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     Many people will look at a UI design and think that the color choice comes from the preference of the designer- what they thought would look the best for the given project. While sometimes this may be the case, colors are often chosen carefully and with intention. Why? Color has been proven to have a great impact on the mood and behaviors of individuals and as a result, the overall success of a product, design or web page can rest on the colors that are chosen.

     One of the big design trends that have been steadily picking up popularity is the idea of going “off grid”- breaking away from harsh grid lines, and paving the way for edgeless screens and borderless designs. Both edgeless screens and borderless designs have a similar goal in mind: doing away with chunky, blocky borders in order to create a more fluid and immersive storytelling experience. But what exactly does going “off grid” mean?

The idea of biometrics in XR isn’t a terribly new one. Methods like heart rate and eye tracking are pretty popular in the research community. Academic researchers have been using physiological signals to measure changes in user states for decades and some AR applications have begun integrating biosignals to inform changes to the system. What is a newer idea is using biosignals as a user controlled input method.

If the future of XR interaction means that users will communicate via customizable avatars, how can you trust that the user you’re interacting with is who they say they are? Part 2: Blockchain-based VR.

“Scrolling is a continuation, clicking is a decision.”- Josh Porter, Designer

     At the beginning of UX, users typically did not scroll vertically, simply because they just weren’t used to it. During the mid-nineties, scrolling was something that was still a new concept in regards to the development of user experience design. As a result, user’s would oftentimes just make their selections based on the information they could see without having to scroll further down, which set forward one of the biggest UX myths ever: the idea that people don’t scroll. This UX Myth has been around for a while and has impacted UX design as well, leading to the “above the fold” UX best practice- the idea that users will only pay attention to information that is “above the fold” and therefore all the important content for the user to make their decision should be available in that space without the user having to scroll.

Although augmented and virtual reality systems (which I will refer to globally as extended reality, or XR) have not yet reached the level of everyday ubiquity expected by some industry insiders, these technologies are being increasingly utilized in domains traditionally considered to be risky, such as aviation and medicine. This is Part 1: AI Smart Avatars.

     Many in the UX industry are familiar with the idea of the three-click rule, a golden UX best practice for design. The three click rule is the idea if that after three clicks a user cannot find what they are looking for, they are likely to get frustrated and abandon the task they set out to do. This idea quickly gained popularity a became a well known best practice for designing an engaging and effective user experience and is something that can still be seen in design that happens today. But, is the three click rule something that we should still be holding onto?

  Biometrical Authorization, while something that sounds like it would be straight out of a sci-fi film, is basically a security process that relies on certain key biological features in order for an individual to verify themselves. No more complicated login processes; with biometrical authorization, all that is needed is the specific physiological or behavioral characteristic required such as facial recognition, fingerprint identification, or voice recognition. Nor is this concept necessarily a new one; a wide variety of industries use biometrical authorization as a means to bypass traditional username and password verifications or logins. We already see an implementation of biometrical authorization in a wide variety of devices, such as fingerprint login for mobile phone and devices. So, why are we talking about it?

“Creativity Is allowing yourself to make mistakes, design is knowing which ones to keep”
– Scott Adams

At its core, linear UX focuses on allowing a user to complete a task or a goal in a smooth, simplified process. As a result, this method ends up taking away a lot of unnecessary fillers or complications, thus making the user experience super streamlined and seamless. Overall, linear UX focuses on creating a goal-oriented user experience.