UX
101 bites tagged UX — interview questions with model answers, and 60-second explainers.
How to Choose a UX Research Method
Map your research question to a 3D space: what people say vs. do (attitudinal vs. behavioral), and direct observation vs. indirect measurement (qual vs. quant). This helps you select the right tool, from surveys to A/B tests.
UX Ethics: A Professional Code of Conduct
UX ethics formalizes your responsibility to users. It's about centering human well-being, being transparent with data, and actively preventing harm. This guides decisions from research to launch.
Formative vs. Summative Evaluation: Improve vs. Judge
Formative evaluation improves a design in progress; summative evaluation judges a finished one. Use formative tests to find and fix flaws iteratively. Use summative tests to measure a shipped product against a benchmark, like a prior version or a competitor.
Double Diamond: Explore, Then Focus, Twice
The Double Diamond model prevents building the wrong thing by forcing two cycles of 'go wide, then narrow down.' First, explore the problem space, then define a specific problem. Second, explore solutions, then deliver a tested one.
UX Research: Building for Real People, Not Assumptions
UX Research is about watching what people *do*, not just what they *say*, to build products that solve their actual problems. It's used to design everything from websites to medical devices, guiding development with real user feedback.
Prototype Triggers: Defining How Users Interact
A prototype trigger is the 'if' in an 'if-then' UI interaction, defining the user input that causes a change. It's used in design tools to simulate app behavior, from clicks to drags.
The Figma Interface: Your Digital Design Workshop
Figma's interface is a digital workshop: a central canvas for your work, a left sidebar for layers and assets, and a right sidebar for properties. It's the hub for UI/UX design, prototyping, and developer handoff.
Heuristic Evaluation: An Expert UI Review on a Budget
Heuristic evaluation is like having an expert proofread your UI against a checklist of common usability flaws. It's a fast, cheap way to catch problems before writing code, but its value depends entirely on the evaluator's skill.
Mental Models: Design for What Users Believe
A mental model is the user's internal story of how your UI works, based on past experiences, not your design spec. This is why users expect your site to work like others they've used. The footgun is assuming users share your expert model; they don't.
Low-Fi vs. High-Fi Prototypes: Test Ideas Fast vs. Polish for Realism
Low-fi prototypes are quick sketches to test core ideas and flows. High-fi prototypes are detailed, interactive mockups that look and feel like the final product. Use low-fi early for brainstorming and high-fi late for usability testing.
Wireframing: The Blueprint for Your UI
A wireframe is a UI blueprint that shows a screen's structure, not its visual design. Use it early to agree on layout and function before getting lost in colors and fonts. The footgun is adding too much detail, which distracts from its core purpose.
Information Architecture: The Blueprint for Your App
Think of Information Architecture (IA) as the blueprint for an app, defining its structure before visual design begins. It dictates navigation and content organization to make things findable.
Screen Readers: Designing for a Non-Visual UI
A screen reader navigates your UI's invisible DOM structure, not its visual layout. Think of it as a text adventure where headings are rooms and links are doors. This is essential for all web UIs, checked via alt text and keyboard focus.
Design System vs. Style Guide: The Parent and the Child
A Design System is the parent; a Style Guide is just one child. The system is a complete toolkit for building products, containing reusable components and code, used by large teams to maintain consistency.
Cognitive Load: Don't Make Users Think (Too Hard)
Think of a user's brain like a computer with limited RAM; cognitive load is the processing power your UI demands. High load from cluttered interfaces slows users down, causing them to miss details or abandon tasks.
Hick's Law: More Choices, Slower Decisions
Hick's Law states that decision time increases logarithmically with the number of choices. It's why complex menus slow users down, forcing them into analysis paralysis.
Fitts's Law: Bigger, Closer Targets Are Faster to Hit
Fitts's Law predicts that the time to hit a target depends on its distance and size. This is why mobile buttons are large and context menus appear at your cursor. The footgun is making everything huge, which sacrifices information density and visual hierarchy.
Jakob's Law: Don't Reinvent the UI Wheel
Users spend most of their time on other sites, so they expect yours to work like everything else they already know. Leverage familiar patterns for navigation, icons, and workflows.
Color Theory: Harmony, Contrast, and Meaning in UI
Color theory is a system for using contrast, harmony, and symbolism to guide user experience. It's applied in UI to create visual hierarchy, evoke brand emotions, and ensure readability.
Visual Hierarchy: Guiding the User's Eye
Visual hierarchy guides the user's eye by making important things look important. It uses contrast in size, color, and placement to create a path of importance, like a big headline versus small footer text.
Nielsen's 10 Heuristics: Rules of Thumb for UI Design
Nielsen's Heuristics are ten rules of thumb for evaluating if a design is user-friendly. Use them to spot usability issues in any interface, from apps to stovetops. The biggest mistake is treating them as strict laws, not flexible guidelines.
React Suspense: Manage Loading States Declaratively
React Suspense lets you declare a loading UI instead of manually toggling `isLoading` state. You wrap a component that fetches data and provide a fallback, letting React handle the switch. The footgun is that re-fetching can jarringly show the fallback again.
The HEART Framework for Measuring UX
The HEART framework provides a structure for measuring user experience on large-scale web applications. It helps teams define user-centered metrics to track progress towards goals and make data-driven decisions.
Contextual Inquiry: Watch Users in Their Habitat
Go to the user's environment to see what they *actually* do, not just what they say they do. It's used in early discovery to uncover unstated needs by observing real workflows. The footgun is 'helping' the user, which pollutes the observation.
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