Designing Products

The mindset of designing products to be useful, intuitive, and elegant is usually very misunderstood. Designers don’t just make things pretty, they understand what the user wants, prioritize those wants, and design products to exceed those expectations.

Below is a handpicked list of the best articles on designing products, curated by StartupDigest, to help give you insight into the designer mindset.

Reduce Noise to Encourage Flow
By Andrew Maier

Living in an age of information overload, how can we shape user experience to help users get things done in a more focused, efficient way?

In Defense of Hard
By P.J. Onori

Dumbing down products can create negative implications for users. Determining the proper amount of challenge for users is key to designing good user experience.

Reasons Users Don’t Fill Out Sign Up Forms
By Anthony

Here are some ways to reinforce trust and comfort while users sign up for your product or service.

Information as if Understanding Mattered
By Jill Rosenfeld

Good design is an intricate process and destination, that, like a good teacher, should engage, involve, and help you make connections, relating what you know to what you don’t.

Why Your Qualified Leads Refuse to Sign Up: The UX of Plans and Pricing
By KissMetrics

How do you drive meaningful action? It’s important to emphasize the key elements and optimize your screen real estate.

Breakdown of DollarShaveClub’s Signup UX
By Jason Shah

A fantastic breakdown of a signup process that got Jason to convert to a paying user on visit number one.

Early Quora Design Notes
By Marie Cox

Here is a breakdown of the key decisions Marie made while designing the first version of Quora.

UX: Information software design is graphic design
By Brett Victor

Looks matter – good graphic design can compel viewers to process information and use software differently.

Click Hacking for Fun and Profit
By Jesse Farmer

Here are a few tips on getting visitors to click and engage, not just view and go away.

A Design Primer for Engineers
By Rands in Repose

Designers and engineers need to work very closely together on your team.