Matthew Magain
UX Mastery
Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Contact Matthew
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Past articles by Matthew:
Recommended Reading: Our Favourite UX Books
Here at UX Mastery, we love a good book. Sure, ebooks are great—especially when they incorporate all that whiz-bang interactivity. But there will always be a place in my home for real, paper, pick-me-up-and-flip-through-me physical books. No matter how many blogs, Twitter feeds, discussion forums or online courses come out, nothing beats an old-fashioned bound paper book for structured learning… → Read More
How A Complete Novice Learned User Testing In 10 Minutes
From: Matthew Magain To: Sarah Doyle Subject: Re: testing the app Hi Sarah Thanks for your message. It’s great that you guys have got the opportunity to do some usability testing of the app that DigitalAgencyCo are building. Obviously if I had a little more notice I could probably come in and give you guys a hand, but I can’t really juggle things at this late notice. The good news though is that… → Read More
How Much Code Should A UX Designer Write?
While I wouldn’t consider “writing code” to be a core skill for a UX designer (the topic does pop up every now and then, and usually results in much heated debate) there’s no denying the advantages that the ability to write even a small amount of code can bring to a designer. I’ve captured my thoughts in this videoscribe as an experiment. Let me know what you think! There’s really no reason not… → Read More
The Biggest Mistake New UX Designers Make
Like most UX designers, I made plenty of mistakes when I first started designing websites and apps. However, the single biggest mistake I made when I first started out as a designer, by far, was probably not what you think. It wasn’t that I chose the wrong typeface, or deleted a client’s customer database, although that was pretty bad (we managed to restore it). Agreeing to answer questions… → Read More
5 Alternatives To Slide Decks For Communicating Findings
You’ve done your user research, triangulated data from various sources, pondered on what it all means, and are eager to present your findings to stakeholders. So what do you do? Load up Powerpoint or Keynote and start creating slides filled with bullet points? Wrong. Don’t get me wrong—I love a good presentation. When a speaker knows his or her stuff, and tells a story confidently, with purpose,… → Read More
The Four Pillars of UX Mastery
I recently wrote about the biggest mistake new UX designers make, and in it reflected on some of the design faux pas I made prior to discovering a more objective, user-centered approach. Back then, when it first dawned on me that the process I was using to design websites wasn’t what many of the industry thought leaders I admired and respected would refer to as “best practice”, I sought out… → Read More
Should You Become A UX Generalist Or A UX Specialist?
User Experience (UX) is an umbrella term. But how should you position yourself within that umbrella? Do you consider yourself to be a generalist or a specialist? Where are you headed? In this post, I hope to help you answer that question for yourself. Let me begin with my own story: several years ago I had somewhat of a career crisis. I hadn’t yet taken the leap to freelance at this stage; I was… → Read More
10 Lessons 'The Blues Brothers' Can Teach Us About UX
Here at UX Mastery, we’re big fans of the 1980 musical comedy film, The Blues Brothers. As a teenager, I must have watched the cult classic hundreds of times, completely oblivious to the on-set drugs and excess that contributed to enormous budget overruns incurred by Joliet Jake (John Belushi) and Elwood Blues (Dan Aykroyd). As an adult, I also had the pleasure of attending a screening of the… → Read More
8 Ways To Become A More Empathic Designer
In a previous post I wrote that empathy was a core skill for becoming an effective user experience designer. Several people commented that the concept of empathy as being something you could learn (and therefore be taught) was new to them—surely this is a character trait that you either have, or you don’t? Not so. As with many of the social sciences, one’s ability to empathise is not absolute,… → Read More
A Day In The Life Of A UX Designer
What does a day in the life of a UX Designer actually look like? And what’s the best way to communicate this to someone interested in the field? We received a fantastic email from a 20 year-old student during the week that asked this very question. Here’s part of that email: > I started to read whatever I could get my hands on about UX, and I’ve bought a couple of books and have been reading… → Read More
Why UX Designers Need To Become Project Managers
We recently published our UX Techniques Bank, and have had some lovely feedback via Twitter and email. Our reason for creating the Techniques Bank was to communicate the breadth of what is available. However, we’re aware that it’s a pretty overwhelming list—no one project would ever utilise every single technique. In which case, which techniques should you use on your project, and in what order?… → Read More
Designing Tapworthy Apps: An Interview With Josh Clark
Josh Clark is a designer of mobile apps and websites. He took some time out to talk about what it takes to design a ‘tapworthy’ app. Why don’t you start by telling our readers a bit about yourself? Sure. I’m a designer who, for the last five years, has specialised in mobile design and user experience – as much as anything, not just slinging pixels, but how to think mobile; how does our thinking… → Read More
Bill DeRouchey: The Best Interaction Designers Ask "Why?"
In this interview we’re joined by Bill DeRouchey, who opens up about his career journey thus far, inspiration sources, and what we can expect from his talk, “The Power of ‘Why?'” Matt: You joined Simple as creative director a couple of years ago, and I know a lot of people are eagerly waiting to see what your “reinvented view of banking” looks like (aside: I love the Simple one-pager!). What can… → Read More
Sketchnoting 101: How To Create Awesome Visual Notes
A break down of the approach I take for creating awesome visual notes, and a list of tips for getting started with sketchnoting. → Read More
Art Maker: Designing Experiences For Kids
Amy Nelson and Meena Tharmarajah, part of the ABC design team behind the successful ‘Play School Art Maker’ app for the iPad, took some time to chat about the unique problems they faced in designing a user interface for pre-schoolers. Why don’t you start by telling us a little bit about yourself? Amy: I work for ABC Innovation. I’ve worked at the ABC for nearly 11 years – I started here as a… → Read More
The Future Is Wearable: An Interview With Amber Case
Amber Case is a user experience designer and a cyborg anthropologist. She took some time out to chat about what exactly that term means, as well as wearable computing, location-based services and entrepreneurship. Tell our readers a little bit about yourself. I come from a technical background. My grandpa worked on the fourth node of ARPAnet, which was the first internet, and he worked in the… → Read More
UX Mastery Podcast #2: It's A Jungle Out There
In this episode, Matt speaks to a reader who is in the process of transitioning to a career in User Experience. Christine, an HR Administrator from Toronto, is looking to change careers and become a UX Designer. What she may lack in experience, she makes up for with enthusiasm, communication skills, and a good understanding of theory. She has a portfolio, built up from time she has volunteered… → Read More
Leonardo Da Vinci Would Have Had An Amazing UX Career
Leonardo Da Vinci had a masterful grasp of both art and technology, and would have had an amazing UX career. But he also knew how to sell himself ... → Read More
Speed Up Your Workflow With A UX Template
Ever feel like you’re reinventing the wheel on each project that you tackle? Perhaps you need to make use of some UX templates. Whether that’s a set of skeleton documents you’ve refined yourself over the years, or templates that have been created and made available by others, starting with a template instead of starting from scratch can bring a huge speed boost to your workflow. We’ve scoured… → Read More
Review: The Doodle Revolution
When I showed my copy of Sunni Brown’s The Doodle Revolution to a fellow UX designer at the pub recently, her response was: “Don’t you already know that stuff?” The answer is: No. Sure, I can sketch, and draw—I even do a bit of freelance illustration. So some of the exercises at the start of the book designed to coax hesitant doodlers out of their self-imposed hiatus weren’t really for me.… → Read More