Product Design Articles

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SEP Wins TechPoint’s 2024 Innovation Service Partner of the Year Mira Award

SEP Recognized as Indiana’s Top Innovation Service Partner, Winning TechPoint’s Prestigious Mira Award Westfield, Indiana - SEP has been named the Innovation Service Partner of the Year by TechPoint at the 25th annual Mira Awards. The Mira Awards, Indiana’s largest…
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Why We Critique: How to Make Peace with Your Fear of Design Critique

Designers, no matter their practice, have gone through some form of design critique in the past. Someone had to critically point out how the work needed to improve during the educational years. University programs are specifically structured with formal critiques in their curriculum; these help students get critical feedback to expand their thinking and learn […]
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Types of Design Research: 8 Ways to Get to Know Your Users

Research is a critical step in the product development process. It ensures we’re solving the right problems for users and finding the right, viable product opportunity for a business. Understanding the humans who will use the product and the business’s investing needs is critical to a successful product outcome. And it will come as no surprise […]
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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 […]
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Optimizing Discoverability in 5 Simple Steps: Unmatched IA in UX Design

In user experience (UX) design, taxonomy and ontology are two important but often overlooked tools. Taxonomies organize information into groups. Meanwhile, ontologies focus on relationships and concepts within a specific area. By understanding these concepts, we can enhance a product’s information architecture. First, let’s start by discussing the basics of taxonomy and ontology. Then, once we […]
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Chaos or Clarity? Improve Your Product Design With Systems Thinking

Embarking on the Adventure of Systems Thinking Hey there, product professionals! Ever feel like you’re embarking on an epic adventure when crafting products? That’s because, in a way, you are! Product design is like navigating through a galaxy of intricate relationships. Each decision made sends ripples through this cosmic web. This shapes our creations in […]
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UX Writing Best Practices: 8 Principles to Improve Your Product Design

User experience (UX) writing is an often overlooked, but extremely important aspect of any digital product or service. It involves the deliberate use of words and language to guide users through a User Interface (UI), helping them achieve their goals while also providing them with a frictionless and even an enjoyable experience. No matter what […]
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Don’t Underestimate the Power of Good UX Writing in Product Design

As a Senior User Experience (UX) Designer, I’m often biased toward products that look good and function seamlessly. But the words that appear within those beautiful and functional designs are just as important in helping users navigate and interact with a product. This important component of my job is known as UX writing. Full disclosure: […]
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How Interaction Design Changes Our World, One Interaction at a Time

I walk into the kitchen for coffee, and my Google Home says, “Good morning!” My schedule for the day pops up on the screen. The assistant tells me how long it will take to get to work now that I have started driving my son to school. In the car, the map and arrival estimates […]
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Planning Features with Opportunity Solution Trees

New software projects often come with a long list of potential features. How do you evaluate these ideas before investing costly resources into development? At SEP, we’ve been mapping potential features with opportunity solution trees. They are a way to visualize the relationships between ideas and their desired outcomes, and to manage the gaps in […]
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