generated personas used in user research, breaking down scenarios where this sometimes polarizing form of research can be highly useful.
- The approach is particularly beneficial in scenarios where privacy concerns, scalability, and cost are significant factors: AI technologies to generate and evolve synthetic users, ensuring that they closely mimic human behavior patterns, accelerating complex research processes.
- “According to Hugo Alves, cofounder of Synthetic Users, the product's particularly useful in scenarios where swift decision making is crucial and absolute certainty isn't required. The tool allows teams to access the thoughts, reflections, and emotions of specific user groups, providing timely and frequent access to user insights.”
So You Launched an App... Now What?
- UX designer and thought-leader Paul Boag takes an insightful look into effective strategies for improving websites post-launch, emphasizing the importance of ongoing optimization to enhance user experience and performance rather than just “walking away”.
- The notion of continuous development is encouraged, focusing on the use of analytics, A/B testing, and updating and then assessing new content as important means to keep your product accessible, relevant, and fresh.
- “Once you’ve solved one issue, return to your analytics. Find the next biggest problem. Repeat the whole process. As you fix some problems, more will become apparent, and so you’ll quickly find yourself with an ongoing program of improvements that can be made.”
💜 PORTFOLIO INSPIRATION
Alejandra Gutierrez, a UX Academy graduate, brings a wonderful sense of playfulness and whimsy to the design of her portfolio. She also creates a throughline of travel and community in her work, creating an app for individuals who want to easily plan exploring multiple cities when traveling, as well as an end-to-end mobile design for those who have moved to a new city and are looking to build connections.
Got a portfolio you love that you’d like to share with our audience? Email your suggestions to hello@designlab.com.
💡 INTERESTING STUFF...
- UX Lessons from the Marvel Universe
- Snapchat: New Feature for Community Protection
- Celebrating the Power of Color
- Design Lessons from IKEA
Whitespace is like air: it is necessary for the design to breathe. — Wojciech Zieliński (director and filmmaker)
🧪 FROM THE LAB
🚨 Courses Launching Soon
July 8th, UX Academy Foundations: Gain proficiency with Figma and learn foundational visual design skills through hands-on project work in this flexible online course. Work with a 1:1 industry expert mentor and join our supportive community. Enroll now.
July 8th, Advanced Figma: Master the skills and workflows of the most efficient product designers in this 4-week course for experienced design professionals. Work through hands-on projects to learn complex concepts like components and auto-layouts, and come together every week to collaborate with peers and be guided by an expert mentor. Enroll now.
July 8th, Data-Driven Design: In this 6-week course for experienced designers, you’ll gain confidence in your ability to use data in every facet of your design role. Make design decisions with data, story-tell with data to win over stakeholders, and understand how to run experiments effectively. Learn more at the informational webinar on Tuesday, July 2nd.
🎤 Upcoming Design Events
July 1st 1PM EST: How to Use Gemini for UX Writing Tasks
July 9th 1PM EST: Designing for AI: How is it Different?
July 11th 1PM EST: Closing the Gap Between Designers and Developers
🗓️ Apply to Our Next Cohort of UX Academy
The application deadline for the July cohort of UX Academy is in just two weeks, on Friday, July 12th. If you have existing design experience, you can apply directly to UX Academy and jump right into our award-winning career change program.
The application is completely free and only takes a couple of minutes. Apply now.
