The Best Articles in UX
The most useful articles and videos in UX from around the web—beginners to advanced—curated by thought leaders and our community. We focus on timeless pieces and update the list whenever we discover new, must-read articles or videos—make sure to bookmark and revisit this page.
Top 5 UX Articles
At a glance: these are the articles that have been most read, shared, and saved in UX by Refind users in 2023 so far.
Videos
Watch a video to get a quick overview.
Thinking on ways to solve TOOLTIPS
In today's GUI Challenge, @Adam Argyle builds a tooltip with a custom element (no web component!), :has(), transforms, and logical properties. Besides a smal...
Accessibility for designers, with Stéphanie Walter
We had the honor to collaborate with Stéphanie Walter, UX Researcher and Product Designer, expert in inclusive and accessible design! In this video, Stéphani...
What is ...?
New to UX? These articles make an excellent introduction.
A beginner’s guide to customer journey maps
A look into the makings of and reasoning behind customer journey maps.
How to ...?
How to evaluate the UX maturity of a company
I was presented with this opportunity in the summer of 2015. Until that point, I had spent two years living in Germany and working for an early-stage startup in Luxembourg. It was the job that I moved…
How to design delightful dark themes
Dark themes are the latest trend in app design. Here we share how to design dark themes that are readable, balanced, and delightful!
Trending
These links are currently making the rounds in UX on Refind.
Framing Effect: Why context affects decisions
Learn what the Framing Effect is and how to apply it to improve user experience without relying on unethical dark patterns.
Information Architecture vs. Sitemaps: What’s the Difference?
Information architecture is the practice of structuring, organizing, and labeling content from your website. Sitemaps are visualization tools that are used predominantly for planning purposes.
I counted 8 mistakes in this 15-word dialog design
Why UX writing is not just about being a professional writer.
The Top 10 Web Design Mistakes of 1999
New technology and conventions have led to several new classes of usability problems in Web design.
Can we assess the morality of our UX?
From pixels to principles, from code to conscience
Short Articles
Short on time? Check out these useful short articles in UX—all under 10 minutes.
The Rhythm of Your Screen
It’s 2023 and I’m still frequently asked by clients about scrolling. I understand why. Every design comes with assumptions about how much content
Why Chatbots Are Not the Future
Last night, over wine and seafood, the inevitable happened...
What’s The Perfect Design Process? — Smashing Magazine
The design process is messy. You might be following a structured approach, but too often, it takes a life of its own. And before you know it, you are designing in chaos, with last-minute changes and…
Write more, design less (and better)
How writing reframes our knowledge and drives our decisions.
Long Articles
These are some of the most-read long-form articles in UX.
Behind The Curtains Of Wikipedia Redesign — Smashing Magazine
The Wikipedia team shipped a redesign of the ubiquitous and one of the [most visited websites](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_visited_websites) on the web. Alex Hollendar and Jon Robson…
The UX Of Flight Searches: How We Challenged Industry Standards — Smashing Magazine
As of today, the world’s 50 top airlines have all agreed on the same flight search pattern. Yet the path to booking the right flight remains frustrating and confusing. Is there really only one…
CSS And Accessibility: Inclusion Through User Choice — Smashing Magazine
In this article, Carie Fisher outlines which CSS media features are available for detecting user preferences and how they are used to design and build more inclusive user experiences.
Don't design for your users
Guiding principles for designing and building products with intention
Designing for AI: beyond the chatbot
Guidelines and strategies for meaningfully leveraging AI in your applications
Thought Leaders
We monitor hundreds of thought leaders, influencers, and newsletters in UX, including:
Ryan Singer
Builder, designer, strategist. Author of Shape Up. Prev: 37signals. Email rjs@hey.com
Meng To
Founder at @designcodeio. I teach designers code and developers design.
zeldman
Author. Designer. Web Standards Godfather. Employer Brand @Automattic. Publisher @AListApart @ABookApart. Ava’s dad. Pete’s brother RIP. He/him.
Brad Frost
Design system consultant, web designer, speaker, writer, musician, & artist. Author of Atomic Design. Mastadon: http://mastodon.social/@brad_frost
🎆 🌸 Samuel Hulick 🌸 🌄
I help Self-Serve SaaS orgs convert more customers | http://SelfServeSaaS.com | prev @UserOnboard | they/them
What is Refind?
Every day Refind picks the most relevant links from around the web for you. Picking only a handful of links means focusing on what’s relevant and useful. We favor timeless pieces—links with long shelf-lives, articles that are still relevant one month, one year, or even ten years from now. These lists of the best resources on any topic are the result of years of careful curation.
How does Refind curate?
It’s a mix of human and algorithmic curation, following a number of steps:
- We monitor 10k+ sources and 1k+ thought leaders on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
- In addition, our users save links from around the web using our Save buttons and our extensions.
- Our algorithm processes 100k+ new links every day and uses external signals to find the most relevant ones, focusing on timeless pieces.
- Our community of active users gets the most relevant links every day, tailored to their interests. They provide feedback via implicit and explicit signals: open, read, listen, share, mark as read, read later, «More/less like this», etc.
- Our algorithm uses these internal signals to refine the selection.
- In addition, we have expert curators who manually curate niche topics.
The result: lists of the best and most useful articles on hundreds of topics.
How does Refind detect «timeless» pieces?
We focus on pieces with long shelf-lives—not news. We determine «timelessness» via a number of metrics, for example, the consumption pattern of links over time.
How many sources does Refind monitor?
We monitor 10k+ content sources on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
Who are the thought leaders in UX?
We follow dozens of thought leaders in UX, including Ryan Singer, Meng To, zeldman, Brad Frost, 🎆 🌸 Samuel Hulick 🌸 🌄.
Missing a thought leader? Submit them here
Can I submit a link?
Indirectly, by using Refind and saving links from outside (e.g., via our extensions).
How can I report a problem?
When you’re logged-in, you can flag any link via the «More» (...) menu. You can also report problems via email to hello@refind.com
Who uses Refind?
250k+ smart people start their day with Refind. To learn something new. To get inspired. To move forward. Our apps have a 4.9/5 rating.
Is Refind free?
Yes, it’s free!
How can I sign up?
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