From exhaustive manuals to lengthy lines of texts with bright red arrows to fully integrated narratives, game tutorials became more complex as both available interactions and user expectations grew. An industry valued as a billion dollar market with over 2,700 companies located across America and completely saturated with customer options totaling at over 9,000 titles released on Steam in 2018 alone, is it any wonder that games would dedicate so much time and effort to the first entry point a user sees? Teaching users the skills necessary to master the basics isn’t only used in games of course. In UX design, we are more accustomed to calling this process ‘on-boarding.’ However, many products’ on-boarding processes are dry and overwhelm users by front-loading a ton of knowledge at once. In the words of A Theory of Fun for Game Design, Ralph Koster “game design is about clarity that teaches complexity.” The key word here is teach. As UX Designers, we need to treat learning as the equivalent to fun and game tutorials are an excellent starting point.

       More and more the world of banking and investing is moving into the online and technological world. Terms like “cryptocurrency” and “bitcoin” have steadily been gaining popularity as user’s are finding ways to handle their finances in a way that matches today’s fast-paced, digital world.  In relation to online financial going ons, another term that is gaining a lot of recent attention is “blockchain”. Blockchain is not a new term, but it is generating increasing buzz since they will have a massive impact on the future of online banking, investing, digital identity, and more. 

       If one performs a job search on a job board, one job might require Python and another might say Javascript. What do the experts think are important? Github and Stack Overflow list Javascript as the top trending programming language (“Major Programming Trends to Prepare for in 2019”  2019). Although Github and StackOverflow list Javascript as number one, it does not specify with Javascript package such as Vanilla, Angular, or React. This is why knowing and keeping up to date with programming trends are important for employers and employees alike. 

      Many of us at KLI are trying different ways of staying healthy: some of us do yoga, Crossfit, hiking- one of us is even on a rugby team. Swimming and running are my exercises of choice, and I usually choose to go for a run. In my time preparing for half marathons and 5ks, I have tried several apps to use while running. Recently I learned that one of my colleagues is also a runner, so we started talking about the different apps that we use or have tried in the past. We would continue to point out what worked really well and what didn’t which made me wonder what actually makes a running app great for runners?

BREAKING NEWS

The 2018 midterm elections are on November 6th!

….but it is unlikely that this is the first time that you are hearing about them. With all the news, coverage, and spin, we at KLI asked: “is UX being considered when covering politics?” We know that there are other places that you can find political opinions and hot takes, so you will not find any in this article.  I will be staying focused on the UX of communicating and understanding politics, specifically on how different news organizations and outlets have tried to cover the midterm elections.

      As we have discussed before, big data is the study of data sets that are so large that traditional data-processing software cannot analyze it all. Big data, although requiring a different kind of data-processing system, big data allows researchers and analysts to utilize data that was not being previously been taken advantage of, and allows them to generate new insights. Since big data sets contain so much information that may have previously gone unnoticed, it can help to inform strategic business moves, feature areas of improvement and also be used to help predict future trends.

     Competitive Intelligence (CI) is something that is often thought of as a great concept but is not always implemented as a business tool, even though it should be. CI is a useful and critical a business tool that helps business to stay competitive within their fields. Let's start with what it is; Competitive Intelligence is the process and action of collecting, identifying, analyzing information about products, customers, and competitors within a specific industry.