📰 3 ARTICLES
🌟 Featured Event: Paths to Design Leadership 🌟
- We’re excited to invite our community to “Paths to Design Leadership”, a special event hosted by Hang Le, Head of Design at Eppo and former Director of Product Design at Dropbox.
- Hang will speak to how designers can grow their careers through their craft, strategy, and team, and give insights into how the audience might carve their own path to leadership at their current company by assessing design maturity, building support, and executing strategy.
- This is a free event, and all are welcome and encouraged to sign up. Register here, and receive a recording even if you can’t attend live.
AI Optimism in UX
- UX pioneer Jakob Nielsen's argues that while AI will impact the landscape of the job market, there should be optimism rather than fear when it comes to mass unemployment—including within the UX design sector.
- Nielsen delves into the historical context of prior technological revolutions, using these as examples to showcase how streamlined work and increased productivity will lead to a demand for more products and experiences, thereby creating more roles.
- "If the cost of developing products drops 10%, more products will be developed, and those designers and developers who do not need to build Product One will be redeployed to build Product Two through Ten. Since declining development costs will be married to rising living standards in society, it’s likely that dropping costs will result in the demand for more new things, now that people can afford more.”
Case Study: What Audible Gets Wrong
- UX consultant Peter Ramsey analyzes the UX flaws in the audiobook app Audible's design, citing several opportunities for improvement when it comes to encouraging repeat customers.
- Ramsey breaks down issues within the app, such as incomplete book recommendations, ineffective analytics displays, and poorly implemented achievement systems, which together could hinder user engagement and potential repeat sales.
- “Unlike a subscription (a recurring purchase), you usually have to be proactive about designing and spinning a flywheel (for example, feeling a sense of ownership about your Audible library, and using that to encourage another purchase.) for repeat purchases.”
💜 PORTFOLIO INSPIRATION
Winnie Phan, a UX Academy graduate, brings strong research in understanding your audience in her design for ChefMate, an AI-powered app that helps individuals make recipes with ingredients they already have at home, marketing specifically towards Gen Z. She couples this aptitude for understanding her audience with accessible and welcoming UI in AngelWatch, and app made to enhance women’s safety with self-protection tools for those who are online dating.
Got a portfolio you love that you’d like to share with our audience? Email your suggestions to hello@designlab.com.
💡 INTERESTING STUFF...
- Anti-Advertising Billboards
- Fonts that Evoke Feelings
- Shadows in UI: Tips & Tricks
- Designers as Facilitators
Creativity is to think more effectively. — Pierre Reverdy, poet
🧪 FROM THE LAB
🚀 UX Academy Foundations Launching Soon
Our next cohort of UX Academy Foundations is launching in just over a week, on Monday, September 9th. Work through hands-on projects to learn visual and UI design fundamentals while also gaining proficiency in Figma.
You’ll be supported through 1:1 mentorship with an industry expert, and also be able to tap into our dynamic student community. All within a flexible and beginner-friendly, fully online format.
Ready to get started? Learn more at an upcoming webinar or enroll now.
🎤 Upcoming Design Events
- September 5th 1PM EST: Networking Made Easy
- September 11th 4PM EST: Generative UI: Designing Inclusive Products for Everyone
- September 17th 1PM EST: Designing the Future: A Conversation with Visual Electric Cofounder Colin Dunn
- September 18th 12PM EST: Designing for People, Planet, and Climate
👀 Advanced Courses Launching Next Week
We’ll be launching two courses for working designers, our popular AI for Visual Design and our all-new Prototyping in Figma, next week:
AI for Visual Design: Dive into some of the biggest AI tools and learn to make dynamic imagery and animations in this innovative 4-week course. If you’re a designer, marketer, or looking to better leverage visual design in your workflow, this course is for you. Begins Friday, September 6th.
Prototyping in Figma: Learn to build more robust prototypes that realistically demonstrate the interactions you’ve designed. Understand when to use prototyping, learn advanced strategies, streamline design hand-off, and more in this 4-week course. Begins Thursday, September 5th.
