My favorite resources

Here are the resources I really liked in October:

#1 Drawing is the most enduring skill

David Hoang wrote a great article about the timeless nature of drawing, and he lists out why drawing is such a powerful activity. "As technologies advance in how images and software is generated, drawing is a skill that will endure the test the time like a Twinkie surviving a nuclear holocaust."

I love drawing. Though I’m not great at it, it’s an activity I’ve enjoyed since my early childhood. My fondest memories growing up was taking paper from my dad's dot matrix printer and draw all day. I created an abundance of terrible Spider-Man comic frames and my magnum opus was trying to draw frame-by-frame of the

#2 A Design Research Framework by Erika Hall

Erika Hall assembled a model for UX research activities: "Much of our work involves helping organizations create or develop their design/research practices, so I thought I’d try to help out. I created a cohesive visual representation of the general approach I recommend to clients and follow myself."

Use this model of the design research process to align your organization and match your activities to your real questions

#3 Drag and Drop UX Best Practices

Designing a good drag&drop experience is very challenging: "Not only do we have to effectively convey the interaction exists in the first place, the object needs to physically move, the live feedback second to second matters, and there are lots of decisions to make throughout to make it ‘feel’ the right way." Read this great guide by Pencil & Paper.

A comprehensive guide on drag and drop UI/UX design, including pattern UX examples and UI demos.

#4 An epic collection of design system components

Let's say you want to design a pagination component. Here is a website that catalogues famous design systems by component types. How cool is that? :)

Pagination is the process of splitting information over multiple pages instead of showing it all on a single page; also the name for the interface component used for navigating between these pages.

#5 Mr. Doodle's inspirational project

I have been following Mr. Doodle's work for years. Last month he has completed his biggest project so far: he doodled an entire mansion. Here is a video and an article about it:

British artist Sam Cox, or the so-called Mr. Doodle, takes us on his Doodleland in Kent, a mansion fully covered in doodles.

#6 Habit Weekly's Halloween-themed take on dark patterns in UX design

Dark patterns are "are any change to someone's behavioural environment causing difficulties in taking desired actions, or facilitating choices that are misaligned to the individual's wellbeing and interests."

Enter the Haunted House, and learn more!

An interactive horror tale on nudges and sludges. Enter at your own risk.

#7 Eva-Lotta's new sketchnoting and visual thinking course

Eva-Lotta is one of the greatest visual thinkers of our time. She has recently published a course on Domestika, it is on presale now, I can't recommend it enough!

Learn to structure presentations and other content as well as take expressive meeting notes in real time by combining text and sketches. With just a few well-thought-out sketches, it's possible to bring even the most abstract ideas to life. The art of sketchnoting gives designer and author Eva-Lotta

#8 Visual Notes for “Just Enough Research”

Erika Hall's book is a great read for beginner researchers and designers, and it's also an insightful guide for companies establishing UX research practices. Vlad Rybalkin created some nice visual notes of this book, check them out! (And if you haven't done already, try out sketchnoting books, it'll surely help you remember the content and summarize the key insights.)

I do not remember exactly how I came across “Just Enough Research” and why I decided to read it.

#9 How to draw comics when you can’t actually draw.

This is an older article, however, its content is evergreen: Chaz Hutton (maybe you know him as the author of the A Sticky Note Guide to Life) explains why you have every skills you need to draw a comic.

Well, great news: You don’t have to be able to draw, nor be particularly funny in order to draw comics. First of all you’re going to need a pen. You know what? You don’t need a pen. Just as long as…

#10 An inspirational take on UIs: UI Kids

What a nice and unusual perspective: UI Kids is a comic where Evrone designers gave a character to the little details of user interfaces.

In UI Kids, we animated buttons, popups and other little details that make the interface come alive. Through interaction with them the user can get the impression of the landing page or application that they use.

+1 A tweet I really liked:

Dan.glow shared 10 practical tips for improving your text layout.

“But I’ve come to realize that laying out texts properly is 80% of what makes something look clean, and is the easiest thing you can do to make your design much nicer and more usable.”

New UX Knowledge Piece Sketch

My newest sketch is about defining your target audience: Who are you designing for?

Here is my detailed article & sketch

Coupon codes for my Udemy courses

Sketching for UX designers course

Development aspects for UX course

Thanks for reading my newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it!

Keep on sketching,

Krisztina

P.S.: Have you written or found an interesting design / visual thinking article or other resource lately? Please send me a DM on Twitter! I might feature your resource in the next issue!