Reviews: Software Reviews

UX design can be a very challenging task. A lot happens between conceiving of an idea or concept and delivering a ready-to-use product. UX designers must create products that meets user’s needs. Unfortunately, between the politics of various stakeholders and a variety of other inputs to the UX design process, the user can sometimes get lost in the shuffle.

Skilled UX designers and teams use tools such as empathy mapping to help them create products that keep the user or customer at the center of the design process, resulting in a product that resonates with users and provides a good user experience. But what is an empathy map, what are its uses, and how does empathy mapping fit into the UX design process?

In this article, I’ll answer all of your questions about empathy maps. From how to fill in an empathy map to what empathy-mapping tools you can use, you’ll learn everything you need to know to incorporate empathy mapping into your UX design process and use it effectively. Read More

Wireframes play an important role in both the design and development of mobile apps. As you make decisions about an app’s functionality and create wireframes to depict your design solutions, your wireframes pass through various stages.

Different UX design teams follow different approaches in creating mobile-app wireframes. Some may help you come through with flying colors, while others may lead to failure. In this article, I’ll describe eight important steps that can help a mobile-app design company to build best-in-class wireframes for their projects. So let’s begin.

Creating Mobile-App Wireframes: A Step-by-Step Guide

The overall process of creating a mobile-app wireframe comprises eight steps. Read More

The UX design process kicks off with discovery activities such as contextual inquiry, user research, focus groups, stakeholder discussions, personas, scenarios, user journeys, and mind mapping, which establish a strong foundation for user requirements. Then, we start creating some quick-and-dirty paper prototypes and get stakeholders’ approval. Next, using the tool of our choice—for example, Axure, InVision, Balsamiq, UXPin, or Zeplin—we start creating interactive prototypes. After getting our interactive prototypes approved, we create high-fidelity designs using tools such as Photoshop or Illustrator. Finally, we hand off our designs to the developers.

UX professionals have really been struggling to find a single tool we can adopt for wireframing, prototyping, creating mockups, and development. Until 2010, designers relied heavily on Photoshop and Illustrator for creating high-fidelity designs. However, after the arrival of Sketch on the market in 2010, the equation changed completely. Read More