Christian Marc Schmidt

I don't know when or how it happened, but Config has become one of the major yearly conferences in our industry. Given how much Figma plays a role in the practice, it's common for design system teams to watch with anticipation/excitement/dread for what's coming. In our latest episode, Davy Fung and I discuss the reveals from Config and what that may mean for folks in the design systems practice moving forward. Listen here: https://lnkd.in/gRMBzfbJ #designsystems #figma #congfig #podcast

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Etsy was recently seen A/B testing AND eventually shipping a more visible search with the help of a higher contrast orange background button color (instead of a ghost-like icon only approach). Full screenshots: https://lnkd.in/gVJThW3W Now I don't work for Etsy (as much as I'd love to design some experiments for/with them) so we can't see the actual numbers beyond this feint probabilistic residue from the public domain. However, the amazing Andrey Andreev who runs experiments at Metro recently ran a very similar one and shared a solid result on GoodUI - with a positive impact to sales and searches. N = 896,009 SRM Check = Pass p-val on Increased Sales = 0.0139 (I know some people might like this to be even lower for a primary metric; but there is also reinforcing evidence on increased searches with an even lower p value at "ultra stat-sig" levels using Ron Kohavi's language; p < 0.00000001). I inverted the a/b test and categorized it under the Filled Vs Ghost Button pattern - further weakening the ghosts and strengthening the high contrast filled button styles on multiple metrics. https://lnkd.in/gmD8Exvc Thanks Andrey for a somewhat of an unintended replication, as I know your source of inspiration came from somewhere else on this one. :) Have you tested anything similar or different. If so, what did you discover? I'd be super curious to see more examples where increases to search have either ❌ failed or ✅ succeeded. Please share independent of outcome. ps. We also have a handful of similar "visible search" experiments where companies tested adding or hiding search: https://lnkd.in/gvWqzrK5 - further supporting this direction. [EDIT]: Note the additional confounders / variables in the Metro test - a stronger border, a change in background color of the search box as per Jakob Nielsen comment. They may be similar along the lines of the increased visibility theme - but possible additional variables nevertheless. #experimentation #ecommerce #replication #optimization #ui #ux

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With the rapid adoption curve of AI, users are expecting more ‘magic' from their digital tools and products. Great piece here about the relevancy and reframing of the value of design when building a non-deterministic digital experience: “Sophistication, in prompting, comes from deeply understanding the user — their attitudes and behaviours towards this experience — and integrating that knowledge into the prompt. This is even more important than with traditional software interactions because of the open-ended nature of conversational experiences. As noted by designer, Emily Campbell, “the more autonomy that users have to direct computers to their personal whim, the better they will expect computers to understand them and anticipate their needs.” Logan Kilpatrick, head of developer relations for OpenAI, boils it down to “context.” The model needs context to do its perform a specific task well. This makes prompting an “inherently human” task because it requires that we understand the nuances of what people are trying to achieve.”

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Patterns for implementing human-centric design thinking and UX to GenAI #GenAI #UX #AI

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🎈Pretty colors aren’t good enough. Color needs to do the hard work of balancing brand voice with utility and accessibility. Fortunately there's color tooling to help designers with the complexity of managing contrast across multiple colors, tints and shades. A valuable color tool should allow you to do a couple of things: → Seed your palette with brand colors → Provide sufficient tints and shades with documented accessibility contrast → Generate output that can be leveraged by design and engineering team members 🌈 Genome Color Tool by Kevin Muldoon The Genome Color web app allows you to create custom color scales from brand colors by leveraging recommended tints/shades from proven color systems. The thinking behind the tool is so smart it makes my head spin and the video tutorial provided makes it super easy to use. Writeup: https://lnkd.in/gjAmBJq6 Tool: https://lnkd.in/ggumsweN Figma plugin: https://lnkd.in/gr6B_Cpi 👨‍🎨 Leonardo by Nate Baldwin Leonardo is a web app that allows you to build out multiple color ramps for a uniform theme that share the same contrast ratios. It offers a number of slick visualizations, accessibility options and ways to export everything. There’s even a plugin that allows you to pull your palette directly into Figma. Writeup: https://lnkd.in/gufQhmFT Tool: https://leonardocolor.io/# Figma plugin: https://lnkd.in/g-FFqJuW 🎨 Supa Pallete by Angelo Libero Supa Pallette is an elegant Figma plugin with a paid option. I’ve tested a fair share of Figma plugins, and this one is packed with features and worth the license. Starting with a seed color, the tool allows you to customize WCAG or APCA accessibility contrast scale, export visual color tiles for preview and even generate Figma variables. Tool: https://lnkd.in/ge92ND2N Figma plugin: https://lnkd.in/gX7sq25U 💎 For as complicated as color can be, we’re lucky to have access to so many resources. Some takeaways our team at Exygy now uses to make color decisions: → Align the team on accessibility guidelines like WCAG or APCA → Meet with designers to find out what Figma tooling and color method, including HEX or HSL, are the most intuitive for them → To ensure adoption, talk with engineering to find out what a valuable output format looks like, whether that’s CSS or tokens I’ve posted about managing color before including more helpful resources: https://lnkd.in/g6E3zYjA #color #ui #design #designsystems #figma #accessibility #branding #color

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Join me on the latest episode of the #ProductBuildersPodcast featuring James Smet! Hear firsthand from a design system expert and learn how to tackle common hurdles in design system implementation. Whether you're an experienced pro or new to the field, you'll get valuable insights and actionable advice. 💪 Follow the link in the comments to listen to the full episode!

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The second part of my article on the value of explicit design rules is here. In it I dive head first into example in layout, position, ordering padding and margins with examples from various design tools. In the end of this part there's also a treasure trove of links to other insightful people writing on adjacent subjects. Hope you find it interesting and be swayed to try tools that allow for more expressive explicit design rules. https://lnkd.in/dmGpUHU6

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"Your design system isn't just a store of rules and constraints." ✨ Phillip Maggs, Superside's Director of New Horizons, spoke about how to build AI design systems at scale during Figma's #Config2024. Check the full talk: https://lnkd.in/dduYtTts

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Will AI Diminish Our Capacity for Critical Thinking? Google's new "AI Overview" feature, which compiles search results using AI, has been dishing out some inaccurate—and even dangerous—advice. For instance, suggesting mixing glue into cheese to prevent it from sliding off pizza, or using mustard gas to sanitize a washing machine! Extreme examples like these make people pause, but other incorrect results or AI hallucinations may not be given a second thought. In his book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, Nicholas Carr argues that the internet’s constant stream of information and demand for multitasking encourages a superficial approach to information processing, leading to scattered thinking and diminishing our capacity for deep thought and contemplation. Critical thinking involves intentionally evaluating information, ideas, or situations from different perspectives to understand and decide how to act on them. Design involves people—their inputs, opinions, and feedback—and critical thinking plays a crucial role in the entire design process. Designers are always asking questions, seeking evidence, and striving to understand deeply. Faced with a design opportunity or “problem,” they don’t dive into a solution without first understanding the real problem, which may lie layers below the surface. How can you think critically? - Apply designerly curiosity: Ask "why," "how," and "what if" questions to delve deeper into ideas, arguments, and situations. - Analyze information: Break it down into smaller parts, identify key points, evidence, and assumptions. Evaluate the credibility and reliability of sources. - Consider multiple perspectives: Train yourself to view issues from different viewpoints to gain a more comprehensive understanding, balance your view of a topic, and recognize potential biases. Developing critical thinking is an ongoing process that takes time and practice. Start by incorporating these techniques into your daily life. Gradually, you'll find yourself becoming more adept at analyzing information, making informed decisions, and engaging with complex ideas. Think Critically! Stay ahead by honing essential #designerly skills, behaviors, and habits: - Follow me here on LinkedIn for regular insights and tips on mastering these skills. - Subscribe to my #BeingDesignerly newsletter for exclusive content, practical advice, and early access to updates about my upcoming book on designerly skills. Elevate your design career and stay competitive. Don’t miss out—follow and subscribe today! Link in comments. #UX #Design #CriticalThinking

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It’s Thursday! Let’s talk about DESIGN DISCOVERY and how to make it PRACTICAL. Discovery is an essential part of the design process. In discovery, designers build a shared understanding of the problem and the design direction, establishing a foundation for all future design decisions. What does that foundation look like? In PRACTICAL DESIGN DISCOVERY, I describe three kinds of things to put into this foundation: → Principles: Enablers that help you make decisions → Concepts: Ideas that establish a big picture or north star → Models: Representations of the user experience When you draw a conclusion from user research, that’s a principle. When you say “our product is like a concierge for kids activities,” that’s a concept. And when you sketch out a flow chart or wireframe an important screen, that’s a model. Each of these contributes to the foundation that informs further design decisions. You’re not just creating these for yourself. The other people on your team – product managers and business stakeholders and developers – need to contribute to this foundation. These things – principles, concepts, and models – are the way you draw others into the discovery process. Sometimes managers tell designers to cut principles and concepts out of their process. I get it: Models are accessible because they are tangible representations of the final product. Even a flow chart is easier to react to than an unmoored design principle or a big idea. In discovery, however, you can’t model every aspect of a product. The point of discovery is to set the direction. Models provide enough of a view into the final product to get buy-in on that direction. But they’re not the whole picture. Principles provide guidelines for making decisions that the models do not cover. They establish constraints on the design process. Concepts align everyone around the product’s purpose or essence. They paint a picture of what the world looks like with the product in it. Both are helpful for decision-making. You don’t need to break the bank creating principles or concepts, or even models. Use a text file to capture statements as they jump out during the design process, like “never show a data visualization without context or explanation [a principle]” or “this is a mash-up between a to-do list and a calendar [a concept]”. Use models to illustrate principles and concepts. When folks provide feedback on the models, ask them about the concepts and the principles. “You said you were worried about the fields on this screen, but it aligns with our principle of ‘only ask for information when needed.’ Are there circumstances when the principle doesn’t apply?” Every part of the foundation – principles, concepts, and models – is a hook for a conversation with the entire team about the direction of your product. Looking for more ways to refine your discovery practice? Grab a copy of PRACTICAL DESIGN DISCOVERY! https://lnkd.in/dtar-e2

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Really annoyed at Figma's price gouging here. There is no reason other than greed: https://lnkd.in/gfdrEiWH Oh, and I emailed them about it and this line from their reply was particularly poignant: "Additionally the minimum for enterprise is a $5k invoice minimum. 6 enterprise seats or made up with other products." To put that in context... our monthly Adobe bill (for 8 CC, 7 PS, 6 Acrobat licenses) is ~NZ$2k... Amazing how quickly enshittification sets in... #Figma #Design #SoftwareLicensing

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As a design leader, I've always been driven by a company's vision and mission. It's deeply meaningful to me, and I've found joy in igniting that same passion in others by sharing our North Star. Over the years, I've come to realise that nothing is more fundamental than the essence of a brand itself. Inspiring others stems from a shared understanding of who we are and why we do what we do throughout the entire organisation. But how do we achieve this alignment? Sometimes, big changes don't require massive efforts. Investing just three hours in the right discussion with the right people can lead to transformative outcomes. The Brand Sprint: a concise three-hour brainstorming session aimed at making tangible what "our brand" truly represents. Surprisingly, there's a lack of accessible templates for this process. So, I created one myself. In my latest video, I walk you through it and share some valuable insights. Feel free to utilise it and share your feedback.

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Had to share this thoughtful article about the conflicting feelings we have as designers with new AI tools.... made me consider the threat of too much standardization over innovation, or letting your own creative instincts atrophy. Check it out and lmk your thoughts

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Products like Recraft are like the Perplexity for creating images with #GenAI. They are leaning into the benefits of going beyond a conversational prompt-based interface ONLY and integrating traditional, familiar GUI-based workflows with prompts to provide outcomes that creative people seek. In this example, they've notably improved the experience of creating multiple #images in a consistent style using #AI. In addition, they seem to be among the few (only one?) offering SVG export, making them a great option for #illustration. https://lnkd.in/eiGPqbKU

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Hello fellow designers and creatives. I’ve decided to jump back into writing. Find me on Substack where my musings will focus on industrial design, design, strategy, sustainability, and systems thinking. Thanks for the sub. :) https://lnkd.in/e4Wpfbrp #industrialdesign #designstrategy #systemsthinking #sustainability

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Revolutionizing Service Design with AI: Claude.ai's Artifact Capabilities Lucas Manhaes and I recently had a game-changing experience with Claude.ai 3.5 Sonnet, Anthropic's advanced language model, that promises to reshape service design methodologies. We've been developing a novel approach to starting service design projects called "Move 78," comprising a three-part process: 1. Unpacking AI 2. Integrating Human Intelligence 3. Synthesizing HI+AI In the first part, we prompt AI to generate a service concept based on a rough service idea, identifying potential stakeholders, context, objectives, problems, and artifacts. For our experiment, we proposed an "HCAI platform enabling asynchronous access to real-time expert advice." Claude generated "ExpertConnect," an AI-augmented platform for asynchronous expert consultations. What impressed us most was Claude's ability to create "artifacts" - complex, self-contained content that vividly illustrates ideas. Within minutes, Claude produced for ExpertConnect: 1. A platform flow diagram (Mermaid format) 2. A customer journey map 3. A service blueprint Though basic, these weren't mere text descriptions but fully formed, usable assets. For a glimpse into these artifacts, please check out the attached PDF. Key differentiators: • Contextual Artifacts: Claude grasped the ExpertConnect concept, producing relevant ideation materials. • Multi-format Outputs: Claude adeptly created various content types, from diagrams to SVG. • Iterative Capability: Each artifact is built upon previous discussions, demonstrating impressive context retention. The implications for creative ideation are profound, potentially reducing weeks of initial design work to hours of AI collaboration. Integrating Human Intelligence As AI becomes increasingly integrated into service design, it's crucial for designers to excel at contextually integrating human intelligence with AI. Without this human element, we risk homogenized outcomes across companies, all predicting the same "most likely" scenario. The future of design isn't about AI supplanting human creativity. Rather, it's about designers leveraging AI as a powerful tool while providing unique, contextual insights that only humans can offer. This synergy of human and artificial intelligence is the crucible of true innovation. Have you experimented with AI-generated artifacts? How do you envision the evolution of designers' roles in this AI-augmented landscape? To learn more and engage in hands-on experience, join our Move 78 Workshop on Friday, June 28. Register here: https://lnkd.in/ecu9yiz9 #AI #ServiceDesign #Innovation #ArtificialIntelligence #ProductDevelopment #ClaudeAI #HumanAICollaboration #GenAIWorkshop #AlphaGo #ISSIP #DesignThinking #Move78 #Move78Workshop

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How do you use data in design? Here’s an interesting perspective: data can be a source of power. That's from Wendy Owen, who leads design for Facebook at Meta. Wendy describes using data (of all kinds) as a source of power to build her intuition and create better conversations across the team. I like the different ways she talks about data and the different sources she considers (observational, behavioral, etc). The variety reminds me of Tommy Geoco's “Shapes of Work” concept. Full interview in the comments. #design

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Someone has to say it! Tobias saying it makes it even more legit. Meet and work with a lot of young folks who are looking for mentors at workplace thinking they would be hand held at every step. While guides are there, one needs to walk the path and grind towards a path set by the mentor. Things don’t happen on their own. Blaming is another aspect of design folks where stakeholders are held responsible for what’s happening around them without introspecting why is it happening and what one can do to change that behaviour around by using design frameworks and improving the craft on a daily basis. So much of entitlement will never get us anywhere. #designlife

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