The Best Articles in UX
The most useful articles 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...
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.
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...
“That little island changes everything”
How we designed Lyft Live Activities to elevate the rider experience
The problem with sticky menus and what to do instead
Adam Silver – interaction designer - London, UK
Be Careful Using ‘Menu’
TL;DR: Be careful when using the word menu. Be certain you have chosen the term that accurately describes the control you want. If this post looks familiar to you, that is because it is essentially a…
Short Articles
Short on time? Check out these useful short articles in UX—all under 10 minutes.
Removing uncertainty: the tip of the iceberg
We build mountains underwater so that others can see the tip of the iceberg. To keep momentum, we must continually reduce uncertainty.
«This is because the more uncertainty that you reduce, the more predictability that you gain, and the closer that you get to your goal.»
The revenge of the pop-up
How did one of the most hated elements of web design make a comeback?
The Anatomy of a Good Design: An Analysis of 4 Sites
Visually pleasing designs use consistent type styles and spacing, create a visual hierarchy, and utilize an underlying grid structure.
Navigating the Discovery Phase
Kicking off a big design project? Ashley shares tips and tricks for the all-important discovery phase.
Long Articles
These are some of the most-read long-form articles in UX.
16 little UI design rules that make a big impact
A UI design case study to redesign an example user interface using logical rules or guidelines
Behind-the-Design: Meet Copilot
When the system is the product; on crafting the next generation of user experiences
Mastering Website Navigation: The Ultimate Guide
Shared by 364, including Thomas Pleil
Reversing UK mobile rail tickets
The UK has used small credit-card sized tickets to pay for train travel for years and years, since long before I was born — originally the APTIS ticket1, which later got replaced by a slightly easier…
Microsoft Loop and the Future of Collaborative Experiences
The design thinking and user research that turned into Microsoft Loop
Thought Leaders
We monitor hundreds of thought leaders, influencers, and newsletters in UX, including:
Ryan Singer
Software designer, builder, product strategist, advisor. 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 at @Automattic. Publisher @AListApart + @ABookApart. Ava’s dad. Pete’s brother. 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
Publications
We monitor hundreds of publications, blogs, newsletters, and news sources in UX, including:
UX Collective
Curated stories on user experience, usability, and product design. By @fabriciot and @caioab.
Nielsen Norman Group
User advocates offering evidence-based user experience (UX) research, training, consulting. Jakob Nielsen, Don Norman, Tog, and colleagues.
Smashing Magazine 🇺🇦 🏳️🌈
An online magazine for designers and web developers. Questions? We've got your back: @SmashingSupport, @SmashingConf. Curated by Iris, Vitaly and the team.
UX Planet
http://uxplanet.org official twitter account
UX Magazine
Defining and informing the complex field of user experience (UX) through frequent publication of high-quality articles for experts and newcomers alike.
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.
Which sources does Refind monitor in UX?
We monitor hundreds of sources in UX, including UX Collective, Nielsen Norman Group, Smashing Magazine 🇺🇦 🏳️🌈, UX Planet, UX Magazine, and many more.
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
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