nard.design

John Menard

Design Informs Product Strategy

Design Informs Product Strategy

How design will play an important role in business transformation It’s no surprise, the user experience design profession is quickly evolving, shifting from a deliverables based entity to a business-oriented function that can provide a strategic differentiation for companies. Beyond the visual layer that design is well known for,

Presenting Multiple Design Options to Your Clients. Just. Don’t.

Presenting Multiple Design Options to Your Clients. Just. Don’t.

Exploring iterative design over options Very often, I hear designers talk about providing two or three mockups for a client and then ask them to choose their favorite. I totally get that point of view — by providing three varying concepts during the process, you’re letting the client know that

Designing the Design Process for Collaboration, Testing and Developer Handoff

Designing the Design Process for Collaboration, Testing and Developer Handoff

This is an older post (from 2016). A lot of tools have come out since then, such as Figma, that addresses many of these challenges. I will likely create an updated version of this (Figma version!) in the near future but some of these concepts still apply to some extent.

Conducting effective usability studies

Conducting effective usability studies

In order to garner the most value from your tests, what I found is by spending a little time to prepare and plan for not only what you’re testing, but in addition to ‘why’, you’ll come out of each test with the most insight possible. There is not

A short story: "Bob" and his hate for technology

A short story: "Bob" and his hate for technology

I find it fascinating to watch people at all skill levels use technology. And for the sake of this story, by technology I’m mainly referring to web applications. It’s amazing to watch first hand the frustrations, self blame and hatred one can bestow upon any given product while

Product Design in an Agile Environment

Product Design in an Agile Environment

One of the most important aspects of designing thoughtful experiences is talking to your users and understanding their needs and existing problems. This takes an understanding of their context, thought processes, current workflow and intended task at hand or goals. But as a designer, how do you allocate the time

The “Number of Taps” in Web & Mobile UI Design

The “Number of Taps” in Web & Mobile UI Design

Do you find yourself comparing two design interfaces and coming to a conclusion that one is better than the other based merely on the amount of taps it takes to get the same thing done? Let’s dig into this a little more. The “Three click rule”, though applied to