Great Data Sources to Breathe Life Into Prototypes
May 13th, 2020 - Written by Mark Land
Prototypes are meant to be interactive. For the least part they are, one can click and tap around. The actual content is pretty static in almost all cases. However, we have collected a few data sources that you can use to breath life...
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Designing with Live Data
Apr 7th, 2020 - Written by Mark Land
The web is so interconnected these days. We have APIs, fancy UI design tools but still cannot design with live data dynamically. However, there a ways that allow a designer to pull live data from any web service during her design process.
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How Apple Loses Customers (Me Included)
Aug 15th, 2019 - Written by Andree Huk
As Apple's revenue does not grow anymore as much as in the past, Apple introduces UX dark patterns that make people their devices. Binding two devices together make these patterns even more deceptive.
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The Problem With Cross-Platform Experiences on the Blockchain
Jun 25th, 2019 - Written by Andree Huk
Designers love to craft holistic experiences. A strong part of such holistic experiences is the fact that customers or users shall be able to move fluidly across and between touch-points, platforms or devices. Conventional, go-to services like Spotify, YouTube...
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The Business Side of Design Sprints
May 27th, 2019 - Written by Andree Huk
A design sprint is not just this creative endeavour that takes 5 days of hard work. No, it must provide a return on investment. In order to calculate the return, we must figure the, firstly, the cost and, secondly, the value provided or generated.
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Design Sprint Done, Now What?
May 07th, 2019 - Written by Andree Huk
“As with every product/feature vision that is built as a prototype you always have to rethink what (parts) to build first afterwards. This implies that the delivered product is nearly never 100% close to the prototype” says Oliver Pitsch, Head of..."
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Codemotion Rome: How to Close The Gap Between Web 2.0 and 3.0
Apr 17th, 2019 - Written by Andree Huk
The story goes as follows: We did a party in late November. A neighbour called the police twice (that person calls the police 20x/year, literally). The police closed the party. I received an accusation from the city a few weeks later. My immediate reaction was to brush it off and reply with a short sentence.
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Fixing Web3.0 Usability Issues
Apr 11th, 2019 - Written by Andree Huk
David Sneider wrote an interesting piece that relates strongly to what we have stressed over the last few months...
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Current UX Bottlenecks of Blockchain Technologies
Apr 08th, 2019 - Written by Andree Huk
Alec wrote an article about the current issues of the technology. He makes a few good points but generally neglects to put them into context.
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The Convergence of Code and Design Tools
Feb 27th, 2019 - Written by Andree Huk
In 1980 Steve Jobs once said, “More and more, software is getting integrated into the hardware. Yesterday’s software is today’s hardware. Those two things are merging. And the line between hardware and software is going to...
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Not Even Apple Fully Considers End-To-End Experiences
Feb 12th, 2019 - Written by Andree Huk
As you will see, not even Apple does not fully consider this problem: Invoices from all sorts of parties have to managed, paid and stored one way or another. As it turns out, Apple's invoices are named...
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Blockchain Platforms: To Break or Not To Break With Mental Models
Jan 31st, 2019 - Written by Andree Huk
Product and Usability Challenges of Decentralized Services - Part II
Dec 13th, 2018 - Written by Andree Huk
UX across blockchain services is not great. Why? Entrepreneurs in the space still build for nerds and themselves. This fact in turn is due to the current technical fundamentals that make it very hard to actually design and build on-par decentralized...
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Product and Usability Challenges of Decentralized Services - Part I
Dec 1st, 2018 - Written by Andree Huk
Part of the reason for this malaise is such that entrepreneurs in the space still mainly build for nerds and themselves. This fact in turn is due to the current technical fundamentals...
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Why Altruism Is The Ace To Get Your Dream Design Job
Aug 13th, 2018 - Written by Andree Huk
Good to know: This article was written for Smashing Mag. Getting your dream job is not too complicated but it will take effort. This article may be the last...
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Wallapop: How A Subpar Mobile Experience Can Hurt Your Brand
Feb 13th, 2018 - Written by Sara
We usually do not write about applications in detail but in this case, it is worth the effort as our Experience Director can share a personal experience - but let him explain in detail...
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How To Get A Great Job By Solving Their Problem First
Jan 15th, 2018 - Written by Andree Huk
Being lucky is great but would you not want to increase your odds tremendously to get this one job? Of course. Allow me to ask you this...
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UI Libraries: 5 Hands-On Tips For A More Efficient Workflow
Dec 5th, 2017 - Written by Andree Huk
Libraries based on Nested Symbols are now the bread and butter for designers. Using such libraries in more efficient ways will give a designer an edge...
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Automate: Export Sketch Artboards without Sketch
Oct 17th, 2017 - Written by Andree Huk
Once you have build up your layouts and visual designs in Sketch, you probably have more than 1 dozen artboards. All steps involved, ie. minimising the layer tree, selecting artboards, exporting 1x, 2x and 3x separately takes too much time, especially if you keep redoing this procedure frequently.
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A Short Love-Letter For The Real Nerds
Oct 17th, 2017 - Written by Andree Huk
For the designers, developers and digital marketers. I really wonder frequently: Why do companies have breakfast, lunch and dinner prepared by supermarket directors and not by real...
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Automating Sketch: A Quick Guide For Designers & Developers
Oct 2nd, 2017 - Written by Andree Huk
I wrote a piece which mainly talked about automating image export on our blog on blended.io a little while ago. In this post here I would like to go into more detail.
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The Future of Design & Code Collaboration
Sep 27th, 2017 - Written by Andree Huk
The creators of Sketch did not make it a big thing when Sketch 43 launched with an open file format. However, it is actually BIG news...
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The Design Professions' Digital Transformation
Sep 20th, 2017 - Written by Andree Huk
Designers have worked in digital with digital tools for decades. Indeed, but that was only the first chapter. Digital transformation circumscribes the move from value...
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Why Visual Designers Are Now Frontend Developers
Aug 16th, 2017 - Written by Andree Huk
A better title might actually be "Design Developers" but let's find out (and comment below). A frontend developer might now think "Oh my god, there is so much...
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Real Design Version Control & Collaboration For Sketch Is Finally Here
Jun 15th, 2017 - Written by Andree Huk
The day just before Sketch 43 launched, I published the article Design Is Code and Code Is Design. The article covers what the open...
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Dear Team Member, Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone
May 22nd, 2017 - Written by Andree Huk
You can replace team member with "designer", "developer" or even "marketer" or "sales manager" if you so prefer but the former ones will fit better. Your fellow designer or developer **will whole-heartedly appreciate your effort**. But first, get out of your comfort...
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Learn How We Helped Sparhandy.de To Make 400.000.000 EUR
May 11th, 2017 - Written by Andree Huk
Our client Sparhandy.de crossed the 400.000.000 EUR mark in 2016. The previous year, blended.io has helped to move their ecommerce shop from a desktop-only experience to a...
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Update Your Sketch Plugins In Seconds
Apr 25th, 2017 - Written by Andree Huk
Updating plugins by hand is a real pain. Many of us have a whole bunch installed. Sketch Toolbox solved the problem for a short period of time. Unfortunately, many designers...
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With Sketch 43, Design IS Code & Code IS Design
Apr 05th, 2017 - Written by Andree Huk
Sketch 43 will revolutionise software design work. The next version of Sketch will have an new file format that allows to read and write .sketch files...
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Run Smoother Projects With Sketch And Version Control
Mar 28th, 2017 - Written by Andree Huk
Design tools are fundamentally changing. You could argue that technology is eating the design world to paraphrase Marc Andreessen who said “Software is eating the world”.
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The State of Sign-up Form Design
Jan 13th, 2017 - Written by Andree Huk
It is easy to publish a post, from your personal viewpoint, on what you think is the right design, in our case a sign-up form. Though, it is harder to prove that, what you think is the right way, is actually the right way. General guidelines are obviously a good starting point...
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Want to come up with a new digital product, expand your existing business, stay competitive? What's your next step?
Get in touch with Andree Huk
at +49 30 5557 7174 or [email protected].