Mental Models for Better Usability and Business
People’s mental models aren’t right or wrong, they just are. Understanding them will make your design process less personal and more successful.
Conducting a Competitive Analysis for User Research
Learning more about your competition can help you discover your unique position in the market.
Shanghai Source App
Shanghai is a fast and ever-evolving city. How can we easily keep up with of all the latest alerts, events and more?
Animated Storytelling: Chapter 10 Summary
In the final chapter we learn what to do with the project we just finished creating.
A Challenge in Logo Animation
Diving deep into motion graphic design with a one-week challenge in logo animation.
Animating for User Interfaces
Animation is an important form of communication for digital products.
Animating for Impact
Learning about the tried and true rules for animation, and exploring motion within branding.
Animated Storytelling: Chapter 9 Summary
Tips from the pros on making your animation-making moments smooth and successful.
Animated Storytelling: Chapters 7-8 Summary
Break the rules and make new ones. Don’t let technique stop you from choosing the right animation style for your story.
Animated Storytelling: Chapters 5-6 Summary
Let yourself get creatively weird, and lead with sound.
Animated Storytelling: Chapters 2-4 Summary
Learning how to tell a story and the process of visualizing it.
The Gift of Gifs
Understanding the appeal of gifs, and the motion techniques behind their magic.
Animated Storytelling: Ch. 1 Book Summary
A dive into the world of motion graphics and the creative process behind it.
Meet: Money Kit
A case study for an educational website that helps millennials achieve financial wellness.
Millennials and Money
Does this generation still have time to catch up and achieve financial wellness?
Hi-Fi Protoype for the Shanghai Source
After 6 weeks of research, ideation, prototyping, and testing, a vague idea has evolved into something that looks and feels real.
Putting Paper Prototypes to the Test
Gaining highly valuable feedback using low fidelity prototypes.
Getting Crafty with Low Fidelity Prototyping
Understanding the value of low-fidelity prototyping in the design thinking process, and putting it into practice.
User Stories, Scenarios, and Flows
Examining how users move through an app in order to achieve their unique goals.
App Proposal for the City of Shanghai
How I used design thinking methods to determine an app’s purpose and its information architecture.
Deconstructing Information Architecture
Evaluating the Information Architecture of Shanghai’s municipal website.
Dreaming Up My Ideal Food App
Exploring the first three phases of Design Thinking to imagine a better way.
From Chaos Comes Clarity
How Mind Mapping Can Help You Explore Concepts and Connect Ideas
Divergent and Convergent Thinking in the Design Process
Learning when to generate ideas and when to make decisions.
Deep Dive into The Ideation Phase
Tips and Methods for Making the Most Out of Your Next Ideation Session
From POV’s to How Might We’s
How building on problem-statements in the Ideation phase can spark innovative solutions
Understanding Point of View Statements
Your insights are valuable. Use them to develop Point of View statements in the Define stage of the Design Thinking process. Observing and listening to your users is an invaluable resource to your product’s success—before, during, and after a product launch. And even more important is the ability to synthesize and translate their experiences into…
The Define Stage: Where Problems Are Your Guide
Problem-statements in design thinking are a good thing. They invite focus and clarity into your work. I moved to Sydney from the U.S. in 2008. The first generation of the iPhone was released, but of course, as a recent college grad, I didn’t own one of those yet. Instead, I familiarized myself with my new…
People are Personas
Understanding the value of personas in UX design, and how to build your own. Quite popular in UX Design, personas are an exercise in empathy in which we use storytelling to understand data. For every user group, a persona can be created to communicate those facts in the form of a person. By transforming abstract…
Undercover Boss & Dippin’ Dots
Uncovering empathy in the hit reality tv show Undercover Boss This week I watched my first ever episode of Undercover Boss—a reality tv show (usually not my thing) that follows the head of a company as they go undercover to discover what’s really going on with their business, employees, and customers. In other words, Undercover…
Empathic vs Analytic Modes of Thinking
Learning how and when to use both in the empathy mapping process Grocery shopping can often become a battle between my emotions and my budget. As I weave through the aisles, checking items off my list, I frequently find myself debating between purchasing the fair trade item for double the price or grabbing the “regular”…
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Writings by Michelle Ovalle 