Author Nick Babich

October 1, 2019 — Design is increasingly becoming more complex. Design processes require having a tight cross-functional collaboration between all teams involved in the creation of the product. Having a shared design language empowers teams to collaborate more effectively. That’s why many companies invest in design systems. But how can we ensure that a design system actually works for a product you’re working on and improves your team’s productivity? Read more…

September 10, 2019 — In this article, Nick reviews the Webflow — the next-generation tool for building a sophisticated web experience that allows users to design, build, and launch websites visually. Read more…

May 28, 2019 — A successful design system needs to become part of an organization’s DNA that help your team produce more consistent user experiences, and it also builds bridges between design and development, and help you improve your design process without exposing your orgchart. Read more…

May 2, 2019 — It’s essential to be ready to design for both visual and voice. Since prototyping for voice is new for many designers, it may be unclear as to where to start and what process to follow. Read more…

April 2, 2019 — Design systems have changed the way we design and build applications. They are quickly becoming a cornerstone of an organization’s digital product strategy. Indigo.Design is a tool that offers a ready-to-use design system that can be adapted to your individual needs. Read more…

March 12, 2019 — What are some of the most effective ways to grab a user’s attention? What engages them most? Trends come and go, but it’s still important to know which trend best fits your project. Read more…

December 18, 2018 — We’re at the dawn of a UI revolution. Not only will multimodal interfaces give users more power, but they will also change the way users interact with systems. In this article, you can learn how to build your own multimodal UI using Adobe XD. Read more…

December 11, 2018 — Reporting and documenting with spreadsheets can become quite a time-consuming task. Today, we’d like to introduce Float, an app that makes it so much easier for product managers to keep a good overview on the tasks of the entire team and everyone involved. Read more…

November 12, 2018 — Building a website used to be a complex exercise only professionals could do, but the situation changed. In this article, Nick reviews the Visual Composer Website Builder tool that helps simplify the process of page building in WordPress. Read more…

October 9, 2018 — Good functional animation makes a landing page not just more appealing, but also more usable. When done correctly, animation can turn a landing page from a sequence of sections into a carefully choreographed, memorable experience. Meet Slides, a framework that will help you use animation to communicate clearly. Read more…

September 25, 2018 — Whatever website you want to create, your goal is to make the content and design work together harmoniously and play off each other. With Tilda, it’s become much easier to achieve that harmonious balance. Read more…

August 28, 2018 — Users can be hesitant to fill out forms. That is why it is our goal as designers to make the process of filling out a form as easy as possible. In this article, I’ll share a number of practical techniques that are bound to help you design effective forms. Read more…

August 23, 2018 — Looking to establish a robust design process for a distributed team? It’s not as difficult as you may think. Here are seven of the most common challenges distributed product teams should overcome and how a team-management tool called “monday” can help. Read more…

June 12, 2018 — To succeed in the modern market, companies need to do more than produce an excellent product or provide reliable service: They need to turn their faithful users into advocates. Let’s find out how. Read more…

May 29, 2018 — There are more than 1.8 billion websites on the Internet right now, and the number is growing. What makes your website stand out? In order to make sure your website is a success, it’s important to keep the big picture in mind. Read more…

May 22, 2018 — The process of content management should be as easy as possible for everyone involved. Introducing Elementor, a tool that offers flexibility to visually design an entire website. Read more…

February 12, 2018 — There are many things to consider when designing for mobile. We’re sure that this detailed guide will help you get rid of that headache when building apps. Read more…

January 31, 2018 — When designing products, always remember that you are designing for people. Let’s take a closer look at how to define an optimal product vision, strategy, and design process. Read more…

December 20, 2017 — (This is a sponsored post.) Designing for multiple screens has become integral to businesses. Learn how grids can help you build better products. Read more…

December 13, 2017 — (This article is supported by Adobe.) Traditionally used for emphasizing key text, underlines have found a place in online experience, too. In this article, we’ll find out when and why underlines should be used in our digital products. Read more…

December 4, 2017 —

(This is a sponsored article.) Building a mobile app usually costs a lot of money and takes months to launch. Well, there’s a fast and more simple way to create your own native app. Nick explains how you can use Dropsource (a free visual platform for building mobile apps) by creating an Android app for a chain of restaurants.

November 21, 2017 — In this article, I’ll focus on the main principles, heuristics and approaches that will help you to create a great user experience for your website. I’ll start with global things like the user journey (how to define the “skeleton” of the website) and work down to the individual page (what should be considered during web page design). We’ll also cover other essential aspects of design, such as mobile considerations and testing. Read more…

November 9, 2017 — (This is a sponsored post). Testing is a fundamental part of the UX designer’s job and a core part of the overall UX design process. Testing provides the inspiration, guidance and validation that product teams need in order to design great products. That’s why the most effective teams make testing a habit. Usability testing involves observing users as they use a product. It helps you find where users struggle and what they like. There are two ways to run a usability test: Read more…

October 25, 2017 — To come up with a proper design, UX designers use a lot of different research techniques, such as contextual inquires, interviews and workshops. They summarize research findings into user stories and user flows and communicate their thinking and solutions to the teams with artifacts such as personas and wireframes. But somewhere in all of this, there are real people for whom the products are being designed for. In order to create better products, designers must understand what’s going on in the user’s world and understand how their products can make the user’s life better. And that’s where storyboards come in. Read more…

October 4, 2017 — As web design focuses more and more on good user experience, designers need to create the most usable and attractive websites possible. Carefully applied minimalist principles can help designers make attractive and effective websites with fewer elements, simplifying and improving users’ interactions. In this article, I will discuss some examples of minimalism in web design, things to consider when designing minimalist interfaces, and explain why sometimes “less is more”. If you’d like to get more creative with your own designs, you can download and test Adobe XD, and get started right away. Read more…

September 27, 2017 — What do UX designers do on a daily basis? A lot of things! UX professionals need to communicate design ideas and research findings to a range of audiences. They use deliverables (tangible records of work that has occurred) for that purpose. Read more…

September 20, 2017 — Color is one of the most powerful tools in a designer’s toolkit. Color can draw attention, set a mood, and influence the user’s emotion, perception and actions. When it comes to the web and mobile app design, this is definitely a time of vibrant colors. Designers use vibrant colors to focus people’s attention on important elements and to make their designs memorable. In this article, I’ll summarize a few popular techniques of using vibrant colors in web and mobile design. Also, if you’d like to get started designing and prototyping your own web and mobile experiences, download Adobe XD. Read more…

June 8, 2017 — When users come to your page, they’ll feel some kind of reaction. Whether it’s positive or negative, that reaction is determined in large part by what they see. Because vision is perhaps the strongest human sense, a hero image is one of the fastest ways to grab the user’s attention. Bold, graphic and intentional imagery engages the user. It draws the user in immediately and makes a perfect centerpiece for a minimalist app or website. A hero image is more than just a pretty picture. It’s a powerful communication tool. In this article, I’ll give you a few tips on using hero images. Also, if you’d like to get started and take a go at prototyping and wireframing your own designs a bit more differently, you can download and test Adobe XD for free. Read more…

June 1, 2017 — Someone who uses your app or website has a particular goal. Often, the one thing standing between the user and their goal is a form. Forms remain one of the most important types of interactions for users on the web and in apps. In fact, forms are often considered the final step in the journey of completing their goals. Forms are just a means to an end. Users should be able to complete them quickly and without confusion. Read more…

May 25, 2017 — Websites with long or infinite scrolling are becoming more and more common lately, and it’s no mere trend or coincidence. The technique of long scrolling allows users to traverse chunks of content without any interruption or additional interaction — information simply appear as the user scrolls down the page. Read more…

May 18, 2017 — Good design has a clear focus on key user goals, and it removes all obstacles from the user’s way by bringing clarity to the interface. This article brings you closer to seven UX design tips that are key for creating really great mobile user experiences. Read more…

May 10, 2017 — Once someone starts using your app, they need to know where to go and how to get there at any point. Good navigation is a vehicle that takes users where they want to go. But establishing good navigation is a challenge on mobile due to the limitations of the small screen and the need to prioritize content over chrome. Different navigation patterns have been devised to solve this challenge in different ways, but they all suffer from a variety of usability problems. In this article, we’ll examine five basic navigation patterns for mobile apps and describe the strengths and weaknesses of each of them. If you’d like to add some patterns and spice up your designs, you can download and test Adobe XD for free and get started right away. Read more…

February 22, 2017 — When you examine the most successful interaction designs of recent years, the clear winners are those who provide an excellent functionality. While functional aspect of a design is key to product success, aesthetics and visual details are equally important — particularly how they can improve those functional elements. In today’s article, I’ll explain how visual elements, such as shadows and blur effects, can improve the functional elements of a design. Read more…

February 8, 2017 — The first set of screens with which users interact, set the expectations of the app. To make sure your users don’t delete your app after the first use, you should teach them how to complete key tasks and make them want to come back for more. In other words, you need to successfully onboard and engage your users during those first interactions. The onboarding process is a critical step in setting up your users for success with your product. You only get one chance to make a first impression. In this article, we’ll provide some tips on how to approach onboarding using a simple pattern called “empty states.” If you’d like to bring your app or website to life with little effort, you can download and test Adobe XD for free. Read more…

January 25, 2017 — Color is arguably the second most important aspect of your app, after functionality. The human to computer interaction is heavily based on interacting with graphical UI elements, and color plays a critical role in this interaction. It helps users see and interpret your app’s content, interact with the correct elements, and understand actions. Every app has a color scheme, and it uses the primary colors for its main areas. Read more…

January 18, 2017 — As the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Human beings are highly visual creatures who are able to process visual information almost instantly; 90 percent of all information that we perceive and that gets transmitted to our brains is visual. Images can be a powerful way to capture users’ attention and differentiate your product. A single image can convey more to the observer than an elaborate block of text. Furthermore, images can cross language barriers in a way text simply can’t. Read more…

January 11, 2017 — Identifying the places where animation has utility is only half the story. If you’re going to use animations in your designs, they should be built as a natural part of the design process. Read more…

December 7, 2016 — Visibility of system status is one of the most important principles in user interface design. Users want to feel in control of the system they’re using, which means they want to know and understand their current context at any given time, and especially when a system is busy doing work. A wait-animation progress indicator is the most common form of providing a system status for users when something is happening or loading. While an instant response from an app is the best, there are times when your app won’t be able to comply with the guidelines for speed. A slow response could be caused by a bad internet connection, or an operation itself can take a long time (e.g. install an update for OS). For such cases, in order to minimize user tension, you must reassure users that the app is working on their request and that actual progress is being made. Thus, you should provide feedback to the user about what is happening with the app within a reasonable amount of time. Read more…

November 9, 2016 — Buttons are a common element of interaction design. While they may seem like a very simple UI element, they are still one of the most important ones to create. In today’s article, we’ll be covering the essential items you need to know in order to create effective controls that improve user experience. If you’d like to take a go at prototyping and wireframing your own designs a bit more differently, you can download and test Adobe XD for free. Read more…

November 2, 2016 — Design is more than just good looks – something all designers should know. Design also covers how users engage with a product. Whether it’s a site or app, it’s more like a conversation. Navigation is a conversation. It doesn’t matter how good your site or app is if users can’t find their way around. In this post, we’ll help you better understand the principles of good navigation for mobile apps, then show you how it’s done using two popular patterns. When we examine the most successful interaction navigation designs of recent years, the clear winners are those who execute fundamentals flawlessly. While thinking outside the box is usually a good idea, there are some rules that you just can’t break. Read more…

October 20, 2016 — Icons are an essential part of many user interfaces, visually expressing objects, actions and ideas. When done correctly, they communicate the core idea and intent of a product or action, and they bring a lot of nice benefits to user interfaces, such as saving screen real estate and enhancing aesthetic appeal. Last but not least, most apps and websites have icons. It’s a design pattern that is familiar to users. Despite these advantages, icons can cause usability problems when designers hide functionality behind icons that are hard to recognize. An icon’s first job is to guide users to where they need to go, and in this article we’ll see what it takes to make that possible. If you want to take a go at creating your own icons, you can download and test Adobe’s Experience Design CC for free and get started right away. Read more…

October 11, 2016 — Web and mobile apps are moving away from pages towards completely personalized experiences. These new experiences are built on an aggregation of many individual pieces of content. The way this content is now being presented is in the form of cards. The card-based interaction model is spreading pretty widely, and you can see digital cards almost everywhere — from news sites to food delivery apps. In this article, I’ll explain what cards mean to UI designers, and I’ll review three popular card-based services. If you’re interested in prototyping your own card-based user interface, you can download and test Adobe’s Experience Design CC for free and get started right away. Read more…

October 6, 2016 — Remember the days when hovering and clicking using the mouse were the most used trigger for interaction with site or app? Those days are gone. When Apple introduced the iPhone, multi-touch technology became mainstream and users learned that they could not only point and tap on the interface, but also pinch, spread, and swipe. Gestures are the new clicks. The rise of touch and gesture-driven devices has dramatically changed the way we think about interaction. Gestures are more than merely entertaining, they are very useful and feel familiar. Today, the success of a mobile app significantly depends on how well gestures are implemented into the user experience. Even Adobe introduced a new design and wireframing app called Experience Design CC (Adobe XD) that lets you prototype on everything from simple wireframes to multi-screen experiences. Read more…

September 21, 2016 — The best error message is the one that never shows up. It is always better to prevent errors from happening in the first place by guiding users in the right direction ahead of time. But, when errors do arise, well-designed error handling not only helps teach users how to use the app as you intended, but also prevents users from feeling ignorant. Read more…

August 30, 2016 — Designers, developers and managers often work with compressed timeframes and multiple projects simultaneously. A team must be able to respond quickly to feedback on their product from clients, project managers and developers. Each minor revision in the UI or UX needs to be reflected in the documentation, so that designers and developers always have the latest information. A style guide ensures that your project doesn’t encounter serious problems when you implement the initial design. Making sure that all specifications are accurate to their designs is critical, because an inaccurate specification means that developers will have to either rely on guesswork when building the app or go to the design source to get answers to their questions. Read more…

August 10, 2016 — Dariel Fitzkee, the famous magician, once said, “Magic is both in the details and in the performance.” Interaction design is just like that. Designers love to get the big picture right, but if the details aren’t handled properly, the solution will fail. The magic is all in the details. That’s why well-designed microinteractions make experiences feel crafted. To get a better understanding of how your design benefits from microinteractions, it will help to sketch out your app ideas. Adobe introduced a new design and wireframing app called Experience Design (or Adobe XD) which lets you design wireframes and make them interactive. You can download and test Adobe XD for free. Read more…