#productdesign Posts

Creating meaningful designs, capturing customer attention, and influencing their behavior is something that designers and marketers will agree is one of the most difficult things to achieve.

Two Toptal designers engage in a lively debate about aesthetics, objectivity, and the definition of art and design.

A design sprint is a methodology used to validate ideas through design, prototyping, user testing, and collaboration in only five days, offering a more structured, effective approach to creative thinking.

In this age of lean startups, designers often find themselves in stretch roles where they are not only in charge of a product’s design but also in charge of coming up with the type of product to build.

Every month, we bring you riveting design news and inspiring content focused on design. Here are five hand-picked pieces of design news.

The best landing pages increase conversions and help brands sell more. But what makes great landing page design? Read and uncover valuable insights for any business looking for a world-class landing page.

80% of businesses fail in their first year—a majority of these casualties are due to a lack of customer research. Effective customer development interviews can help validate product ideas before moving forward.

A lion’s share of websites and apps in the online media space are powered by content management systems (CMS). The optimal way to design for these applications is putting content first, style second.

Every month, we bring you riveting design news and inspiring content focused on design. Here are five hand-picked pieces of design news.

Human cognition is complex, and many factors play into instant impressions. Design psychology is coming to the forefront as more and more companies are using neuroscience to design better user experiences.

As several successful big brand products have demonstrated, designers can leverage game design concepts by adopting a game designer’s mindset to design better, more engaging products.

Effective user research doesn’t have to cost a fortune. In fact, there are many low-cost methods available to designers, all of which will put a designer on the road to designing better products.

Every month, we bring you riveting design news and inspiring content focused on design. Here are five hand-picked pieces of design news.

The wearable technology revolution is shifting our long established patterns of how we utilize data in our daily lives and social interactions. In many ways, it’s a lot more personal.

Some products prove irresistible because they combine psychological design techniques that create an ultimate UX hook: anticipatory, persuasive, and emotional design.

The inaugural issue of Toptal Design World News. Every month, we bring you riveting design news and inspiring content focused on design.

Prototype design is a powerful process detailing how designers do everything required to test, iterate, and develop prototypes, beginning with user flows and ending in functional wireframes.

Flinto is a simple and easy to use tool for creating interactive prototypes. This tutorial teaches you how to quickly create mobile dashboard microinteractions in order to improve your prototype.

New design tools are emerging at an incredible rate, but the future promises a vast array of astonishing tools that will forever change the way designers think and work.

For designers, working in enterprise is a challenge because of all the different stakeholders and moving parts. This guide reviews the collaborative design process for working better in that environment.

Conducting UX analysis as part of an iterative process provides valuable, actionable insights into enhancing and optimizing a product’s user experience.

While there can be considerable overlap between user interface (UI) design and user experience (UX) design, they are distinct fields with different skills required for each role.

Customer journey maps are a visual storytelling tool used to help designers empathize with users and identify actionable opportunities for providing a better user experience.

Great designers help teams and stakeholders make better decisions by using questions to identify opportunities, reveal underlying needs, and understand user context—all of which lead to better designs.

A brand is a promise. This article outlines how illustrations are being used to express brand value and how businesses are investing substantial time and resources into extensive brand illustration systems.

By leveraging new and emerging technologies like AI, AR, VR, and MR, designers have fresh and exciting opportunities ahead in designing future products.

Emojis are universal symbols of expression, transcending cultural and linguistic divides. As technology continues to advance, designers will be the ones to define the next evolution of human communication.

Working under a tight deadline? We’ve all picked up design projects that required us to deliver outstanding results under severe time constraints. This article outlines a 30 day branding case study that breaks down the process of how to get it done effectively.

What is UX design? This article dispels the myths and lays bare the many misconceptions surrounding the discipline by looking at what UX design is and what it is not.

Many a promising project can be stymied by unyielding personalities, inflexible attitudes, and big egos. Learn to navigate these tricky waters with grace and professionalism.

Designers are not mere pixel pushers. They must frame the problem, identify a solution, and engage users while also impacting their client’s bottom line. This article explains how the S.M.A.R.T. framework helps designers stay goal-oriented and increase their success rate.

Why do we still use buttons in our user interfaces? Technology has come so far and offers so many possibilities, there is no longer any reason to force our users to click the tiny rectangles we call “buttons.”

Dark-themed UIs can be dramatic, stylish and elegant. But despite the many benefits, they come with a slew of challenges and potential pitfalls that every designer would be wise to keep in mind.

Buttons—We use them daily in apps and websites to finalize crucial actions. Digital design develops at an incredible pace, and buttons as one of its most important elements along with it. How has their style developed over the past 8 years? Check the Dribbble Buttons Timeline.

Regardless of the environment or size of a project, UX professionals need a variety of deliverables to help facilitate design communication with various stakeholders and teams, document work and provide artifacts for meetings and ideation sessions. Here are 10 of the most common UX deliverables.

A well-produced, high-quality pitch video can go a long way toward helping a business or individual gain credibility and secure funding. Here are 7 tips.

What is a heuristic analysis? How do you run one effectively by employing a group of usability experts to dramatically improve a product’s UX?

It is now possible to more accurately shape experiences that dynamically personalize content by coupling behavioral design with data science and analytics.

A competitive analysis can dramatically improve customer satisfaction and conversion rates as well as give assurance that you stand apart from your competitors.

A wireframe map is handy as a tool for estimating work at the start of a project and as a checklist to keep you on track throughout the design process.

It’s crucial that designers focus not only on cultivating their abilities with creative tools but also improve their ability to communicate design effectively.

Remote UX workshops call for meticulous preparation and the use of proven techniques as complex details make it a challenge with many potential pitfalls.

These 10 surprising UX books from various disciplines will broaden a designer’s perspective and provide insight into diverse approaches to problem solving.

Interaction design principles form the bedrock of awesome UX. Truly great interaction design relies on a set of conventions, standards, best practices and rules-of-thumb.

The relationship between art and design is often misunderstood, and although a design outcome can be artful, the process behind it is altogether very different.

The top five reasons why creating a styleguide early is especially important for startups in spite of the inherent challenges.

Reflections on the disappearance of web forms. How mobile biometrics could unlock a personal data vault that provides what’s necessary, killing forms entirely.

In many product design scenarios wireframes may not be necessary and skipping them altogether may cut down on confusion and save a lot of time.

UX and usability testing analysis is a critical skill. How do you go about collecting data and analyze results? Here’s a way to stay sane during the process.

Toptal designer Bronwen Rees explains how in persuasive design, social and psychological triggers can be utilized to influence user behavior.

The next wave of IoT will connect millions of devices. The skills needed in this new paradigm will shift from component thinking to whole systems thinking.

In this article, Toptal designer Sergio Ortiz writes about the Internet of Things, its design implications, how it will change the way businesses operate, and how we see the world—and how to help make homes, cities, and factories smarter and more efficient.

Often, designers make the mistake of designing apps for their own vanity, focusing on the veneer instead of designing a great user experience. As Steve Jobs once said, “Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like.”

In this article, Toptal UX Designer Miklos Philips discusses Jobs’s point of view and clarifies the importance of designing for people.