Design your way

Friday, May 30, 2014

Every so often, a designer posts a personal redesign of a popular site or product. These are generally called unsolicited designs because they are done on the designer’s own volition and outside of a professional contract or arrangement.


There are several reasons why designers redesign popular web sites. Mainly because some of the very popular and familiar sites have interfaces and layouts which everyone can remember easily. All such sites are constantly being redesigned or improved and this naturally represents a challenge to designers.


However, the designers of unsolicited designs are not working to the same conditions as the official designers are. They cannot possibly know the project parameters, its goals and constraints, which the site’s owners gave to the contracted designers.


Wikipedia Unsolicited Redesign


The designers posting unsolicited designs have to consider the site’s users and their experience in using the site, but they can’t do that due to the fact that they don’t have insights of the site usage.



It is very unfair to post an unsolicited design, which took one week, of a huge and popular site such as Facebook, for example, and compare it with work that has taken the contracted designers and developers years.


Design is about results, not just visuals


When designers create a web site, they do so to meet the customer’s objectives. The web site has to do a job and not just look pretty. Usually the customer requires the designer to concentrate on increasing the web site’s conversion rates.


Skype Unsolicited Redesign


Designers of unsolicited redesigns often build their redesigns with only the simplest understanding of the commercial problem. The designer cannot know the project’s restraints and requirements, the business negotiations, legislative requirements etc. At the very best, an unsolicited re-designer can only build his or her design using best practice guidelines and visual design aesthetics.


Yet, many unsolicited redesigns show that a great deal of thought has been put into feature placement. However, one ignored factor is that the design is untested by users and until end users have thoroughly tested a particular design and their test results and experiences have been properly recorded, no one can judge whether it works in the real world.


Hipchat Unsolicited Redesign


Unsolicited redesigns of existing popular web sites make fun projects for designers, but design in real life circumstances is more than a surface veneer. Design has many levels, and how a site looks is merely one small consideration.


For example, how users actually interact with or use the site or application is a vitally important part of any site redesign. Understanding how design affects usability requires that thorough real life testing be part of the redesign process.


Conclusion


Designers tempted to post redesigns should think about the hard work that the contracted designers of the real life site did. They should think about the endless user experience studies and all the factors involved in designing a large scale web site.


If they are still minded to do such a redesign, they should do so as a skills test experiment or a new approach rather than because they believe their design to be better than the original. Popular sites produce millions and they do so because they have great usability and not necessarily great design.


Although looking at a few unsolicited redesigns with a totally different look to the original site can inspire designers, however they should always remember that a more creative design is not necessarily a better design.


Showcase


Twitter

Twitter Unsolicited Redesign


IMDB

IMDB Unsolicited Redesign


Mention

Mention Unsolicited Redesign


Steam Website

Steam Website Unsolicited Redesign


Apple OSX Montauk

Apple OSX Montauk Unsolicited Redesign


GQ

GQ Unsolicited Redesign


Imgur

Imgur Unsolicited Redesign








Source: http://ift.tt/1mPfbao

Line25 Sites of the Week for May 30th 2014

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Line25 Sites of the Week is a weekly roundup of the most outstanding website designs that I stumble across during my every day browsing. In this week’s collection, we have designs from PRPL, Royal Navy, Studio Indigo, Creative Knight and Agra Culture Kitchen & Press.



PRPL


PRPL


View the website


Royal Navy


Royal Navy


View the website


Studio Indigo


Studio Indigo


View the website


Creative Knight


Creative Knight


View the website


Agra Culture Kitchen & Press


Agra Culture Kitchen and Press


View the website


The post Line25 Sites of the Week for May 30th 2014 appeared first on Line25.







Source: http://ift.tt/1oB3jMn

Design your way

As the digital world becomes more tangible in the collective imagination, designers are switching from skeuomorphic designs to flat user interface designs for apps.


Traditionally, mobile design has been vaguely suggestive of textures and 3D and physical elements. As we are removed further from those physical objects that inspired our apps, designers are given permission to get away from gradients and textures as mobile flat UI designs become the standard.


Designers now have the freedom to design an app by carefully choosing typography, muted color palettes and single colored backgrounds for their functions in the overall design can lead to some amazingly useful flat app UI design.


This works, too, as evidenced by the fact that flat mobile UI has become a standard among professional designers in the industry. They snuck in there, behind all the skeuomorphic apps iOS users still love, because functionality is what is beautiful about an app. They nail functionality in flat user interfaces.


Clean, simple user interfaces are now desirable. We have a number of the best examples of flat design UI to share with you.


Spendee is Out


Spendee is Out


Taasky


Taasky


BIKE TRACKER


BIKE TRACKER


Places | Travel Concept


Places | Travel Concept


Your events


Your events


Flight Booking App


Flight Booking App


App Screens


App Screens


Fancy Mobile App UI KIT


Fancy Mobile App UI KIT


List View


List View


Dog App Updates


Dog App Updates


GO TRAVEL – Travel app concept


GO TRAVEL - Travel app concept


Screen – Concept App Design


Screen - Concept App Design


TimelineAppUI


TimelineAppUI


My drinks


My drinks


Essen Event View


Essen Event View


Eko driving


Eko driving


Mrg App


Mrg App


Upcoming events


Upcoming events


Fitness Tracker – Exercise


Fitness Tracker - Exercise


Face the weather


Face the weather


Loblaw’s Smart App


Loblaw's Smart App








Source: http://ift.tt/1oN8XZe
 

The Cash Box Blueprint

Most Reading