Technology has made it easy for just about anyone to be able to whip up infographics and data visualizations. Apps like Canva and Piktochart are some popular examples of such. For myself, creating data visualizations is a part of my day-to-day life. I work as a graphic designer and can throw together an infographic pretty… Continue reading Data Diaries: Recording Listening Habits
Is my information conceptualor data driven? Am I declaring something or exploring something? According to Scott Berinato, the author of Good Charts, asking these two questions willgive yourself the base you need to plan and define a successful data visualization in any given scenario. Deciding whether you are working with ideas or hard data, and whether you… Continue reading The Four Types of Visualizing Data
As technology continues to advance it continues to spoil users. Any bit of information needed or wanted is at the fingertips of consumers and absorbed within seconds. At the beginning of the internet age we could find these tidbits of information located on plain web pages –nothing but coded text. With the passing of time… Continue reading Data vs. Visualization
As a graphic designer in the process of attaining a Master’s in User Experience (UX) Design there is one thing I need to keep reminding myself. That is: function first, visuals later. It is easy for me to get excited about color choices, icon illustration, and typography, but when it comes to UX that is… Continue reading Function First, Visuals Later
I recently reached the point in my latest project where user testing has begun! An exciting, yet stressful, period in the design process. Will your design fly or fail? So, last week I sat down with my parents to have them test a new paper prototype I had been putting together. I wanted to make… Continue reading I had my app-illiterate parents participate in my user testing. This is what I found.
As I complete each step of a design process there is something that takes me by surprise each time. As you move from site mapping, to creating flow charts, to prototyping you will continue to find errors in your design. Each step brings you new questions that the last step did not. This notion reinforces… Continue reading Errors, errors, and more errors.
What is a flowchart? A diagram of the sequence of movements or actions of people or things involved in a complex system or activity – Dictionary.com Flowcharts are all about process. As stated in the definition above, they are graphic representations of a set of actions. One chart can represent multiple outcomes of one… Continue reading Flowcharts: A Greater Look into the Mind of Your User
The foundation of a successful user experience is organization. More specifically, we can credit the base of UX successes to well-thought-out information architectures. Information architectures are popularly laid out using site maps, which aid in the creation of fluid navigation systems. This technique is one that can be used when creating websites, applications, and any… Continue reading Organizing your Digital Domain
“Design is not personal expression…Designing for people at scale is not about my experience or the experience of a small minority…It is about going out there and understanding the audience at large.” These quotes made by Julie Zhou while presenting at the AIGA Design Conference are some that have resounded in my head since my… Continue reading Using an Objective Approach to Design
With our smartphones comes heaps of notifications. These alerts come from pretty much every single app on our phones, thanks to push notifications. However, the ones that we receive from social media apps and messaging apps seem to give us the most anxiety. “You create for people an environment where they feel as though they… Continue reading Should we feel guilty when we neglect our messages?
Samantha Mantiglia 