Creating an experience that morphs to your user’s unique needs is the holy grail of mobile app design & functionality. Industry trends need to be tempered with a deep knowledge of device capabilities, your users’ needs and how user behavior may change over time. The following blogs - in no particular order - have a great focus on user experience from both a product and services perspective, giving you a wide breadth of information to pull from.
1) Smashing Magazine
Smashing Magazine was started in 2006 with the intention of educating web developers. The mobile portion of the site is focused on educating professionals of best emerging practices for responsive web design and web apps that can easily be applied to mobile app functionality. For example, “Thinking like an app designer” by Javier Cuello outlines how designers can change their thinking to accommodate the issues . Leaders in the mobile space such as…contribute to the content pool with lessons learned from working in mobile everyday.
Noteable Authors:
- Javier Cuello - a UX designer specializing in mobile, Javier has worked on app design projects for companies like Zara, Telefónica and Yahoo.
- Kerry Crav - Content strategist that pulls from her experience at design firm Simple Focus for Smashing Magazine readers. Kerry’s work also includes information architecture, user research and content creation.
Why subscribe: Follow for the latest design trends across web and mobile, prototyping tools, and a wide array of design advice sourced across multiple industries. This content will give you actionable techniques you can use in your work today, but be willing to put in time for a longer read.
Subscribe to Smashing Magazine here
2) Peter Merholz
Peter Merholz is a seasoned UX and design executive who founded Adaptive Path - a leading firm dedicated to user experience strategy and design. Now heading design and user experience at Jawbone, Peter shares his design philosophy and commentary with us via peterme.com. His content cycles between design ideas, user experience strategy (“Why Design should drive engineering”), industry commentary (“The shortcomings of Minimal Viable Product”) and exploratory pieces such as “The Why and How of Organizations that Deliver Great Experiences.”
Why subscribe: His passion for improving digital experience in all it’s forms is well-known, and evident in his effort to get designers thinking in new ways with his posts. At Jawbone, Peter has a chance to morph his insights from working in mobile and web design into the latest wearable technology, a space still widely unknown for most in his field.
If for no other reason, consider he coined the term “blog” back in 1999.
Follow Peter Merholz here
3) disambiguity
London-based Leisa Reichelt blogs as she heads User Research at the Government Digital Service in the Cabinet Office. Her work centers around leading a team of researchers to connect with the people who design products, and the people who will use them. Her experience in product design makes her a great resource, but its her ideas and no-holds-barred delivery that make her blog an interesting read. For example, one controversial tweet was followed up with a post that explores the level of experience needed when hiring design talent. You can see the breadth of content with posts like “Strategy is being on Message” and “Help Joy help you: On the usability of internal systems.”
Why subscribe: Leisa has a great perspective on managing client and internal challenges alike. Her posts are anecdotal, but useful - making her advice easy to integrate.
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4) UX Magazine
Article topics / Content Summary: UX Magazine explores all aspects of experience design. Their content can be considered an open content stream where design and UX practitioners along with industry leaders aim to provide engaging and useful content. User-centered research and design education is at the core of the organization, so they aim to provide resources in the form of professional development articles (“4 Techniques of Successful UX Executives”), how-to guides, UX event lists and even a job board.
Notable authors:
- Ellen van den Berg - She leads a team of user experience designers and creative technologists, working for clients such as adidas, KLM, McDonald’s, Unilever, P&G, Volkswagen and Heineken. Ellen leads diverse projects, varying from digital campaigns and mobile experiences to big platform sites and, on occasion, interactive installations.
- Scott McDonald - Scott is a co-founder and managing director of Modus Associates, a digital innovation and design consultancy based in New York City. A frequent industry speaker and writer, he has advised global brands including Morgan Stanley & Co., Sony, Citibank and SIRIUS Satellite Radio, among others.
- John McKinney - Co-founder and CEO of Ashe Avenue, a web development agency based in Brooklyn whose clients include Dell, GAP, Intel, AOL, MTV, Lexus, VICE, and Playstation.
Why subscribe: The content on site is written by UX and design professionals that span nearly every industry. Whatever design challenges you may have, search for it here and you’ll most likely find what you need.
Subscribe to UX Magazine here
5) 52 Weeks of UX
The tagline reads “A discourse on the process of designing for real people,” and it delivers on that promise. Created in 2011 with evergreen content, this blog explores a different design concept each week in witty, snackable post format. You’ll find less industry news and tricks, but more design essentials to keep in mind whenever you need inspiration.
Notable authors: Two Joshuas head the creation of the blog: Joshua Porter and Joshua Brewer. Porter is a long-time interface and product designer who was previously the Director of UX at popular CMS software company HubSpot, and Brewer co-created 52 Weeks of UX while he was Principal Designer at Twitter. The two have written the majority of the content, but also invite other designers to weigh in on many weeks of their UX calendar.
Why subscribe: A light reading of essential design principles you can implement instantly for every week of the year - what’s not to love?
