At the heart of every company, there is a critical function called product development that determines their long-term success. Regardless of what industry you operate in, your capacity to develop, validate, and bring new products to market is paramount. Research from the 280 Group showed that an optimized product development function on its own could

Nowadays, pretty much everyone knows what content writing is. But the same can’t be said about UX writing. And yet this new role within the product design team has become ever so important. So, what is UX writing, how does it fit into the design and product teams and what are the key principles of

Prototyping is one of the most critical steps in the design process, yet prototypes still confuse some designers and project teams. A common misconception is that some designers refer to mockups as prototypes—which can confuse those who know otherwise! Prototypes are also not a series of sketches or a pixel-perfect prelaunch interface. In this post,

The design handoff is a critical part of any project. For many designers and engineers, the design handoff is a stressful experience. If either team misses something, it could result in product defects and delays. While it’s primarily the responsibility of the UX team to produce prototypes, assets, and documentation, the design handoff process is

In a competitive user experience design landscape, designers must ensure their UX portfolio stands out from the crowd. For some company’s a UX design portfolio is more important than where you went to school or what degree you hold. User experience is about solving human problems, which employers want to see in a UX portfolio—along

Usability testing is a crucial part of the design thinking process. It’s an opportunity for UX teams to present their solutions to those whose problems they’re trying to solve—a nerve-racking and exciting experience! UXPin is the world’s most sophisticated prototyping and usability testing design tool. Using UXPin with Merge technology, designers can create high-fidelity prototypes

In the high-tech digital UX design world, pen and paper are still the preferred choices for fast low-fidelity prototyping. Contrary to assumptions, UX teams spend a lot of time away from the computer, writing on sticky notes, whiteboards, notepads, and adding annotations to paper prototypes. The more planning and preparation designers can do before sitting

Microinteractions enhance the user experience by providing reinforcement and feedback. Without microinteractions, user interfaces would be dull and lifeless. Like it or not, digital products play on human psychology. When you see the flashing “typing…” in chat or social media apps, you want to stick around to see what the person’s going to say. These

Bringing a new digital product into the market can, undoubtedly, be a rewarding feeling. Few things will motivate your team as well as seeing their hard work pay back in the form of satisfied returning customers and ROI. That being said, it’s not always sunshine and rainbows. The road towards a successful launch can be

Design thinking is the foundational process for UX teams to identify user problems and solve them with digital products. Design thinking encourages collaborating and a human-centered design. The five stages of the design thinking process include: Empathize – Discover what your users need Define – Determine the problem you want to solve Ideate – Develop

In today’s competitive digital landscape, success is a stream of fresh ideas. Innovative thinking. Audience-led and data-driven product design that meets the needs of your business and your customer – whether they knew they wanted it or not.  But for every iPod, there’s a Zune. For every static, stifled Myspace or Friends Reunited, there’s a

With the massive range of smartphones and screen sizes, creating and testing prototypes for mobile apps is a critical part of the design process. UX teams must thoroughly test designs and resolve usability issues before handing the final drafts over to engineering. Developing an app is a time-consuming and expensive process. It’s much quicker and

Prototyping is the cornerstone of the design process. Rapid prototyping accelerates the prototype phase so UX teams can push final designs to engineering teams faster.

Bringing a new product to market is hard. The scary statistic is that 95% of new products fail despite all the time, effort, and resources invested to bring these ideas to life. But that shouldn’t discourage you from trying though, because when you get it right, you can transform your industry and build a business

A successful UX project relies heavily on testing to achieve a project’s goals and objectives. Wireframes, mockups, and prototypes allow designers to create blueprints and models of the final product for usability testing. The problem is that many people use wireframes, mockups, and prototypes interchangeably, when in fact, they’re all different and used at separate