Design Shack - Design Articles, Inspiration & Guides

Layouts / 30 Mar 2018

7 Tips for Creating a Time-Saving Design for Users

Users have short—very short—attention spans. That’s probably evident just looking through your website analytics. This makes it more important than ever to deploy design techniques that help users scan and get the most information from your website in the shortest time possible.

It is your job to understand what users need to glean from the design at a glance and help them get that information, so maybe they’ll stick around and explore your website. Here are a few ways to do it!

Layouts / 21 Mar 2018

10 Web Design Commandments for Every Project

Do you have a rulebook when it comes to website design? There are some rules that apply to pretty much every web design project—let’s call them the “web design commandments”.

No matter how large or small the website, these rules are the foundation for good design. If you follow along with these basic guidelines, and make them part of your thinking for every project you start, you’ll avoid many of the pitfalls that designers can stumble into!

UX Design / 24 Jan 2018

7 Ways to Jump Into UX Design From Graphic Design

There’s good news for graphic designers looking to make a career shift into UX design: You already have a strong foothold on the skills needed to get started. As someone who has a keen eye for pleasing aesthetics and a knack for solving problems, the change isn’t out of reach.

And there’s another bonus. The Interaction Design Foundation reports that UX designers have a higher average salary ($74,000 annually) than graphic designers ($41,000).

Are you ready to make the jump into user experience design? Here are seven ways to get there even faster.

Mobile / 15 Jan 2018

7 Tips for Designing for Oversized Touchscreens

Touchscreens are everywhere. But they aren’t just on your phones and tablets. Designing for the oversized versions of touchscreens – think desktop computer size and larger – can present a unique set of challenges.

How do you design for something so big, when you are so accustomed to thinking about thumb regions for screen design? Here’s a guide to thinking about oversized touchscreens and how to create something that users with interact with on an even larger touch scale.

Accessibility / 8 Jan 2018

Pros and Cons of Personalization in Your Website Design

When it comes to website personalization, designers have a lot of opinions. Is the research and hassle of designing a personalized interface worth the reward?

For big companies such as Amazon and Netflix, personalization has been a game-changer. But what about for your website? Can you use personalization to a great benefit as well? Here, we look at the pros and cons of personalization in your website design.

Layouts / 20 Dec 2017

7 Ways to Ensure Your Long-Scrolling Website Is Successful

The old keep-it-above-the-scroll manta isn’t always what your content – and design – needs. Here are seven ways to create a long-scrolling website that will keep the attention of users, and hopefully keep them scrolling.

Long-scrolling can be a stellar way to engage users. Sometimes the best visual presentation possible doesn’t happen entirely above the scroll. Long-scrolling formats are websites that scroll multiple times to capture that content. Let’s put the often-debated concept to rest. Today’s users understand how and when to scroll.

UX Design / 6 Nov 2017

7 Steps to Creating a Solid UX Strategy

Everyone knows that the first step in any business venture is research on the path to creating a strategy. This strategy determines how you’ll function and guide the decision-making process.

A website project – whether it is for a business or not – should follow the same concept. Without a solid user experience strategy, the design is likely to lack the features, elements and overall usability that make the website popular among visitors.

While the idea of creating a UX strategy might not sound like a lot of fun, it’s a valuable exercise. And when done well, and with purpose, can definitely be enjoyable!

Mobile / 30 Oct 2017

The Anatomy of a Perfect Push Notification: 7 Tips

One of the top reasons users uninstall an app is because push notifications are annoying. You’ve probably done this yourself a time or two.

But one of the top reasons users love an app is also because of push notifications. So how do you create a push that users will love? That’s easy – you make it all about them.

Mobile / 25 Oct 2017

5 Design Tricks to Make Your Mobile UX Shine

Have you looked at your website analytics lately? Chances are a significant portion – maybe even more than half – of your users are coming to your website via mobile device.

Whether you are focusing mobile efforts on a website or app, you need to ensure that the design creates a stellar user experience for every one of those mobile users. You don’t have to start from scratch to do it either. Thinking about the mobile user and how they interact with the design will help shape the way your interfaces look and function.

Here are five design tricks you can use to help make your mobile UX one that users love.

Layouts / 11 Oct 2017

Coming Soon Landing Pages: Tips and Best Practices

What do you do when your website is under construction and you aren’t quite ready for launch?

Whether you’re generating buzz to release a new product or app, or just waiting for a new website project to be ready, a coming soon page can be the fix.

When used well, coming soon pages can help generate leads (with an email signup form) and drum up some interest for your website.

Graphics / 28 Sep 2017

How & Why Faces Increase User Engagement

There’s a lot of science and psychology that goes into design. Even if you don’t consciously think about it, choices that you make when selecting imagery and user interface elements can establish a connection with users (or not) and even lead to higher engagement rates.

Using actual human faces in the design is one way to do this. Seeing a face can make people more likely to engage with a design because it makes the app/website/poster feel more human. It creates a more distinct emotional connection.

Here, we’re going to look at designs that use faces in different ways and how you can up user interaction with some of the same design techniques.

Inspiration / 4 Sep 2017

Design Inspiration for Scroll Actions

Scrolling is a key component of any website design that extends beyond a single landing page. Anyone who thinks the scroll is dead needs to jump out of 2005!

Scroll actions move users through content vertically or horizontally and are a commonly accepted user pattern. The scroll is alive and well thanks to plenty of interesting design techniques and a shift toward accessing full websites on smaller screens. Let’s take a look!