Like many web professionals, my first instinct was to work longer hours – to come into the office early, stay late, and to give up some of my weekend time. While this certainly helped me get more work done, I quickly realized it was not something I could sustain without eventually burning out. I knew that if this was going to work, I had to find a way to be more productive within the hours I had available to me.
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Did you know you have a superpower? No, I’m not talking about super-strength, sticking to walls or pushing metal claws out of your forearms (although you might have those as well, for all I know).
If you work on the web — which I assume you do if you’re reading this — your superpower is side projects. Unlike your regular job, where you have to listen to your boss or please your client, a side project lets you take on an alternate identity, one of which you’re in charge and no one can stop you.
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In a previous article, I discussed using POP to create sketch-based clickthrough prototypes in participatory design exercises. These prototypes capture well the flow and overall layout of early design alternatives.
The same piece briefly mentioned another category of clickthrough prototypes: widget-based mockups that are designed on the target device and that expand on sketches by introducing user interface (UI) details and increased visual fidelity. These prototypes can be used to pitch ideas to clients, document interactions and even test usability. In this article, I will teach you how to use the iPad app Blueprint to put together such prototypes in the form of concept demos, which help to manage a client’s expectations when you are aligning your visions of a product.
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As UX professionals, we often lead design exercises with our stakeholders, including immediate team members and external clients. In these brainstorming sessions, participants identify opportunities to improve the design, thereby aligning everyone’s vision and expectations of the project.
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Starting a position in an organization, especially if it is your first in the industry, can be as nerve-wracking as it is exciting. Practices that seem like common sense to those of us who have been in the Web industry for some time might not be as obvious to designers and developers without the benefit of our experience.
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We all make mistakes. Whether in our design and development work or just in life in general, we all do it. Thankfully, even the biggest mistakes carry valuable lessons.
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In the 1950s, when consumer electronics such as vacuum cleaners and washing machines emerged, there was a belief that household chores would be done in a fraction of the time.
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When a team builds a complex application, there is often a common breakdown of roles. Specifically on the back end, there are database engineers, application engineers and operations engineers, or something close to this. In recent years, more and more application logic is being deferred to the client side “Front-End Ops”)](https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/06/11/front-end-ops/).
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There is no doubt about it, I am a hypocrite. Fortunately nobody has noticed… until now. Here’s the thing. On one hand I talk about the importance of having a good work/life balance, and yet on the other I prefer to hire people who do personal projects in their spare time.
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In this article, Robert explains why it’s not about deliverables but instead about results. Understanding why this works the way it does depends on understanding the real role of the designer and the deliverables they create.
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