When Design Is Used For Evil

March 22, 2018 by Chevas Balloun  ·  User-Experience  ·     ·  Blog Post

I’ve never fallen for a phishing scam. When they first started popping up somewhere in the early 2000s, I nearly gave all my personal information to a website made to look like Paypal. Thankfully I realized something felt phishy about it and I notice the URL was way off. I dodged a bullet and I’ve … Continue reading When Design Is Used For Evil

Skipping Sketch and other design tools: Prototyping two simple screens in *code* in just over 13 minutes [Video]

January 24, 2018 by Chevas Balloun  ·  Design Process  ·  Tools  ·     ·  Blog Post

Sketch is blowing up right now and companies expect UI/UX people to know it—it comes up a lot. Besides the fact that it’s Mac OS only, I think it’s a great tool for designers to create rich looking designs for their apps. However, one of the problems with its growing ubiquity is that everyone is … Continue reading Skipping Sketch and other design tools: Prototyping two simple screens in *code* in just over 13 minutes [Video]

An Ongoing Blight in TV User-Experience—Lies That Needs To Stop

December 24, 2017 by Chevas Balloun  ·  User-Experience  ·     ·  Blog Post

Here is the promise: Your 4K TV can display: a 4k picture (3840×2160 aka “UHD” or 4096×2160 aka “4k cinema”) in full chroma (4:4:4 no subsampling) at 60hz refresh rate. Does this technical mumbo-jumbo even matter? Why yes, yes it does if you want to use your TV as a computer monitor. First, there are … Continue reading An Ongoing Blight in TV User-Experience—Lies That Needs To Stop

The Number 1 Thing That Hinders A Glorious User Experience When Browsing Video Games

December 1, 2017 by Chevas Balloun  ·  Critiques  ·     ·  Blog Post

This is also a lesson that shows the difference between user-interface and user-experience. I will focus on just PC games (just because), but it applies to every system. There’s a unique excitement to be experienced when receiving an email notification from Steam that’s something along the lines of “22 items from your Steam Wishlist are … Continue reading The Number 1 Thing That Hinders A Glorious User Experience When Browsing Video Games

A Sure Sign Your WordPress Website Was Built…Poorly

November 15, 2017 by Chevas Balloun  ·  Critiques  ·     ·  Blog Post

Plugins slow down the site performance. There are some amazing plugins that are almost a necessity, but most functionality can be implemented with code instead. Plugins are helpful when the non-techie person needs their website to do just one or two extra things. This is where plugins shine and installing a handful of plugins will … Continue reading A Sure Sign Your WordPress Website Was Built…Poorly

Made with Inkscape and Gimp

6 Reasons Not To Hire A Photoshop Warrior

October 25, 2017 by Chevas Balloun  ·  Design Process  ·     ·  Blog Post

Photoshop Warrior: A web designer that primarily uses Photoshop to design websites and/or web apps. Despite the fact that we use open source design software, which I discussed in our previous post, Photoshop is still a powerful and useful piece of software. This post is not a knock against Photoshop, but how it’s used for … Continue reading 6 Reasons Not To Hire A Photoshop Warrior

How We Became Users of Open Source Design Tools: 4 Things

October 16, 2017 by Chevas Balloun  ·  Tools  ·     ·  Blog Post

…and we thrive with them. For the past 10+ years I personally have been using open source design tools, Gimp and Inkscape, to create visual assets. I recently stumbled upon this question on the Stackexchange network: “Professionals: Would you choose GIMP over Photoshop and/or Inkscape over Illustrator?” and the usual answer is “no”. I have … Continue reading How We Became Users of Open Source Design Tools: 4 Things

I May Have Trolled a Competitor a Little Too Hard Or a Spammer A Little Too Softly

September 28, 2017 by Chevas Balloun  ·  Fun  ·     ·  Blog Post

This is a bit of a lesson on how not to do email marketing or maybe just troll a spammer. This morning I get the following email: I understand the value of email marketing and I plan to do some, but right away the first sign that something is off is that there is an … Continue reading I May Have Trolled a Competitor a Little Too Hard Or a Spammer A Little Too Softly