Ben Judy builds and leads human-centered design teams

RESOURCES

Accessibility

• Accessibility Resource Center (ARC) - excellent collection of books, checklists, libraries, and more in Notion.
• Performance is Accessibility by Scott Jehl
• A Designer’s Guide to Documenting Accessibility & User Interactions by Stephanie Walter - tips for adding accessibility annotations to mockups and design documentation

Agile

• User Stories are ill-suited for expressing requirements by Maarten Dalmijn - advocating for team conversations and shared understanding, rather than attempting to write 'perfect' user stories

Blogs

• UX Collective - an independent design publication and blog built to help designers think more critically about their work.

Bookmarks

• evernote.design - All in One Bookmark Links for Designers
• sidebar.io - 5 design links in your inbox every weekday
• The Most Extensive Design Resources Library You’ll Ever Need by Path Unbound at UX Planet. Links to over 100 design resources such as articles, blogs, podcasts, shows, books, mockup templates and color tools.
• UX Project Checklist - github repo with links to common UX artifacts, activities, and terms

Books

• The UX reading list: 22 must-read books and resources by Christopher Ratcliff at User Zoom

Branding & logos

• The 7 types of logos (and how to use them) by Kelly Morr at 99designs
• How Low Can Your Logo? A contest to create a bad logo.

Career advice

For job seekers

• Career Guide at Indeed.com - topics include finding a job, resumes & cover letters, interviewing, starting a new job, and more
• Startup vs Tech Giant vs Agency: What Is the Best Place to Grow Professionally in Design? by Anna Iurchenko at UX Collective
• The Ultimate Guide to Understanding UX Roles and Which One You Should Go For by Teo Yu Siang
• The Three Questions Junior UX Designers Can’t Answer by Lowell Stevens
• 5 Common Interview Questions for UX Designers by Nicole Locklair at Designlab
• Solving Product Design Exercises - a book by Artiom Dashinsky with useful tips for demonstrating ability to solve business problems as a designer.
• I just reviewed 370 UX applications: What is wrong with all these applications for 2 positions by Artiom Dashinsky published in UX Collective - a design hiring manager rants harshly about job applicants and blames it all on bootcamps; he makes a few good points but his smug tone is unhelpful and his writing style is poor. Don't be this guy.

For hiring managers

• The Great Interview Guide by clovers - guide to becoming a better interviewer
• Thank You Hawkeye by Hà Phan - good example of a 'goodbye' letter from a leader to her former team and coworkers

Career sites

• Join the CircleCI team - a well designed page for attracting software development talent
• Zillow design careers - a well designed page for attracting top design talent

Cognitive bias

• The Cognitive Bias Codex - well-organized 'wheel' of cognitive bias terms with links to Wikipedia articles for each

Customer experience

• Customer Experience Toolkit at digital.gov. Topics covered in this toolkit include: Strategy, Governance, Culture, Customer Understanding, Design, Measurement, Digital Services, and Collaboration.
• Customer Experience Certification from Forrester

Customer journeys

• When Customer Journeys Don’t Work: Arcs, Loops, & Terrain - by Stephen P. Anderson, a different way to look at the work we do as designers. See also his Mural notes from a webinar based on this article.

Dark mode

• 6 tips to excel in designing dark mode by Srishti Vashishtha - a curated list of tips that can be followed while designing dark mode for any device

Data visualization

• The Data Visualisation Catalogue by Severino Ribecca
• How to Pick the Right Chart Type? by Jānis Gulbis

Design systems

• Adele - the repository of publicly available design systems and pattern libraries
• Design Systems Repo - a frequently updated collection of Design System examples, articles, tools and talks
• Component Encyclopedia sneak peek by Storybook

Emotions

• What is Emotional Design? by the Interaction Design Foundation
• There are actually 27 human emotions, new study finds - Yahoo! Finance

Empathy maps

• Empathy Maps: A Complete Guide to Crawling Inside Your Customer’s Head - how to conduct an empathy mapping session and questions to ask
• Empathy Map Builder + Empathy Map Template by Anastasia Schebrova at UXPressia

Ethics & inclusive design

• ethicaldesign.guide - resources on how to create ethical products that don't cause harm
• Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design by Kat Holmes. A book published by MIT Press.

Expert users

• Kathy Sierra on Designing for Badass by Paul Pedrazzi

Facilitation

• Facilitation: What’s your style? by Sonja Sarah Porter
• Comprehensive Anatomy of Design Thinking Workshops by Slava Shestopalov
• Feedback Frames - the best meeting tool to see collective opinions, quickly and reliably.

Figma

• 10 Auto-Layout Tips in Figma by Danny Sapio

Flow diagrams

• UX task flows vs. user flows, as demonstrated by pancakes by Erika Harano

Fonts

• The Step-by-Step Guide for Pairing Fonts by Erik D. Kennedy - Excellent, step-by-step guide to choosing fonts with clear rationale, detailed analysis of font attributes, and examples
• All You Need is 5 Fonts by Matej Latin - how to create your own list of 5 fonts; a great example of how a designer can develop a set of personal preferences and "go to" options
• What Different Types Of Fonts Mean And How To Use Them by Digital Synopsis - four handy infographics exploring the emotions and moods evoked by different types of fonts
• Guide for designing better mobile apps typography by Andrey Zhulidin published in UX Collective - helpful tips about font size, color contrast, buying commercial fonts, and whitespace and margins

Form design

• 15 Tips for Better Signup / Login UX by Erik D. Kennedy at the Learn UI Design blog

Grids

• Importance Of Grid Systems In Graphic Design by Designlab - a historical overview of grids and tips for using grids in modern UI design
• How thinking about hierarchical grids helps you take a content-first approach to design by Kai Wong - how to use hierarchical grids and a content-first approach to screen layout

Icons

• Flaticon
• 7 Principles of Icon Design by Helena Zhang

Illustrations

• 10+ Best Spots to Find Free Illustrations for Your Next Design Project - Themeisle

Interaction design

• A comprehensive list of human-computer interactions by Chris R Becker at UX Collective. A review of paradigms that construct how we think about and design for humans, computers, and software.

Metrics

• What metrics and KPIs do the experts use to measure UX effectiveness? by Christopher Ratcliff and Kuldeep Kelkar at UserZoom.
• How to measure design impact by Tanner Christensen
• Quantifying and Comparing Ease of Use Without Breaking the Bank by Christian Rohrer at Nielsen Norman Group. Explains how to use the PURE method for design expert reviews.
• Google’s HEART Framework for Measuring UX by the Interaction Design Foundation

Mockup generators

• artboard.studio - Design, animate and present your projects with an extensive library of mockups right inside the browser with your team.
• previewed - The simplest way to create device mockups.

Networking

• User Experience events on Eventbrite
• User Experience events on Meetup
• Product Tribes Slack community

No-code tools

• NoCode Portal - 100+ no-code/low-code tools and development platforms

Personas

• Creating Personas - Summary of Cooper workshop on the characteristics, business case, and value of personas (despite what the article title would suggest, it does not explain how to create one)
• Employee personas and how to create them - Good article outlining why and how to create user personas, with a focus on enterprise employees as the users
• Be honest, do you really work with personas, storyboards, empathy maps and stuff like that? - Reddit discussion

Podcasts

• Top 9 UX Podcasts in 2022 every designer should listen to by Alican Bektas

Portfolios

For design contributors - articles and advice

• Designing a more effective portfolio by José Torre - 5 tips to make your design portfolio more likely to land you a job
• Case Study Club - get curated UX case studies in your inbox bi-weekly
• The Case Study Factory by the editors of UX Collective - an analysis of case studies created by hundreds students and early-career designers

For design contributors - example portfolio sites

• Stephanie Walter - fantastic site design, content, and work samples; overall the best designer portfolio site I've ever seen
• Beth Culp - excellent synopses of case studies on the home page "My Work" section - very simple, clear, yet detailed descriptions of what I'll find if I open one
• Severino Ribecca - great example of a professional / portfolio site for a specialist designer with a skill set that is narrowly focused and specific; excellent "Technical & Software Skills" section as well

For design leaders - articles and advice

• Directors and heads of UX, do you need portfolios to get hired? by Domenico M. Di Donna
• It’s Time to Ditch the UX Portfolio by Chris Kiess

For design leaders - examples portfolio sites

• John Allsop
• Stephen P. Anderson
• Richard W. Baker
• Jeremy Bird

Practice maturity

• UX Maturity Models - Slideshare presentation by Thomas Callghan
• I helped pioneer UX design. What I see today disturbs me by Jesse James Garrett. Bemoaning the rise of "UX Theatre" and the scourge of product design practices that eschew uncomfortable questions arising from a holistic UX approach.

Principles

• How to lead a team by principles rather than process - Guiding principles of high-performing (UX) teams Shane Close

Product management

• "User Experience only exists because Product Management failed" - Peter Merholz

Recruiting

• Transparent Recruiting: A Better Way to Hire People by Jonathon Colman- presentation asserting that recruiting is a management practice, not a marketing practice

Salaries

• Hiring in the Great Resignation: 2021 State of Tech Salaries by Hired.com

Skills

UX skill maps & assessments

• A matrix to help you self-evaluate on 18 different skills a UX designer needs by Daniel Birch. A typical approach to visualizing skill level using a radar chart.
• Levelling up the Design Org by Matthew Godfrey at Redgate. An excellent framework for improving UX skills across a team and defining career progression for designers.
• Competency Management In 5 Steps: Map Your Team’s Skills Visually by Ágnes Orsolya Kiss
• Shaping Designers and Design teams: A series about helping the diverse world of designers and design teams to self-reflect, direct their future and develop others by Jason Mesut
• UX Skill assessment rubric - Figma template
• How anyone can develop a rounded UX skill set: Welcome to the 360° matrix by H Locke

Design vs. development skills

• Every UI Designer needs to learn React. Here’s why by Sergio Nouvel - an argument for designers learning development skills
• Should UX designers learn how to code? A definitive answer. by Oz at uxbeginner.com - an argument against requiring designer to learn development skills
• Your UX Team Needs a Design Technologist. Here’s Why by Moneta Ho Kushner - an argument for UI developers working with designers. See also the recommended reading links at the end of the article.
• Design Technologists: Front-End Development in the Design System Era by Jory Cunningham - a role description for front-end developers who are positioned within a design team

Strategy

• Levels of UX strategies by David Juhlin. A framework for understanding UX strategy with five levels: Global, Industry, Company, UX Division, and Project.
• How to become a more strategically minded designer by Alen Faljic
• Growing Your Organization’s Strategic UX Culture by Jared Spool

Storyboards

• Scenes - a tool and a method to create storyboards about products and services fast, collaboratively and iteratively

Tools

• 2021 Design Tools Survey
• Shaper - interface style configuration tool

Trends

• 2022 UI design trends guide by Diana Malewicz
• 14 Top UX/UI Design Trends to Watch for in 2022 by Maria Myre at Designlab

User interface design

• checklist.design - A collection of the best design practices for pages, elements, flows, topics, brand, etc.
• Refactoring UI - a collection of design tips on Twitter by Steve Schoger and Adam Wathan
• UI cheat sheet: pagination, infinite scroll and the load more button by Tess Gadd - Solid example of an article with guidance for selecting which UI pattern to use

User research

Methods & Tools

• When to Use Which User-Experience Research Methods by Christian Rohrer at Nielsen Norman Group
• The 2021 UX Research Tools Map by Katryna Balboni at userinterviews.com
• A simple way to think about planning user research - Twitter video by UX Tools
• The McNamara Fallacy - measurement is not understanding

Interviews

• Introducing Maze's Question Bank: 350+ research questions for you to use

Synthesis & Reports

• Quicker UX Research Synthesis by Taylor Palmer at uxtools.com. Good set of tips such as, Synthesize along the way, Do the work upfront, Find a synthesis buddy, and more.
• Next steps for Section 508 compliance at the Office of Natural Resources Revenue: stakeholder interview findings - A good example of a research summary report in the form of a blog article. The content of the research happens to be about Web accessibility for a government agency.

Vector drawing

• The Boolean Game by Mark MacKay