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Articles by Colin Eagan
Enhancing User Experience
“Language is not merely a set of unrelated sounds, clauses, rules, and meanings; it is a totally coherent system bound to context and behavior.” — Kenneth L. Pike Article Continues Below The web has accents. So should our design systems. Design systems aren’t component libraries—they’re living languages. Tokens are phonemes, components are words, patterns are phrases, are sentences. The conversations we build with users become the stories our products tell.
An Holistic Framework for Shared Design Leadership
Picture this: You’re in a meeting room at your tech company, and two people are having what looks like the same conversation about the same design problem. One is talking about whether the team has the right skills to tackle it. The other is diving deep into whether the solution actually solves the user’s problem. Same room, same problem, completely different lenses.
From Beta to Bedrock: Build Products that Stick.
As a product builder over too many years to mention, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen promising ideas go from zero to hero in a few weeks, only to fizzle out within months. Article Continues Below Financial products, which is the field I work in, are no exception. With people’s real hard-earned money on the line, user expectations running high, and a crowded market, it’s tempting to throw as many features at the wall as possible and hope something sticks.
User Research Is Storytelling
Ever since I was a boy, I’ve been fascinated with movies. I loved the characters and the excitement—but most of all the stories. I wanted to be an actor. And I believed that I’d get to do the things that Indiana Jones did and go on exciting adventures. I even dreamed up ideas for movies that my friends and I could make and star in. But they never went any further. I did, however, end up working in user experience (UX).
To Ignite a Personalization Practice, Run this Prepersonalization Workshop
Picture this. You’ve joined a squad at your company that’s designing new product features with an emphasis on automation or AI. Or your company has just implemented a personalization engine. Either way, you’re designing with data. Now what? When it comes to designing for personalization, there are many cautionary tales, no overnight successes, and few guides for the perplexed.
The Wax and the Wane of the Web
I offer a single bit of advice to friends and family when they become new parents: When you start to think that you’ve got everything figured out, everything will change. Just as you start to get the hang of feedings, diapers, and regular naps, it’s time for solid food, potty training, and overnight sleeping. When you figure those out, it’s time for preschool and rare naps. The cycle goes on and on.
Opportunities for AI in Accessibility
In reading Joe Dolson’s recent piece on the intersection of AI and accessibility, I absolutely appreciated the skepticism that he has for AI in general as well as for the ways that many have been using it. In fact, I’m very skeptical of AI myself, despite my role at Microsoft as an accessibility innovation strategist who helps run the AI for Accessibility grant program.
I am a creative.
I am a creative. What I do is alchemy. It is a mystery. I do not so much do it, as let it be done through me. Article Continues Below I am a creative. Not all creative people like this label. Not all see themselves this way. Some creative people see science in what they do. That is their truth, and I respect it. Maybe I even envy them, a little. But my process is different—my being is different. Apologizing and qualifying in advance is a distraction. That’s what my brain does to sabotage me.
Humility: An Essential Value
Humility, a designer’s essential value—that has a nice ring to it. What about humility, an office manager’s essential value? Or a dentist’s? Or a librarian’s? They all sound great. When humility is our guiding light, the path is always open for fulfillment, evolution, connection, and engagement. In this chapter, we’re going to talk about why. Article Continues Below That said, this is a book for designers, and to that end, I’d like to start with a story—well, a journey, really.
Personalization Pyramid: A Framework for Designing with User Data
Further reading about Content A Content Model Is Not a Design System These days, content models have to serve a variety of delivery channels, each more outlandish than the last. But why do many content models still look more like design systems rather than reflecting structured data?
Never Use a Warning When you Mean Undo
Have you ever had that sinking feeling when you realize—just a split second too late—that you shouldn’t have clicked “Okay” in the “Are you sure you want to quit?” dialog? Article Continues Below Yes? Well, you’re in good company—everybody has had a similar experience, so there’s no need to feel ashamed about it. It’s not your fault: it’s your software’s fault. Why? Because software should “know” that we form habits.
Approaching Content Strategy for Personalized Websites
There’s a curious concept in astrophysics known as the Drake Equation. Developed to quantify the potential for intelligent life in our galaxy, it raises a number of odd questions, among them: does having intelligence, in the long run, actually benefit or harm a species? In other words, will amoebas ultimately outlive humans in the face of eternity? Article Continues Below If you’re like me, these are the types of things you think about while listening to hold music before conference calls.
Learning from Lego: A Step Forward in Modular Web Design
With hundreds of frameworks and UI kits, we are now assembling all kinds of content blocks to make web pages. However, such modularity and versatility hasn’t been achieved on the web element level yet. Learning from Lego, we can push modular web design one step forward. Article Continues Below Rethinking the status quo#section2 Modular atomic design has been around for a while. Conceptually, we all love it—web components should be versatile and reusable.
Focus on What You Do Best and Outsource the Rest
Further reading about Industry Designers, (Re)define Success First Designing ethically may sound daunting at first, but Lennart Overkamp sets forth a template for engaging stakeholders around new priorities, exploring objectives that span from individual to global impacts, and finally measure their effects. Webwaste In this excerpt from World Wide Waste, Gerry McGovern examines the environmental impact of bloated websites and unnecessary assets. Digital is physical.
UX in the Age of Personalization
If you listened to episode 180 of The Big Web Show, you heard two key themes: 1) personalization is now woven into much of the fabric of our digital technology, and 2) designers need to be much more involved in its creation and deployment. In my previous article we took a broad look at the first topic: the practice of harvesting user data to personalize web content, including the rewards (this website gets me!) and risks (creepy!).
UX in the Age of Personalization
If you listened to episode 180 of The Big Web Show, you heard two key themes: 1) personalization is now woven into much of the fabric of our digital technology, and 2) designers need to be much more involved in its creation and deployment. In my previous article we took a broad look at the first topic: the practice of harvesting user data to personalize web content, including the rewards (this website gets me!) and risks (creepy!).
The Story of CSS Grid, from Its Creators
Illustration by Dougal MacPherson A note from the editors: We want to thank the Microsoft Edge team for sharing transcripts of the interviews they conducted with many of the brilliant people who have contributed to the development of CSS Grid. Those transcripts proved invaluable in compiling this history. You can watch the short video they produced from those interviews, Creating CSS Grid, on Channel 9. On October 17th, Microsoft’s Edge browser shipped its implementation of CSS Grid.
Using CSS Mod Queries with Range Selectors
Recently, I was asked to build a simple list that would display in a grid—one that could start with a single element and grow throughout the day, yet alway be tidy regardless of the length. So, as you do sometimes when you’re busy with one thing and asked if you can do something completely different, I tried to think of any reason why it couldn’t be done, came up blank, and distractedly said, “Yes.” Article Continues Below At the time, I was working on a London-based news organization’s website.
The Rich (Typefaces) Get Richer
There are over 1,200 font families available on Typekit. Anyone with a Typekit plan can freely use any of those typefaces, and yet we see the same small selection used absolutely everywhere on the web. Ever wonder why? Article Continues Below The same phenomenon happens with other font services like Google Fonts and MyFonts. Google Fonts offers 708 font families, but we can’t browse the web for 15 minutes without encountering Open Sans and Lato.
Meaningful CSS: Style Like You Mean It
These days, we have a world of meaningful markup at our fingertips. HTML5 introduced a lavish new set of semantically meaningful elements and attributes, ARIA defined an entire additional platform to describe a rich internet, and microformats stepped in to provide still more standardized, nuanced concepts. It’s a golden age for rich, meaningful markup.
Validating Product Ideas
Illustration by Kevin Cornell A note from the editors: We are pleased to present an excerpt from Tomer Sharon's Validating Product Ideas Through Lean User Research published by Rosenfeld Media. Get 20% off your copy using code ALAVPI. Amazingly, 198 out of the 200 enterprise product managers and startup founders interviewed for this book said they were keeping a list of product ideas they wanted to make a reality some day.
The High Price of Free
Doing business in the web industry has unbelievably low start-up and fixed running costs. You need little more than a computer and an internet connection. The overheads of freelancers and small agencies that build websites and applications for other people, or develop a digital product, are tiny in comparison to a traditional business. Your training can be free, as so many industry experts write and teach and share this information without charging for it.
From Pages to Patterns: An Exercise for Everyone
Illustration by Elliot Stokes Language defines the life of components. A “blue button” will work until the button is no longer blue—and then the name won’t make sense anymore. The pattern will have no reason to exist if blue buttons have fallen out of use. A component with the name “button,” however, will live a longer and more fruitful life, even if its properties change. Why? Because its name describes its function, not how it looks.
Using Responsive Images (Now)
Ever since Ethan Marcotte started talking about responsive web design in 2010, developers and designers have been scrambling to find ways to deal with the issue of responsive images. It’s a thorny problem because we’re serving the same website, with the same image sources, across a wide range of device widths. Do you want a blurry, pixelated image on a large display? Or do you want to load a huge (but oh-so-pretty) image on your mobile phone? Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Approaching Content Strategy for Personalized Websites
There’s a curious concept in astrophysics known as the Drake Equation. Developed to quantify the potential for intelligent life in our galaxy, it raises a number of odd questions, among them: does having intelligence, in the long run, actually benefit or harm a species? In other words, will amoebas ultimately outlive humans in the face of eternity? If you’re like me, these are the types of things you think about while listening to hold music before conference calls.
Context Makes Our Devices
Article Continues Below A few weeks ago, Josh Dzieza of The Verge had this to say about the Apple Watch, and really smartwatches as a whole: When smartphones were first gaining popularity, I could’ve expressed the exact same concern, swapping the word “pocket” for “backpack.” Why would I spend so much money on a phone when my laptop can already manage email, calendars, and notes? Statements like that overlook the reason why certain device categories become successful: context.
Michael Powell Lost His Dream Career, and It's the Best Thing That Ev…
Uploaded on Dec 01, 2014 "Opportunity knocks for everyone, but most people don't have their bags packed or aren't listening for the doorbell."
... "Opportunity knocks for everyone, but most people don't have their bags packed or aren't listening for the doorbell."
Michael Powell was in the army for 25 years before an injury made him rethink his whole career. Here's how he got his strength back—and why he calls it the best thing that ever happened to him.
Structuring a New Collaborative Culture
When I was a junior designer, my creative director asked me to design a mascot with the rather uninspiring instruction to reorder the shapes of the famous 2012 Olympics logo. Having little choice but to accept my task, I threw myself into it with all the boundless, panicked energy that comes from needing to impress the powers above, trusting my superior to steer me in the right direction.
Don’t Poke the Bear: Creating Content for Sensitive Situations
We’re all imperfectly human, and our readers are no exception. They have touchy subjects and insecurities and things they’d rather not talk about—and they bring them all to the table when they interact with our content. Article Continues Below We tend to show more empathy during face-to-face conversations than in written communication. When we’re getting immediate feedback, we don’t want to offend anyone or make them feel awkward, so we naturally adapt our tone based on the situation.
Looking Beyond User-Centered Design
User-centered design has served the digital community well. So well, in fact, that I’m worried its dominance may actually be limiting our field. Article Continues Below The terms “user experience design” (UX) and “user-centered design” (UCD) are often used interchangeably. But there’s an important distinction. UX design is the discipline: what we do. Precise definition is elusive, but most attempts focus on experience as an explicit design objective. User-centered design is a process: how we do it.
Building Twitter Bootstrap
Issue № 342 A year-and-a-half ago, a small group of Twitter employees set out to improve our team’s internal analytical and administrative tools. After some early meetings around this one product, we set out with a higher ambition to create a toolkit for anyone to use within Twitter, and beyond. Thus, we set out to build a system that would help folks like us build new projects on top of it, and Bootstrap was conceived.
Art Direction and Design
Issue № 317 Glorifying the supposed arrival of art direction on the web is one of the latest trends in interactive design. There are several galleries devoted to it. There’s even a plug-in for it. Sadly, many designers don’t understand the difference between design and art direction; sadder still, many art directors don’t either: Art direction gives substance to design. Art direction adds humanity to design.
Better JavaScript Minification
In the past few years, performance research has become more prevalent thanks to research by the Yahoo! Exceptional Performance Team and Google’s Steve Souders. Most of that research studies not the individual HTML page, but the resources the page requires to display or behave correctly. Article Continues Below Although both CSS and JavaScript may be included within an HTML page, best practices encourage storing CSS and JavaScript in external files that can be downloaded and cached separately.
Infrequently Asked Questions of FAQs
Call me a heretic, but I hate FAQs. I understand that the FAQ has become de rigueur for websites, and I get that users expect them as a conventional content type. I even acknowledge that the FAQ has a venerable history. I don’t find them helpful, however: no one ever seems to ask my questions. Article Continues Below So I have questions about FAQs: Do they really work, or are they just a snake oil remedy for poor content? What does it mean when I can’t find my question in the FAQ?
Words that Zing
People use websites to make decisions—from what product to buy to what health treatment to seek. [1][2][3] When someone consults a website, there is a precious opportunity not only to provide useful information but also to influence their decision. To make the most of this opportune moment, web professionals need to understand the rhetorical concept of kairos.
You Can Get There From Here: Websites for Learners
Like many modern parents, I probably tell my kids to “go look it up online” about a hundred times a week. Where I grew up poring over the World Book Encyclopedia sprawled out on my living room carpet, today’s learners have a potentially better, more immersive multimedia learning platform at their fingertips. Anything we want to learn about—from microscopic organisms to the world’s largest work of art—can be found on the web.
The Discipline of Content Strategy
Issue № 274 We, the people who make websites, have been talking for fifteen years about user experience, information architecture, content management systems, coding, metadata, visual design, user research, and all the other disciplines that facilitate our users’ abilities to find and consume content. Article Continues Below Weirdly, though, we haven’t been talking about the meat of the matter. We haven’t been talking about the content itself. Yeah, yeah. We know how to write for online readers.
The Discipline of Content Strategy
Issue № 274 We, the people who make websites, have been talking for fifteen years about user experience, information architecture, content management systems, coding, metadata, visual design, user research, and all the other disciplines that facilitate our users’ abilities to find and consume content. Article Continues Below Weirdly, though, we haven’t been talking about the meat of the matter. We haven’t been talking about the content itself. Yeah, yeah. We know how to write for online readers.
A Dao of Web Design
What Zen was to the 70’s (most famously with motorcycle maintenance), the Tao Te Ching was to the 90’s. From Piglet and Pooh to Physics and back, many have sought sense in applying the Tao Te Ching to something (the Tao of Physics), or something to the Tao Te Ching (the Tao of Pooh). It can be a cheap trick, but lately it has struck me that there is more than a little to be understood about web design by looking through the prism of the Tao.
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