After spending four and a half years at HiQ in Stockholm, I quit this September.
It was a tough decision. I’ve learned a lot, worked on cool projects and met so many lovely people at this company.
After taking some much needed time off and doing some traveling along the US west and east coast (check out my Swedish travel blog), I started my new job as a UX Designer at inUse this week.
Here I’ll continue working with Mobile First, Responsive Web Design, accessibility and usability stuff in general.
When working on solo projects, both at HiQ and on my spare time, I tend to use Git for version control.
I always put the repository on Dropbox for easy backup. This is quite easy if you’ve worked with Git before, but probably not for a total newbie. This tutorial is for all you newbies :)
Yes! Apart from blogs, video tutorials and Twitter accounts you can still learn lots of great stuff about UX design by reading a book printed on paper.
Here are my favorite books I think you should read!
The A Book Apart Series
A Book Apart (@abookapart) is not a single book. It’s a series about everything related to web, from HTML markup to content strategy. I’ve (almost) read all of them and they are by far the best books to read if you are working with websites in any way.
The series cover the following:
The new stuff in HTML5
The new stuff in CSS3
Advice for your content strategy and mobile content strategy
Advice for working as a designer and dealing with clients
Arrows are common in the interfaces we interact with on a regular basis. Since they are used so frequent and in many different ways, they are easily misused leading to a confusing user experience.
My goal with this post is to categorize the usage of arrows, show some examples and give you some pointers (pun intended) if you’ve decided to use arrows in your interface.
Buttons and links
Arrows are sometimes used with buttons or placed next to links in order to make them more noticeable and clickable.
The classic iOS back button made to look like an arrow hinting clicking it will bring you back one step.A link to a new page at m.adlibris.se.
I’m very skeptical towards placing arrows before or after regular links. A blue underlined piece of text looks more like a link and an arrow next to the text might fool the user thinking a click will expand more content instead of navigating to a new page.
Position indicators
Check out breadcrumb trails on some sites and you’ll definitely see multiple arrows pointing to the current section.
Yesterday I attended UX Open in Stockholm. This was the second year in a row the unconference about UX was hosted by Martin Christensen (@m8rt). I missed last year’s event so I was really eager to go!
The unconference consisted of lots of ten minute lightning talks, followed by open group discussions about topics that were decided on the spot.
I enjoyed all talks, but here’s a summary of the ones I found most interesting.
I’ve been a huge fan of swedish rock star Dregen (@DregenOfficial) ever since I heard the classic Backyard Babies track Brand New Hate twelve years ago.
By pure coincidence when I started working at HiQ (@hiqinternat) in 2011 Dregen had already done company related events with us for about half a year. This collaboration reached new heights when the former guitarist of The Hellacopters shot the video for his first single, Just Like That, of his self titled solo album at our office one sunny Monday in August.
Here’s the video!
Here’s a behind the scenes look.
I “happened” to be at our office the same day and got the new Michael Monroe (@michaelmonroe) album Horns and Halos signed by Dregen and his band colleague Karl Rockfist, who both have been touring with the Hanoi Rocks front man for a couple of years. The album was released in Sweden on the same day as the video shoot. Incredible timing!
Dregen, me holding my signed Michael Monroe’s new album and Karl Rockfist during a break during the video shoot at the HiQ office.
Dregen’s solo album can be listened to below.
What du you think? Post it in the comment section below.
One of the most popular navigation patterns for apps and responsive websites is broken. I’m talking about the left navigation fly out, which was made popular by Facebook a year or two ago and since then has spread like wildfire.
The left navigation fly out pattern in action on m.facebook.com.
Don’t get me wrong. This navigation pattern has many pros. For example:
It can hold lots of content
It doesn’t take up much space when closed
It’s very common
But it it has one major flaw. The toggle button is placed in the most hard to reach area on a smartphone screen – the upper left corner.
Sometimes it’s hard to stay motivated with your studies or your job. You’ve lost your spark and you don’t know how to get it back.
This has happened to me once or twice. I don’t mean short periods of time like an anxious weekend before an exam or a stress filled week before a release. I’m talking months on end of frustration that kill your motivation and pollute your social life.
Luckily, I’ve always managed to pull through and learned a lot about myself in the process. So here’s 10 tips for getting and keeping yourself motivated and happy.
1. Exercise
I run or go to the gym four to five times per week. It clears my head and keeps me energized, fit and pleased with myself. Getting a rush of endorphins feels like having superpowers.
2. Use Trello
Trello is without a doubt my favorite service all categories! I use it for every project I’m involved in, even if I’m working alone. Externalizing discussions, decisions, ideas and thoughts has saved me so much energy I’d normally waste keeping it all in my head.
Trello is without a doubt my favorite service all categories!
3. Do projects on your spare time
Working more when you don’t feel like working at all might sound like fighting fire with fire, but it worked for me! When I created a portfolio website for a friend it got my creative juices flowing again. It reminded me that what I do is fun.
