My favorite resources

Here are the resources I really liked in November:

#1 The Creative Switch

This article by Ralph Ammer beautifully captures the essence of ideation, and why we need to be crazy and then reasonable - and how to switch between these two approaches. I love the illustrations, too!

How to have more ideas. This is how you stop staring at a blank paper and unleash your creative potential.

#2 Conversation Blindspots & How to Uncover Them

A really nice video by Verbal to Visual (Doug Neill): it contains visual notes of the book Thanks for the Feedback.

Visual notes of the book Thanks for the Feedback.

#3 Collection of dark patterns

I published a UX knowledge base about dark patterns some years ago. I listed out 12 different ones. On the Dark Patterns Tip Line platform you'll find more patterns and a lot of examples.

The Dark Patterns Tip Line is a platform people can use to submit deceptive designs they encounter in everyday digital products and services.

#4 My work with Spotify

Check out Rasmus Andersson's article about designing at Spotify in the early days. He talks about the advantages of sketching, too, and he included some of his sketches. "Sketching on good old paper with a graphite pencil beats all (early-stages) prototyping software I’ve tried. It’s easy to interact with and everyone can join in."

#5 Ballet dancers and shot putters

A great essay about our work as designers. "Sometimes, design is like ballet. It requires a tremendous amount of creativity and skill, and it rewards exploring new and innovative interpretations of well-known problems. [...] Sometimes, design is like a shot put. It still requires skill and effort, but very little creativity."

Why design isn’t always creative, and why that isn’t always a bad thing

#6 Design Systems: Useful Examples and Resources

How to create great design system? What should you include and how? This article contains awesome examples. "We’ll explore how to deal with naming conventions, how motion and accessibility fit into a design system, and dive deep into case studies, Figma kits, and more."

Everything design systems on accessibility, enterprise design systems, Figma kits, data visualization, motion design, multi-lingual design, naming, ROI calculator and UX writing.

#7 The importance of sketching as part of your UX process

This is a great piece by Maria Taneva. She asks the question: "Is sketching outdated?" Then she lists out many reasons why she thinks that sketching is still a very important part of her design process. "So no, sketching is not obsolete."

In my first two years at architecture school, we were not taught how to use CAD or any digital 3D modelling tool. The focus was solely on getting to grips with the design process, and mastering…

#8 Behind the scenes of a sketchnoting course

In the last issue I shared with you the great news that Eva-Lotta Lamm created a sketchnoting course. She revealed some behind the scenes details in her insightful article.

A little behind the scenes peek into my process for planning the final project of my Domestika online course on Sketchnoting.

#9 10x Designers community

It is a subscription-based design community by Fons Mans for designers who want to level up (main areas: product, brand and graphic design). I've already joined, and I really like it!

#10 Design Gifts

Feeling festive? Do you like advent calendars and nice gifts and coupons? Then check out this one by Framer and Fons.

Framer and Fons Mans have teamed up with creators and companies to bring you 24 days of Design Gifts & deals. From free icons and wallpapers to heavily discounted apps and resources. Sign up to be notified every day.

+1 Tim Urban - Creator Lab podcast

In a Creator Lab podcast episode, Tim Urban talks about his blog, Wait But Why, and he mentions that: "bad drawings, the badness of the drawings makes it seem authentic". You should check out his style, his illustrations:

• How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You) - this is a long article full of great illustrations

• 100 Blocks a Day - this is a shorter one that visualizes one main point

And one more thing: a fellow visual thinker has started a new blog in September, check it out: Eleanor Beer's blog

New UX Knowledge Piece Sketch

My newest sketch is about the Halo effect and why you should be aware of this bias.

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!

Btw. I made some progress with my 100-day long UX Visual Library Building Challenge ebook, here is a Figma screenshot of the pages.

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!