The secret that I wish someone would’ve told me when I was starting out.

Overview

This is by far THE most asked question that I get on a regular basis:

“Nick, how do I make money as a designer? Can I earn a living?”

The answer to that is yes, and whole hell of a lot more than that, but only if you understand how your profession works within the scope of the greater economy.

Today, I am going to spill the beans on my legit, no B.S. formula for how to make real, actual money as a designer.

The Formula

This is…

A simple rule of thumb that can make you a better, more resilient designer.

Overview

We now live in a time when running forward at full speed equates to standing still. Between all of the industry, market, socioeconomic changes that we have to adapt to on a day to day basis, it can feel challenging to keep up.

Today, I’m going to share with you a trick that I’ve developed over the years that can help you reach your design goals, and make you a better, more resilient designer.

A Word on Persistence

Persistence is a fantastic friend of those with a large enough dream…

What most designers skip and how it can make your product suffer

Overview

As designers, it is our literal job to ensure solid, high-quality usability. This doesn’t mean that our designs conform to any sort of paradigm or set of rules, rather it means that it was designed for the user with the goal of working well for the user.

But what works well for the user? Highly debatable, which is why there are so many schools of thought on the subject.

Today, we’re going over the different issues that you may face when designing for usability, usability theory, and wonderful…

I can almost guarantee you haven’t thought about this, but you really should.

Overview

Recently, I have seen a lot of designers charging into designing native-looking applications with impunity, and while they look really good, it’s a huge problem.

Today, we’re going over one of the main, but often overlooked reasons why.

Designing for Development

In all likelihood, you’re designing on a team, and doing UI/UX for a product that thousands if not millions of users are going to interact with.

Native applications are cool, but they are expensive and often require multiple code-bases, which make most teams turn to the creation of mobile…

Striking a balance between innovative design, cost, & technical execution.

Overview

I’ve been getting a lot of questions recently about sites with designs like this one and how designers can do cool stuff like it.

We all love designing cool stuff; we’re designers. That said, just because we designed something cool, doesn’t mean that it is technically feasible in code.

Let’s talk about it.

“Cool design” is expensive to produce

The web is built in the box model which is rendered and controlled in the browser by the DOM. Anytime you want to modify or manipulate that, it costs time, money, resources, and those three factors increase…

The single, biggest mistake that designers make about usability, and what you can do about it.

Overview

As designers, we are constantly bludgeoned to death with the term “usability,” so much so that I am afraid for many it has lost its true meaning.

Today, we’re going over the biggest mistake that designers make about usability, and what you can do about it.

Understanding Usability

So what exactly is usability?

Essentially, usability is a user’s ability to use the solution that you have designed for them in a way that delivers the desired results for that user.

Great. What’s there to misunderstand?

The…

This is, by far, the absolute fastest way to design a killer product from the ground up.

Overview

Whenever we’re designing a product, we need the process to be streamlined, efficient, and effective.

Today, I’m going to walk you through the exact steps that you need to go through in order to design a killer product in the fastest way possible.

Learn the secrets of merging design thinking with sales techniques that will have your users forking over real cash for your next app.

Overview

User conversions are the lifeblood of your business operations as a UI/UX designer.

You can design a fantastic app but if it nets no user engagement, or those users aren’t paying any money, you just donated a bunch of your time, effort, and resources to a project that you will never pay you back.

This is a huge issue and today we’re going over exactly what you can do to make sure that your app can consistently…