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Toptal Design Blog
The Toptal Design Blog is a hub for advanced design studies by professional designers in the Toptal network on all facets of digital design, ranging from detailed design tutorials to in-depth coverage of new design trends, techniques, and technologies.
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5 Signs Your Product Strategy Is Broken—and How Designers Can Help Fix It
A good product strategy aligns team efforts, cuts costs, and encourages long-lasting conflict resolution. Three Toptal product design experts discuss how product strategies get derailed and what designers can do to help get things back on track.

Christian Adolphus
Christian is a product designer, product owner, user researcher, and Webflow developer. He led the design team at Chaka, a financial solutions platform, and worked as the founding product designer at SquadPal. His product experience spans B2B, B2C, and SaaS enterprise software.
Designing VR Games Worth Playing: 6 Key Considerations
Despite decades of hype, virtual reality gaming has failed to be widely adopted. Better design can reduce player frustration, increase comfort, and make games more immersive.

Edward Moore
Edward is a veteran UX designer with a résumé of award-winning projects for Google, Sony, Electronic Arts, and Sega. He’s worked on iconic gaming franchises like Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, and Sonic. In 2014, he launched a company to contribute strategic gamification and UX services to nongaming companies seeking to leverage AR/VR technology.
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Shopping for Apparel in an Online World: UI/UX Design for Virtual Clothing Try-on
How is technology changing the way people shop for clothes? Designers explain how to use AR and VR to drive conversions and minimize returns.

Laurence Brothers
Laurence is an analyst and technologist with experience at Google, Verizon Laboratories, and Toptal who now writes about the intersection of technology, business, and design. He has five patents for AI and internet applications and a master’s degree in computer science from Columbia University.
Play Is the Point: How UX Designers Can Break Into the Gaming Industry
There are many ways for game UX designers to break into this multibillion-dollar industry. Using her 14 years of video game UX expertise, designer Pam Nicholls shares how.

Pam Nicholls
Pam is a UX designer who specializes in video games, augmented reality, SaaS, and web applications. She has a master’s degree in industrial design and has worked on projects for high-profile clients such as Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, DreamWorks Animation, Scrabble, the NBA, and the NHL.
Improve the Product Development Process With This Simple, But Powerful, User Flow Analysis
Apply the four steps in this user flow analysis method to make your product development process more efficient—and improve UX for activities like app onboarding and checkout.

Khatia Gagnidze
Khatia is a product designer and researcher who has created and enhanced user flows for banking, fintech, and e-commerce products. Her clients include the Bank of Georgia, the payment processing software HitPay, and Mymarket, the largest e-commerce platform in the country of Georgia.
Can Designers Make the Metaverse Less Awkward?
UX designer Pam Nicholls has created video games and augmented reality experiences for companies like Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and DreamWorks Animation. Here she explores designing for the metaverse and reveals innovative ways to make the user experience more intuitive and accessible.

Pam Nicholls
Pam is a UX designer who specializes in video games, augmented reality, SaaS, and web applications. She has worked on projects for high-profile clients such as Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, DreamWorks Animation, Scrabble, the NBA, and the NHL.
Push Notification Best Practices: 7 Questions Designers Should Ask
Mobile app push notifications are powerful engagement tools, but they can be intrusive if not handled correctly. Don’t hit send on your push notification strategy before asking yourself these questions.

Shoaib Mahmud
Shoaib is a product designer with seven years of experience in mobile UX design for products in the freight and transportation sector, HR solutions, edtech, and logistics. He has worked with numerous startups in the US, Bangladesh, and Singapore overseeing project life cycles, including user research, wireframes, UIs, and prototypes.
Expert Designers Leading Healthcare Product Innovation
Modern medical products unburden healthcare providers, improve the patient experience, and save lives. What can we learn from the designers leading this surge in healthcare product innovation?

Micah Bowers
Micah Bowers is a designer and writer whose work has been featured in Fast Company, TNW, and other notable publications. He is a Lead Editor at Toptal.
4 Keys to Remarkable Brand Storytelling
Storytelling is a compelling way to communicate brand value—but only if you’re telling stories that resonate with your audience. Find out how to craft authentic brand stories that captivate customers and build lasting loyalty.

Dayo Tinkerman
Dayo is a senior designer who creates engaging digital products for organizations like Guinness World Records and American University Washington College of Law. He specializes in uniting consumer insights, user research, and brand storytelling for fintech, healthcare, e-commerce, and real estate clients.
Democratizing User Research to Innovate and Refine Digital Products
Empowering non-researchers to collect client feedback can pave the way to better products and customer retention.

Mariia Borysova
Mariia is a senior full-stack product designer specializing in healthtech and business operations. Her past clients include the Singapore Ministry of Health and Verizon. Working with a healthcare venture-building studio, she conducted foundational research and managed end-to-end design for multiple products.
You Be You: Creating Content for the Gen Z Design Aesthetic
Today’s young adults have enormous buying power, but they’re choosy shoppers with particular tastes. Understanding what drives their purchasing decisions can help you design content that resonates with Gen Z.

Jorge Gonzalez Miksi
Jorge is a senior designer and art director with expertise in graphics and animation. He has worked for several brand design agencies and created social content for numerous companies, including the luxury skin care brand Panachea. He holds an MFA in animation from the University of Edinburgh.
7 Expert Tips for Creating a Convincing Promo Video
Drawing on more than 25 years of design and motion graphics experience, Toptal designer Danny Rubyono explains how he makes enticing promo videos that compel viewers to action.

Danny Rubyono
Danny is a visual and motion designer who has created promo videos for companies such as AT&T, Intel, Microsoft, and Verizon. He is also the owner of Duro Compagnie, a collective design boutique that specializes in motion graphics for healthcare, cyber security, finance, the military, and the environment.
The Benefits of a Design System: Making Better Products, Faster
Design systems increase collaboration, ensure consistency, and accelerate design and development cycles. Toptal product designer Molham Bakir lays out how—and shares insights and tips from his experience building them.

Molham Bakir
Molham is a product designer who specializes in building design systems. His clients include Snap Inc. and e-commerce websites Dubizzle and Mumzworld, the largest online baby shop in the Middle East.
4 UX Tips to Reduce Users’ Cognitive Overload and Burnout
Knowledge workers spend most of their workdays using digital tools. These low-friction UX strategies help reduce techno-stress and increase healthy user engagement.

Rodrigo Perez Estrada
Rodrigo is a product designer who specializes in creating early-stage digital products and services for companies in fintech, healthcare, and insurance. His contributions to Yerbo, a healthcare product whose clients include Nubank, Gitlab, and Pandadoc, improved user burnout scores and helped the platform achieve a 20% exercise activation rate. Rodrigo holds a bachelor’s degree in graphic design and an MBA.
UX Design Job Interview Tips for Global Candidates: Landing Your Dream Role in the US
Searching for a design job is never easy—and it’s even more challenging if you’re new to the country and culture you want to work in. Here are steps one designer took to build a successful design career in America.

Elena Bukhonok
Elena is a multidisciplinary product designer and educator from Ukraine who now works in New York City. She has worked for numerous companies in the US and Ukraine, including fashion-technology startup CreateMe, healthcare startup Outcomes4Me, and EPAM, an enterprise software company used by Google, Salesforce, and Adobe. She holds a bachelor’s in architecture from Lviv Polytechnic National University in Ukraine and speaks four languages.
Supporting Diverse Needs: A Rebranding Success Story
Brand designer Bari Keenam shares how he turned a tricky logo redesign into a brand overhaul that helped his client establish an emotional connection with its customers.

Bariledum Keenam
Bari is a brand designer with a user-centric approach to brand ideation. With a background in engineering and marketing, he excels at problem-solving and brings diverse perspectives to brand creation. Bari teaches typography and UX design at the Lagos Engineering Career Expo and the Àṣà Coterie design community.
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Customer Journey Maps: What They Are and How to Build One
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