Recent Posts

Case Studies / Process and Methods

How to Use Gamification in Mobile Apps: A Case Study

Posted by

Gamification, or the addition of game-like elements to anything that isn’t a game, pops up all over the design world. In my last post for Boxes and Arrows, I focused specifically on gamification in mobile app onboarding. The moment when users first open your app is critical to the app’s success, and you can use gamification as a tool to get a new user through the learning curve. But gamification doesn’t just fit with onboarding. It’s possible to apply gamification

Continue reading
Foundational Thinking / Learning From Others

It’s a Bird, It’s A Plane, It’s a User Champion

Posted by

Like a superhero created when the contents of two beakers accidentally combine, a powerful hybrid has emerged in the software development world: the user champion. In this origin story, the beakers would be labeled “agile” and “user experience (UX)” because the user champion borrows some of the best ideas from both disciplines. From agile, it takes the idea of the product owner (or in this case, product champion). From UX, it takes a conviction in the value of user feedback.

Continue reading
Process and Methods

How to Use Gamification in Mobile App Onboarding

Posted by

Playing games is a human impulse. People get a kick out of competing, collecting things, and finishing tasks. You can apply game design elements to anything, which is called gamification. Mobile app onboarding is a useful place for a touch of competition or goal-setting. Whether as small as a progress bar or as major as a tutorial for a mobile game, these elements help users finish onboarding and come back to the app again. As a content developer at Clutch,

Continue reading
Discovery, Research, and Testing / Interactivity

How Do You Gauge the Success of a VR Experience?

Posted by

Stepping into an artificial world is an exceptional experience, but just how do you gauge the success of a virtual reality (VR) experience? Well, there are many different methods to gauge success, and each method gives different results. VR is used in a variety of industries—primarily in gaming—but it has been used for informative 360-degree videos and tours of buildings. Despite the different purposes, the success of these experiences can be gauged using the same methods. Within this article, we

Continue reading
Findability / Search and Metadata

Keep the Kitchen Cabinets from Overflowing

Posted by

Don’t laugh. I’m sure you’ve done this before. At the office, there’s a refrigerator cleanup every two weeks. At least I think it happens every two weeks. The office administrator sends out an email or posts a note on the fridge, warning you that things will be dumped if they’re not labeled. You’ve seen these long-forgotten food containers of who-knows-when science experiments pushed up against the back of the fridge. Same with those things that start growing in your pantry….

Continue reading