In my workshops, often the greatest challenge for designers is converting their existing Android designs to the new Material Design approach—making the interface both simpler and more visually rich than their corresponding Android 4.x designs, as well as laying out the “happy path†for the customers (using Floating Action Button or FAB, as one of the tools). The following sticky note wireframes demonstrate my quick take on converting the Android 4.x TripAdvisor app into Material Design using $1 Prototype methodology — perfect for prototyping Android Material Designs.
Let Them Pee: Avoiding the Sign-Up/Sign-In Mobile Antipattern
Anything that slows down customers or gets in their way after they download your app is a bad thing. That includes sign-up/sign-in forms that show up even before potential customers can figure out if the app is actually worth using.
Mobile Welcome UX Antipattern: End User License Agreement (EULA)
Like the overzealous zombie cross-breed between a lawyer and a customs agent, End User License Agreements (EULAs) require multiple forms to be filled out in triplicate, while keeping the customers from enjoying the app they have so laboriously invested time and flash memory space to download.
Essential Design Patterns For Mobile Banking
Despite a great deal of mobile innovation, many creators of financial apps still copy their interface patterns from the desktop Web, even though these patterns are not as well suited to the mobile space. Small screens, custom controls, divided attention and fat fingers demand different thinking when designing for mobile: taking what works on the Web and converting it into authentically mobile flows using simple, effective design patterns.
HULT University Course: Advanced User Experience * July 2 – August 3, 2011 * San Francisco, CA
Course Description This course teaches how to create best-of-class cross-channel customer experiences on the mobile, tablet and web. Using Mobile-First design principles, students will learn the practical modern UX methods and best design approaches for each channel, with special focus on critical elements of mobile apps, search, navigation, forms and workflows. Although no technical expertise …
Digital Cream * June 19, 2012 * San Jose, California
E-Consultancy’s exclusive invitation-only roundtable event, Digital Cream San Jose is an opportunity for senior client-side digital marketers to discuss best practice and the reality of digital marketing with the industry’s ‘cream of the crop’.
The event is designed to help you meet your peers and learn from each other about the latest best practice, what’s working and what’s not.
It’s a ‘hands-on’ participatory event: you will network and learn through discussion, roundtables and debate. Attend FREE as my guest by subscribing to Mobile and Tablet Design Secrets.
Cross Channel UX Elements Framework
The Cross Channel UX Elements framework is a practical design tool you can use to create “Magic Moments†of flow and delight for your customers across the different channels in a more deliberate fashion, rather than arriving at great designs only through occasional happenstance.
Mobile Magic Moments: Transform the Trivial
When mobile or tablet design is executed well, the device feels like the extension of our bodies. Because interfaces respond even before we consciously give them a command. Often, the interface “dissolves in behavior†and we feel empowered, as though the device we hold in our hand is the equivalent of Iron Man’s suit of cybernetic armor, or Batman’s utility belt. I call this empowering experience a “Magic Momentâ€.
Virtual Seminar: Cross-Channel Design: Magic Mobile Moments
Why do some million-dollar apps fail, while simple apps like Instagram make billions? The answer is “Magic Moments”. And on May 16th, the author of best-selling book “Designing Search: UX Strategies for eCommerce Success” will show you how to create “Magic Moments” in your own Mobile and Tablet apps.
NOTE: Not for beginners. The Expert Strategy(TM) Series is aimed at mastery of advanced design principles.
Virtual Seminar: QR Codes That Convert: Mobile UX Strategies for Success
“The QR Codes that Convert webinar has already paid for itself. I was able to tweak a client’s QR campaign today, using what I learned, and it started increasing their customer engagement right away. I would recommend this webinar to anyone using QR codes in their marketing campaigns or anyone advising clients who use QR Codes.” – Marty Diamond, Diamond Website Conversion
You can view the recording made April 6th, 2012.
Why we don’t do mobile usability tests (and neither should you)
In my experience, mobile usability tests, as they are popularly conducted, are a waste of time and resources and in vast majority of cases fail to lead to creation a better mobile product. Instead, I conduct RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation) studies: the only methodology that I’ve actually experienced in the real life yielding more delightful, usable and successful mobile products in less time.
How to make Agile work for your Mobile Design project
I recently had dinner with one of my heroes and fellow Rosenfeld Media workshop leaders, Steve Krug. We had a long conversation about how to make mobile usability testing work for Agile mobile design projects. This webinar is the result. Learn the essential techniques that will make Agile mobile design work for you: how to replace boring kick-off meeting with a fun Design Workshop and how to do fast, effective mobile RITE testing with PostIt Notes. Get the complete Webinar: techniques, case study with wireframes – FREE!
4 Ridiculously Simple Tips for Using QR Code to Connect 10 Times More Mobile Customers With your Social Media
Engaging with your customers through mobile social media is an excellent idea, and has the potential to add a lot of value and further enhance the relationship of your customers to your brand. Here are four simple tips that will help you make the most of the QR Code technology.
Ultimate Guide to Designing NFC Mobile Apps You Won’t be Ashamed Of
Mobile NFC (Near Field Communication) is finally here! Here is the ultimate guide to designing awesome mobile NFC apps your customers will rave about.
IA Summit * March 21 – 25, 2012 * New Orleans, Louisiana
Cross-Channel Search: Design Approaches for Mobile and Tablet
The rise of smartphones and tablets is an unprecedented opportunity for all kinds of search to escape traditional limits and become the single best way to access information. In context. Real-time. Come hear practical tips for designing search with tap-ahead, geo-location, still image and video input, voice and unprecedented personalization… While juggling crushing constraints: limited screen real estate, fat fingers, spotty connections, multi-tasking and shortened attention span. From the author of “Designing Search: UX Strategies for eCommerce Success” (Wiley, 2011).
7 Ways to Whip Up Viral Value Through QR Codes: #6 Connect Through Social Networks (Part 1 of 2)
Installment #6 shows how to deliver QR code value by allowing your customers to connect to your company through social networks. As of the date of this writing, many companies have been implementing their social mobile engagement strategy by putting printed Facebook and Twitter “buttons†on everything from print advertising to packaging. We think QR codes offer a much better solution. This is Part 1 of the article: 6 Reasons Printed Buttons Must Die.
Mobile Websites, Tablet Apps and Hybrids: 7 Mobile Strategy Tips for 2012
Sites like YouTube and Facebook are already projecting mobile use to surpass desktop use as early as *this year*. What’s your mobile and tablet strategy? Allow me to humbly present the wisdom I got from the experience of walking the last 365 miles. Barefoot. In the snow. Uphill both ways.
7 Ways to Whip Up Viral Value Through QR Codes: #7 Offer More Info About Your Product
Your QR code is just the nail you need to engage the consumer. A chance to tell a story. A way to create the authentic, artesian, immersive product experience. An opportunity to give a service that extends the relationship with your brand well beyond the current moment of consumption.
Practical Agile Mobile Design
We help you look for success in the right place from the get go, with the right design patterns implemented through Agile and light-weight guerrilla user testing strategies that work. Faster. And with more confidence. “Start with questions and walk away with wireframes.”
GOLD SPONSOR: DrawCamp * October 23, 2011 * Milwaukee, WI
Agile Mobile Prototyping with Post-It Notes
In this intensive, hands-on session, participants will learn how to use a pack of post-it notes to successfully simulate a mobile device and re-create and study key interactions, transitions and touch-screen control ergonomics cheaply, quickly and accurately. Participants will walk away with a set of completed paper-prototype screens of their next app, ready for testing.
ScketchCamp Chi * October 22, 2011 * Chicago, IL
Agile Mobile Design Sketching
In this intensive, hands-on session, participants will learn how to use a pack of post-it notes to successfully simulate a mobile device and re-create and study key interactions, transitions and touch-screen control ergonomics cheaply, quickly and accurately. Participants will walk away with a set of completed paper-prototype screens of their next app, ready for testing.
Designing for Mobile & Tablet Workshop * October 21, 2011 * Milwaukee, WI
Today, mobile experiences are beginning to dominate our connection with technology. Stories we read. Places we go. Stuff we buy. Food we eat. Who we interact with. Mobile is increasingly becoming the platform, the operating system on which we run our digital lives. In this intensive hands-on full-day workshop, you will learn to design authentic mobile and tablet websites and apps that deliver experiences your customers will love to come back to again and again. And create a return on investment that will make your business people tremble with greed.
Practical Ecommerce Search: UX Strategies for Success
I wrote the definitive book on the subject: “Designing Search: UX Strategies for eCommerce Successâ€. In this workshop, I help you understand and create a cross-channel digital search strategy and show you how to improve the search experience through practical, intuitive interface design patterns that create 10X or more in ROI.
Designing Brand Landing Pages for Mobile Devices
People love to search by brand names. On the small screens of mobile devices, well-designed landing pages can provide a much better experience than keyword search results. This makes brand landing pages today’s biggest sleeper opportunity for mobile and tablet ecommerce. But you have to learn to be completely ruthless with your features and content. Here’s how.
Design Patterns for Mobile Faceted Search: Part II
In Part I of Design Patterns for Mobile Faceted Search, I looked at Four Corners, Modal Overlay, Watermark, and Full-Page Refinement Options design patterns, which maximize the mobile screen real estate. This column covers strategies for making people aware of the filtering options and methods of improving transitions between the various states of a search user interface.