Disney’s Magicband is the Best UX Design of the Decade

If you want an amazing user experience, go to Disney World in Orlando where there is no need to carry cash, maps, or tickets, hosts greet you by name, food arrives anywhere you sit, wait times for rides are minimized and more — all through a magical wristband.

9 Pieces of UX Advice I Stole From People Smarter Than Me

Some secrets and strategies that Spencer Lanooue learned from world-class designers.

How Apple Is Giving Design A Bad Name

Don Norman and Bruce Tognazzini make the case about how Apple has sacrificed user-centered design principles for beauty, and it’s causing their software to be confusing.

One Magic Formula to Calculate User Experience?

Wouter de Bres tries to uncover the many factors that play a role in user experience and if there is a formula to calculate what the UX of your product is.

Design User Research Explained for Everyone with Animated GIFs

Here’s 5 tips for design research to build empathy with the users and help define the overall experience.

How To Become A UX Leader

Some solid advice by Robert Hoekman Jr. about how to get what you want and be great at leading UX.

If You Do Nothing Else: DIY UX Research Tips

Some practical tips when doing UX research in-house on a budget. For more tips, I recommend Steve Krug’s Rocket Surgery Made Easy.

Prototyping Tools and Process

An in-depth look into the tools and prototyping process of design teams behind some of today’s most well designed products including Medium, Airbnb, Uber, Apple, Eventbrite, Pinterest and more.

The best icon is a text label

Icons are great when there is a universal meaning that everyone understands but most aren’t clear without context. To have clarity, use a label.

Figuring Out Your Design Decision Style

How does your team make design decisions? Jared Spool writes about different design decision styles and the impact of each.

Showing Passwords on Log-In Screens

Microsoft, Adobe, Twitter, LinkedIn, PayPal, Amazon and more show passwords on their log-in screen. Luke Wroblewski writes about why and how to show passwords and what’s coming next.

The Experience Makes the Product, Not the Features

Focus on your app’s core experience and user needs and not adding features to create a compelling user experience.

Why Product Thinking is the next big thing in UX Design

Thinking in products gives designers the advantage of building the right features for the right people.

What Is Zero UI? (And Why Is It Crucial To The Future Of Design?)

What will user interfaces look like when screens go away and how to design the user experience.

So you want to be an IA?

Solid advice from Abbey Covert for those that want to be an information architect.

12 Fascinating Projects From the Bleeding Edge of Interaction Design

A look at the new kinds of devices scientists and designers are prototyping for the future.

Becoming a More Thoughtful User Experience Designer

The difference between creating good experiences and amazing experiences often comes down to how thoughtful we can remain during the design process.

Why It’s Totally Okay to Use a Hamburger Icon

Steven Hoober writes on the use of menu icons today, how they have become ubiquitous on mobile devices, and how some of the current thinking about them is wrong.

The Future of Design in Technology

10 predictions of where design will be in 10 years from Julie Zhuo, Product Design Director at Facebook.

The Next Big Thing In Design? Less Choice

Aaron Shapiro, CEO of Huge, writes about the next big breakthrough in design: products, services, and experiences that eliminate the needless choices from our lives and make ones on our behalf.

Marissa Mayer’s New Rule For App Design

Three rules from Yahoo’s CEO that anyone can use to make their app better — the two tap rule, the 5-point rule, and the 98% rule.

Facebook’s UX Master Offers Some Must-Reads

Facebook’s director of product design, Margaret Gould Stewart shares her must-read books and articles about design and designing at a global scale.

Keyboard Smörgåsbord

An in-depth critique of the keyboard on iOS, followed by a set of aesthetic guidelines for the coherent visual design of software keyboards.

Fast Path to a Great UX — Increased Exposure Hours

Jared Spool writes there is a direct correlation between the time team’s are exposed to real users interacting with their design and the improvements in the designs that team produces.

The Art of Iterating Quickly

How Feedly organizes their design process to absorb, structure and integrate as much feedback as possible while iterating efficiently.

Emotional Intelligence in Design

As UX designers, we design with the best intentions but sometimes things can go terribly wrong. Beth Dean, designer at Facebook, writes that we need to start designing our products to be aware of emotions.

The Illusion of Time

Time is the most valuable and limited resource we have. Adrian Zumbrunnen writes about how time perception shapes user experience.

Designing Twitter Video

A long but good read on the design, prototyping and research process behind Twitter Video.

God is in the details

The details that take a product from good to great are time consuming, hard to define and scope but Buzz Usborne, UX Director at Campaign Monitor, offers up a few places where you can start looking for improvement in your own projects.

13 UX Mistakes Explained in GIFs

Next time someone creates one of these UX mistakes, just send them one of these reaction GIFs.

Rethinking Mobile Tutorials: Which Patterns Really Work?

5 rules for creating effective mobile tutorials — use less text, don’t frontload, make it fun, reinforce learning through play, and listen to your players.

Embracing Uncertainty in UX Research

Matt Gallivan, UX Researcher at AirBnB, write that if you’re a UX researcher, you do yourself and your field no favors when you claim to have all of the answers.

The Paradox of Empathy

Scott Jenson writes that empathy is a vague concept that isn’t strongly appreciated by others and while it leads to big, important insights, it usually starts with small steps.

Design Details: Instagram for iOS

A detailed look at the design of one of the most popular photo apps with lots of subtle use of motion and microinteractions.

Great Design Portfolios Are Great Stories

Simon Pan, gives advice on how to tell the story behind your work.

How to Give Better Product Feedback

The best feedback is the one most likely to create empathy and elicit product change. Cemre Güngör, product deisgner at Facebook, offers some tips to give better feedback.

In Design, Empathy is Not Enough

Dan Saffer writes that empathy will get you to see the problems from the users’ perspective, but to solve the problem you have to understand.

So, you’re going to be a user researcher: top tips to get you going

An awesome list of books, articles, and tips for those getting into user research.

How to Fix a Bad User Interface

Scott Hurff breaks down the rules of the UI Stack and the five states that help you create a cohesive interface that’s forgiving, helpful, and human.

Look and Feel and Feel

Jason Fried, Founder & CEO at Basecamp compares the experience of how Twitter and Instagram make him feel and the feeling we should design for.

Spatial Interfaces

Pasquale D’Silva explores thinking inside and outside the bounds of the screen to design a spatial interface.

One of the Biggest Mistakes I’ve Made in My Career

Former Lead Designer on Photoshop, Illustrator & InDesign, Andrei Herasimchuck, reflects on the age old question — should designers in tech learn how to code? For the other side of the argument, check out Designers Should Design, Coders Should Code.

Designing Live for Facebook Mentions

I love write-ups like this where we see design decisions, challenges, and iterations when designing a feature — especially for a product like Facebook, with such a large user base.

The Principles of UX Choreography

5 principles on how to captivate your audience and how they interact with your story.

How Google Finally Got Design

A look into Google’s transformation into a company that creates beautiful software in the mobile era.

6 Tips for Designing Happiness

The secret to consumer loyalty is less about the moment of interaction and more about what comes before and after.

Do as I Say, Not as I Do

Great advice for students of UX that are looking to get into the business by Dan Brown.

This Is All Your App Is: a Collection of Tiny Details

Getting the details right is the difference between something that delights, and something customers tolerate.

Good Design

What makes a good design? Julie Zhuo writes about an early design lesson and something she still thinks about all the time.

Don’t Be a User Research Robot

Giving recommendations that the team should focus on and being personal when doing user research are two tips Chuck Liu thinks you should always do.

In Search of the Design Documentation Unicorn

There isn’t a single best resource for documenting designs and design decisions but Dan Brown provides some ways to better communicate ideas and work with stakeholders and engineers.

The Nine States of Design

Here is a great checklist by Vince Speelman of various states to keep in mind when designing components of an interface.

Usability Test on Product Hunt for iPhone

Eric Lee, Product Designer at Tradecraft, conducted a usability test on the Product Hunt app and provided a nice look at his process, findings, and redesign.

A Behavioral Approach to Product Design

Changing behavior is hard. Aaron Otani writes about the four steps to designing products that impact behavior.

This Is How You Design Your Mobile App for Maximum Growth

Your userbase will never cease evolving so your product shouldn’t either. Kamo Asatryan shares formulas he relies on to help mobile apps optimize their entire user funnel, counterintuitive lessons and mistakes he’s learned on the job.

A Little Empathy Goes a Long Way

One of the many characteristics of a UX designer is empathy. This is a guide for an easy way to understand and apply empathy better.