📰 3 ARTICLES
Body Language in AR: Designing Socially Aware Interactions
- Ruoyong Hong, Design Lead at Bosch, explores the potential social disruptions augmented reality could cause as AR devices become more common in public spaces, considering how current AR interactions tend to be self-centered and inconsiderate of by-standers.
- Designers of AR should consider moving beyond user-centric approaches, adopting a third-person perspective to ensure that AR integrates seamlessly into social environments, minimizing disruptions to public interactions.
- “Every time you put on AR glasses or hold up your phone to “catch” something invisible, you’re not just interacting with the digital world — you’re broadcasting your actions into the real one. What happens when these private, personal interactions start to disturb the people around you?”
Research Basics Every Designer Should Know
- Lirra Hill, Staff Experience Researcher at Adobe, delves into key methods she uses for conducting user research, outlining how a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches, as well as asking the right questions, can lead to more insightful results.
- Good research doesn’t stop there: a researcher must also help their team understand the responses, allowing for better product experiences that align with true user needs and expectations.
- “To build better products for our customers, we must first understand (through research) who we’re creating for and how we can best meet, and exceed, their needs and expectations. When research is conducted in an interesting and creative way, our product design work becomes exponentially better.”
- Maria Rosala, Director of Research at Nielsen Norman Group, breaks down the importance of adopting a "discovery mindset" in product design, which emphasizes exploration and learning throughout the entire process of product development.
- This approach contrasts with a more solution-forward mindset, which can lead to making decisions that are rooted in bias; to avoid this, concrete strategies are provided to keep ideation and iteration based in both continued curiosity and factual discovery.
- “Discovery helps us decide what to build or what direction to pursue. To perform discovery well, we have to adopt a particular mindset: an exploration mindset and an openness to learn new things.”
💜 PORTFOLIO INSPIRATION
Kelsey Jackson, a UX Academy graduate, showcases a research-centered approach to her design for HealthBridge, an app dedicated to streamlining access to healthcare records for both providers and patients. This research-backed but deeply empathetic approach to design is seen again in Guardian, an app created to help families preserve legacy through digitization of genealogy, documentation records, and memories such as photographs or stories.
Got a portfolio you love that you’d like to share with our audience? Email your suggestions to hello@designlab.com.
💡 INTERESTING STUFF...
- "Punk Not Junk": A Health Food Brand's Playful Design Strategy
- Modern Typography Trends in Web Design
- Should Users Vote on Product Decisions?
- How Google Solved an Impossible Problem
"It's the feeling of being an eternal student that keeps this profession interesting." — Adrian Shaughnessy, graphic designer & author
🧪 FROM THE LAB
🚀 Courses Launching in One Week
We have two upcoming course launches in just one week on Friday, October 25th.
For non-designers looking to increase the quality of their visual deliverables, our new Design 101 equips learners with the fundamental skills of visual and graphic design. If you’re a marketer, educator, entrepreneur, or just looking to up your visual design game, this course is for you. Learn more at our webinar this Wednesday, October 23rd, at 1pm ET or enroll now to secure your spot.
For experienced UX/ Product designers, Advanced Usability and Accessibility gives you the tools they need to truly design for everyone. Supported by expert mentors, students will deepen their understanding of how universal design principles apply to UX/UI, as well as how to create and assess their own work with usability best practices at the forefront. Enroll today.
🎤 Hear from a UX Academy Alum
We’ll be joined by Shannon Ragone, a recent graduate of UX Academy, at our live info session this coming Tuesday, October 22nd, at 6pm ET. Shannon will chat through her time in UX Academy, what it was like finding a role in the current UX market, and how she’s navigated her first job in UX/UI design.
We’ll also provide information and insight into both UX Academy and our prerequisite course, UX Academy Foundations, made for design beginners. Secure your spot here—even if you can’t attend, we’ll send you a recording.
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