How to design great products - the best of the mobile spoon

Hey everybody!

It’s that time of the year again when all the cool websites collect lame summaries and recaps of their old stuff so that they don’t have to come up with fresh content (and also get a chance to boost their internal linking and page rank…).

Well, I’m no different.

Plus, I’m a huge fan of summary posts.

Hence, this:  

So without further adieu, let’s welcome this year’s most popular posts in the categories: UI design and UX Writing:

1. The most comprehensive guide to cognitive biases and how to use them in products 

This one is my all-time favorite post (and this blog exists for over 12 years!).

I love it not because it took me hours to collect all of those 84 cognitive biases and design over 40 UI snippets, but because the process was pure joy!

This guide turned out to be pretty useful; it includes plenty of psychological insights, ways to understand human behavior, biases we all suffer from, loads of useful UI/UX tips, small marketing hacks, and tons of practical rules for improving your product’s conversion rate.

And yeah, I know it got a bit too close to some UI dark patterns, but that’s only for a tiny bit.

 

So if you think cognitive biases are only for the humanoids, this one is for you.

Check it out here: 84 cognitive biases that will help you design better-converting products.

2. The definite guide for writing and designing text in mobile apps

To be honest, this one goes beyond UX writing in mobile apps or web products.

It talks about how to treat text like an artist, and text, as you all know, is everywhere these days, which means this guide can help you become a better designer, a better product manager, a better web-master, a better presenter, and even a better email writer.



I just love this guide, and it’s not because I wrote it...

Check out the full post: UX writing: a comprehensive guide for designing text in mobile apps.

3. How to design data tables that don't suck. The ultimate guide

Data tables and grids have been part of everyone’s products since the age of the original Transformers series, and yet, too many products still fail to deliver a decent user experience with their tables.

Working with (and developing) dashboards, I ran across all the possible issues one can think of: limited functionality, weird scrolling, bad design, cluttered layout, horrible fonts…

I’ve collected those issues, and when I felt I had enough content - I created this 20 rules guide which is basic, but not always easy to implement.



There’s nothing special about this guide, except it’s totally superior to all existing guides out there 😎, so you better check it out: 20 rules for designing data-tables that don't suck.

4. Essential rules for creating a true mobile experience 

Mobile is a big hobby of mine. Weird enough, 13 years after the first iPhone revolutionized our world, there are still plenty of apps out there, failing to deliver a pure mobile experience.

This post is all about user experience in mobile apps: designing for short interactions, providing multi-sensory experience, taking external conditions into account, and more.

If you’re developing a mobile app - this guide is for you.



Check it out: 7 unique ingredients for creating a true mobile experience.

5. Visually distorted - when your perfect design looks all wrong

This one relates to a questionable superpower I have for spotting defects at first glance.

It happens to me when I meet people (look at those gigantic hands! her head is tiny! OMG those fingernails! they look like they belong to a mole!), and as much as I’m trying to make it stop - I just can’t fight my own super-powers.

It also happens when I look at user interfaces: whether I’m working on something new, advising others, or just using a product - I can’t help but spotting design issues the minute I look at things.

So, as an attempt to get rid of this overweight - I decided to create this collection of common UI distortions caused by optical illusions (and some other reasons), along with my proposed fixes, hoping that it will help the world create better-looking interfaces (and help me get rid of this unwanted “gift").

Check out this creepy post: How to overcome optical illusions that make your UI look distorted.

Final words...

So let’s see…
I’ve started with “most comprehensive”, added one spoon of “definite”,  spiced it up with some “ultimate”, “essential” flavors… I'm still missing: “best practices”, “lessons learned", and some kind of mysterious question.

OK, so these were the most popular posts in 2019 in the UI/UX categories, but before we finish this one, 2 more design-related posts I really liked this year:

• Lessons learned from our App Store screenshots redesign.
• Best practices for interacting with the keyboard without messing up your mobile app usability.
• Is the fold still a thing in today's skimming and scrolling culture? 

Enjoy the rest of the year!
Gil