Laura Buckles

UX Designer

Recent Articles

team high fiving and celebrating over a laptop

Design Configuration Management: The Awesome Best Practice You Didn’t Know You Needed

We’ve had a design practice at SEP for over a decade but didn’t have an official Design Configuration Management (DCM) process until recently. For most of that time, we’ve been a pretty small group of designers who typically had their hands full doing good work for our clients. Historically, designers on a project would hit […]
Smartphone showing the dictionary definition of design

How to Talk About Design Like a Designer

Design is everywhere in our lives, whether you notice it or not. We experience it both in the digital world through software, and also in the physical world through things as simple as door handles. Most of the time, these designs and experiences go unnoticed. However, the most memorable experiences are often the bad ones. […]

The Building Blocks of Design Hierarchy

Creating beautiful, well-laid-out screens may seem like design magic, but you don’t have to be a designer to know how to structure your content well. With just a few key fundamentals of hierarchy, you can drastically improve both the visual appeal and usability of your designs. What is hierarchy and why is it important? According […]

Professional Growth and Development Meets the Butterfly Effect

The butterfly effect is the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the world can cause a typhoon on the other. My story is not quite that dramatic, but you can never be sure what impact your small actions can have. This story starts as one of personal and professional growth […]
consultation working meeting close up of laptops and hands drawing on paper

Software Design Accessibility Audits 101: What You Need to Know

Accessibility in software design is an important topic that often gets overlooked or deprioritized. The good news is, addressing accessibility does not need to be a giant undertaking. In this post, I’ll give an overview of accessibility laws and how you can conduct your own software accessibility audit. This won’t make you an expert on […]

Dear New Designer

Starting a new career is hard. You walk into a new company, surrounded by new people, and you have so many new things to learn. It can be overwhelming and it is very easy to slip into the imposter syndrome mindset. But, over time, I promise it gets better. Looking back on my journey, I […]