It’s no surprise, given UX’s astronomical rise as a discipline, that there’s a ton of information out there about it. But how do you know where to look, and which sources are worth your time and attention? I recommend taking tips from the UX experts out there.

Whether you’re looking for inspiration on usable mobile UI design, user research and its application, or UX design trend tips, these 10 user experience experts should be the first stop on your journey to awesome UX.

Katie Dill

As Director of Experience Design at Airbnb, Katie Dill is at the vanguard of user experience. Katie and her UX team spend their days create engaging experiences for some 60 million users worldwide.

Which means that Katie has some stellar knowledge to share on building user journeys, conducting user research, and prototyping interfaces.

Follow Katie on Twitter, or watch out for her at tons of UX conferences and events throughout the year.

Jeff Veen

Jeff Veen is one of the heavyweights of product design and UX. The California native got his stripes as part of the founding team at Wired, before birthing Adaptive Path, one of the first UX consultancies.

He’s also the guy behind Google Analytics. In his current role of Design Partner at True Ventures, Jeff mentors an impressive portfolio of companies, from Medium to WordPress.

If you can’t catch one of Jeff’s presentations at UX and product events, you can listen to his podcast or follow him on Twitter.

Eric Reiss

On my Justinmind UX team, we’re are all big fans of Eric Reiss. The UX influencer has been working in UX since before the discipline officially existed.

From writing adventure games and penning some of the earliest books on information architecture, to his current role as CEO of UX agency FatDUX, there are few areas of UX that Eric doesn’t have experience of.

He brings a humorous, invigorating perspective to the discipline, and is worth while checking out on Twitter or in person.

Jared Spool

Everyone working in UX knows Jared Spool. He’s been at the coalface of usability since 1978, mainly as the Principal of User Interface Engineering, a web and mobile usability consultancy that happens to be the biggest user research organization worldwide.

Jared keynotes and chairs at the annual User Interface Conference, and blogs on usability/UX. Alternatively, his Twitter feed is full of updates, tips and stories from the frontline of usability.

Jen Romano Bergstrom

Jen Romano Bergstrom is UX Researcher at Facebook and Instagram, and as such as a hotline to the biggest user-base in the world. Eye-tracking is her special sauce: her latest book, Eye Tracking for User Experience Design (co-authored with Andrew Schall), goes deep into how eye tracking can help us understand and construct user experiences.

When she’s not researching users or writing books, Jen blogs and tweets about user research and usability.

Khoi Vinh

Khoi Vinh is one of the most fun UX bloggers out there right now – ask his 345,000+ Twitter followers if you don’t believe us. A former Design Director at the New York Times and then at Etsy, Khoi is now Principal Designer at Adobe.

He also wrote ‘Ordering Disorder: Grid Principles for Web Design’ and was tipped as one of the “fifty most influential designers in America,” according to Fast Company.

Khoi’s blog Subtraction covers design, tech and related culture – you can dig deep into posts on fantasy UIs, web fonts, the challenges of voice UIs and more. Everything comes with Khoi’s tongue-in-cheek spin on it, making it a great read for those dull office moments.

Willy Lai

He’s done UX in Apple, Intuit, Samsung, PayPal, and eBay, so it’s safe to say that Willy Lai has some serious Silicon Valley credentials.

Currently sharing his user experience knowledge through workshops, conferences, and career coaching, as well as mentoring at Stanford, Willy is an oracle on UX design and aligning UX with business goals.

Check out his Eventbrite schedule and catch him if you can; if not, he tweets.

Cory Lebson

As the author of The UX Careers Handbook, Cory Lebson is the go-to-guy for anyone who wants to define their career path in the rapidly changing UX scene.

The book covers everything from UX study to career roadmaps and becoming a thought leader. But you don’t have to buy a copy straight off – Cory’s blog also contains great advice and musings on UX, user research and usability.

Ethan Marcotte

Head of responsive design? Ethan Marcotte is the guy who coined the term that went on to become one of the biggest web design trends of the last decade. He literally wrote the book on RWD.

He blogs infrequently, but his Twitter feed is a firestorm of web rants, expert insights and UX gold-dust.

Don Norman

We left the Grandaddy of UX until last. Don Norman is the man behind the term ‘user experience,’ the UX sensei for user experience and usability. He’s the Norman behind the Nielsen Norman Group and has opined on UX everywhere from Harvard to Seoul. Keep up with his frequent video presentations via his website.

The post 10 UX Influencers To Follow Now appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Having a strong UX portfolio can make the difference between landing your dream job and coming second place, but what makes for a good UX portfolio?

Storytelling, process presentation, good documentation and keeping an eye on your target audience all have a part to play, but so does adding a touch of UX personality.

Here are 10 real-world portfolio examples from UXers worldwide, each incorporating best practices and unique selling points. Let’s take a look at what makes them inspiring.

Anton Mircea

According to UXers Troy Park and Patrick Neeman, prospective employers spend an average of 10-15 seconds looking at a UX portfolio. So it’s vital to make sure you present information clearly and strikingly – there’s no place for waffle.

Multidisciplinary UX designer Anton Mircea’s portfolio makes use of strong visuals to provide an idea of his abilities at a glance. Personalized infographics, timelines, and simplified process flows make Anton’s portfolio dynamic and design-led.

Jeya Karthika

Product designer Jeya Karthika presents key projects on her compact portfolio website. For each project, Jeya explains her personal role in bringing the product to life.

For example in creating the Android app PitchMojo, she took on the UI design, plus the UX of the app icon’s branding and visuals. By outlining her place within a larger endeavor, Jeya’s portfolio gives a fuller idea of her previous experience.

Chris Avore

Nasdaq software designer Chris Avore has a more traditional style portfolio that starts out with a text-heavy CV, but then transforms into a full-on collection of UX processes, case studies and documentation.

Chris lets his technical and organizational abilities shine without putting a text-gloss over them.

Tobias Ahlin

Tobias Ahlin gets right down to business in his portfolio claim – “I design and build digital products”. The directness and simplicity of this introduction is reflected throughout Tobias’ digital portfolio, with its dynamic card layout and animations.

Each case study links directly to the final product, and while we would have loved to have more information on Tobias’ UX research process, it’s great to have the results presented without fuss.

Joshua Taylor

Former Evernote Design Director Joshua Taylor, tells compelling visual stories in his UX portfolio.

By identifying the challenge he faced in each UX design project, describing his team’s actions, problems, and solutions, Joshua creates a narrative arc that sells his experience and expertise effectively.

Pawel Malenczak

Freelance UXer and Front-end Architect Pawel Malenczak does a great job of creating a portfolio that presents product design as a holistic, full-stack endeavor.

The portfolio incorporates a UX design process workflow before diving deeper into individual projects, each outlined with a concise project brief. We particularly like how Pawel emphasizes how he uses different UX tools to meet different project needs.

Doris Yee

Designer Doris Yee, working under the name Yeedor, has created a fun portfolio that combines the personal and professional to great effect.

With a magazine feel and a ton of case studies, Doris’s portfolio takes a deep dive into each piece of work to which she has contributed; she also distils random data from her own life into perfect infographics, demonstrating her skills in data analysis and visualization.

This style of portfolio wouldn’t work for everyone, but it’s a good option for UX all-rounders who want to inject their personality into their portfolio

Edmund Yu

With 12 years of UX design under his belt, Seattle-based Edmund Yu doesn’t waste time in presenting his user experience credentials. His portfolio relies on images to speak for themselves, distilling text into keywords to describe his role on each project, backed up by UI visuals.

The portfolio also outlines behind-the-scenes processes described through visuals. While the portfolio would benefit from a stronger storytelling approach, what really stands out is the Mentions section, in which Edmund collects testimonials and press snippets about his work. An excellent way to give prospective employers objective proof of your UX worth.

Simon Pan

Uber Product Designer Simon Pan has created a portfolio that foregrounds his UX experience. Outlining the objective and UX process of each piece of work, Simon explains his personal part in bringing the project to fruition before breaking down individual activities and describing how he met challenges.

This step-by-step storytelling is a great way to get readers emotionally involved in Simon’s UX challenges. Also, he tackles Non-Disclosure Agreements head-on, which is the best way to deal with them.

Jackie Ngo

Jackie Ngo works up an impressive CV into a unique UX portfolio. Her experience at Uber, Apple, Beats Music and Zurb is channeled into a ‘meat and potatoes’ buffet of her UX credentials.

Jackie’s presentation style wouldn’t work for all UXers: with Case Study sub-headings such as ‘Bringing sexy back(end)’ and ‘Giving a shit,’ the portfolio is irreverent while still providing a clear overview of Jackie’s role in complex product redesigns.

Andrew Doherty

Product and UX Designer Andrew Doherty has built a great portfolio that manages to be both light-hearted and information-heavy. Andrew links images of his day to day work with explanations of the process and best practices behind his activities, before presenting some beautiful UX documentation examples.

Through the portfolio you not only get an understanding of how Andrew applies his knowledge to UX projects, but you also get a feel for the kind of guy he is and how he works in a team.

The Final Word

A UX portfolio is a chance to show off your individual skills and personality as a UXer. Show off what you’re good at and don’t worry about addressing weaknesses in an honest fashion.

Write for your target audience (be that clients or specific employers), tell the story of each project you’ve worked on and how you contributed to success directly, and show how you use tools and best practices to build better products. And add a little personality to the mix, like these inspiring examples do; your future UX team members and colleagues will thank you for it.

The post 10 Inspiring UX Design Portfolios appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

You’re not alone. Presenting designs to clients is one of the toughest skills to master in the designer’s toolkit, and more than a few newbies struggle. Clients and designers come into presentation meeting with different perspectives, expectations, and languages – it’s no surprise that miscommunications and misunderstandings arise.

That’s why strong design presentation skills are essential to the success of a client design project; there’s no point in creating stellar designs if they never get approval because your presenting skills are off fleek.

While hard-earned experience is probably the best teacher of good design presentation skills, some of the most common mistakes can be avoided with a little preparation and a bit more confidence. Here are three common mistakes made by rookie designer-presenters, and how to avoid them

Mistake 1: Giving Aesthetics Priority over Performance

This is an easy trap to fall into – after all, you sweated over those pixels to get just the right mix of gradient, texture and all round brilliance into the interface, plus that new color scheme complements the information architecture to perfection. You should point all of that out, right? Wrong.

The biggest mistake designers make is walking their client through every visual feature of the interface. For a start, they can already see what’s on the screen, no need to point it all out and waste their time; second, they’re not a designer and the aesthetic, for them, is secondary. The client cares about performance; they care about whether this design will help them meet their business goals.

The Solution

If you find yourself going on a walk through each pixel, stop and think. Your aim is to explain why this design is the best solution for the project brief, not what the design contains. Explain how the design fits in with business objectives. Make sure to have actual data to back up your assertions by split testing different prototyped designs and collecting the results – once a client sees numbers justifying why you’ve chosen a certain feature they’ll be much more likely to buy into the project.

And you’ll feel more confident presenting if you walk in there with objectively collected data and a reason for every decision made, rather than a script about how pretty you made the interface.

Mistake 2: Presenting Without a High Fidelity Prototype

A prototype is worth 1000 words. It’s also worth at least 1000 client meetings where you try to explain the design concept with nothing more than words and post-it notes. For clients with little or no experience in web design, understanding rough wireframes or paper prototype walkthroughs is difficult – they won’t be versed in the interface vocabulary you’re be used to, and their ability to mentally map out architecture and navigation patterns will be limited. And the last thing you want to do is put a client in the position of feeling dumb.

The Solution

High fidelity prototypes are a great way to bridge the gap between designer and client. Going in with a dynamic prototype means you’ll have an interactive interface solution with which you can painlessly demonstrate the context and functionality of the design.

If this is the first time working with a client, it’s often a good idea to produce a content-first prototype so you can start to get feedback on brand voice and feel early on, as well as avoiding confusion over generic lorem ipsum. Whatever prototyping method you go for, presenting a flawless prototype will get your clients excited about the project and boost your credibility as a designer.

If you’re not sure which prototyping tool is best for your particular project, check out Cooper’s interactive list of the top tools or this smaller, indepth selection.

Mistake 3: Only Presenting One Design

We get it – time and resources are tight, and who wants to create a ton of designs just to have them junked at first sight by the client? The thing is, as Design and Brand Strategist Dave Holston points out, only design legends have the luxury of presenting one design idea; the rest of us mortals should adhere to the ‘Rule of Three.’

The Solution

The Rule of Three is pretty simple. Instead of presenting one design at a time and having the client shoot it down, you present three in one client meeting. You need to bring to the table, according to Dave:

• Client orientated design: the one that follows the brief to the letter but is pretty boring, to be honest.
• Designer orientated design: the one you love and know is the better solution to the business problem wrapped up in the brief.
• ‘Wow!’ design: something completely out of leftfield that, for whatever reason, just works.

The client will probably reject this option, but having the wow design in there makes it more likely they’ll go for the middle choice, which of course is the designer orientated design. Good presenting is about making basic psychology work for you.

Presenting Designs to Clients – the Takeaway

A strong design presentation meeting can make the difference between a project that fails and a project that succeeds. The client is paying you to be an expert, so don’t be afraid to be your most professional – leverage data, evidence, prototypes and a little bit of psychology to establish your authority and advocate for your best design. The client will thank you for it in the long run.

Just in case you’re wondering… Wireframing, Prototyping, Mockuping – What’s the Difference?

The post Common Mistakes When Presenting Design Ideas to Clients, and How to Avoid Them appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.