UX Companion

We’re proud to release a new edition of UX Companion built by Cyber-Duck, the award-winning agency that delivers user-centred design and technology. Now, it’s built on the powerful Flutter framework; we’ve squashed some bugs on the initial test release. Enjoy reading!

Performance improvements.
Bug fixes.

Bug fixes and GDPR Compliancy.

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and Santa’s in trouble. He’s not GDPR compliant – with no data protection or consent to deliver presents! If only he’d learned these concepts:

* Privacy by Design – This encourages developers, designers and system engineers to consider the privacy of personal data throughout the design process.
* Iterative Design – In a bid to improve quality and functionality, this approach involves a cyclic process of prototyping, testing and refining a product.

Enjoy! Check out our Christmas project at howgdprstolechristmas.com.
We’d love to hear your feedback. Tweet us @uxcompanion and @cyberduck_uk!

Your UX Companions,
cyber-duck.co.uk

This October, we’ve been hunting high and low for inspiration. So, we have two discovery-themed articles for you:

Searchability - how easily users can find information in unknown spaces, internally or externally
Findability - how quickly users can reach a specific piece of information in a known location

Enjoy! We’d love to hear your feedback. Tweet us @uxcompanion and @cyberduck_uk!

Your UX Companions,
cyber-duck.co.uk

We’re shutting down the BBQs, getting out of the sun and… anyone else have that back-to-school feeling?

Push your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) over the edge! This month, you have two new articles to peruse:

- ‘Good Enough’ Principle – states that first design iterations shouldn’t strive for perfection, as customers will use products that are ‘good enough’.
- ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid’ (KISS) Principle – outlines that simplicity should be a core aspect of any design, with complexity kept to a minimum.

We've also added badges for new articles and squashed some bugs along the way.

Enjoy! We’d love to hear your feedback. Tweet us @uxcompanion and @cyberduck_uk!

Your UX Companions
cyber-duck.co.uk

What’s hotter than the heatwave? Our design refresh! Download to explore our new glossary style, complete with crisp articles and resources.

But we’re not finished there. This month, you have two new articles to peruse:

1. Data-driven design – creating a design where every decision is driven by empirical findings on user behaviours and goals.
2. A/B Testing – comparing two targeted variations of a single website, app, advert or campaign to analyse which one performs the best.

Enjoy! We’d love to hear your feedback. Tweet us @uxcompanion and @cyberduck_uk!

Your UX Companions,
cyber-duck.co.uk

What’s hotter than the heatwave? Our design refresh! Download to explore our new glossary style, complete with crisp articles and resources.

But we’re not finished there. This month, you have two new articles to peruse:

1. Data-driven design – creating a design where every decision is driven by empirical findings on user behaviours and goals.
2. A/B Testing – comparing two targeted variations of a single website, app, advert or campaign to analyse which one performs the best.

Enjoy! We’d love to hear your feedback. Tweet us @uxcompanion and @cyberduck_uk!

Your UX Companions,
cyber-duck.co.uk

We're a little behind on updates but fear not! We're working on some exciting things that will be coming your way very soon. On to this months update! We have to very unique articles we're sure you'll enjoy.

Learnability – refers to the ease with which the use of a product can be picked up and understood by users.

Kairos – the opportune moment when users are most susceptible to relevant, persuasive messages.

Enjoy! Follow @uxcompanion on Twitter for more updates, news and teasers.

Your UX Companions, Cyber-Duck https://www.cyber-duck.co.uk

This month we have two very interesting topics for you!

Folksonomy – a system of user-defined content classification, where content is 'tagged' with phrases they feel reflect the subject.

Satisficing – in decision-making, this term indicates when the option that is ‘good enough’ is chosen over a better path, which requires more time or effort to reach.

Enjoy! Follow @uxcompanion on Twitter for more updates, news and teasers.

Your UX Companions
cyber-duck.co.uk

It's the month of spooky happenings and pumpkin spice lattes. To celebrate we've made the app orange! Ok, so the app has always been this colour and... never mind.

Here's your new reading material for October:

Law of Triviality – this principle refers to situations where trivial issues are given too much weight over more substantial ones.

Social Proof – a persuasive phenomenon where a person's decision is based upon the the observations of a group.

Enjoy! Follow @uxcompanion on Twitter for more updates, news, teasers and less jokes.

Your UX Companions,
Cyber-Duck
https://www.cyber-duck.co.uk

Are you sitting comfortably? This month we're going to tell you a story. Two stories in fact!

We bury our heads into:

1. User Stories – describing a feature from the end user's perspective, in simple language.

2. Job Stories – defining design problems based on user motivation and situation can facilitate team discussion about finding the best solution

Enjoy! Follow @uxcompanion on Twitter for more updates, news and teasers.

Your UX Companions,

Cyber-Duck
https://www.cyber-duck.co.uk

Checks, stripes and paisley! All are wonderful patterns - but not the ones we’re looking at this month.

Your latest reading material includes:

1. Design Pattern – a common solution to an often recurring design problem.

2. Anti-pattern – common response to a repeated issue, which can be ineffective.

Enjoy! Follow @uxcompanion on Twitter for more updates, news and teasers.

Your UX Companions,

Cyber-Duck
https://www.cyber-duck.co.uk

This month's update includes Pokestops, Lure Modules and Lucky Eggs! Just kidding... but our team is pretty hooked on catching Pokemon.

We have a mixed bag of new articles for you this month:

1. User Journey – an outline of the overall scenario and subsequent steps a user will take while interacting with a product or service.

2. Pattern Library – a collection of user interface (UI) design patterns.

Enjoy! Follow @uxcompanion on Twitter for more updates, news and teasers.

Your UX Companions,

Cyber-Duck
https://www.cyber-duck.co.uk

This month we're putting the user into user experience!

Two new articles look at the techniques we can use to understand their decisions and behaviour:

1. Laddering – a one-to-one interview technique that uncover the underlying reasons behind user actions.

2. Peak-end Rule – a psychological heuristic that gauges a users' judgement of experiences, through evaluating feelings at their peak intensity and final moments.

Follow @uxcompanion on Twitter for more updates, news and teasers!

Your UX Companions,
Cyber-Duck
cyber-duck.co.uk

Get out your couch, lie down and relax. We’re taking a trip into psychology with this month's theme.

Two new articles look at the positive and negative ways we can be influenced by:

1. Persuasive Design – creating interactions to influence users’ behaviour and decision-making process.

2. Dark Patterns – designing interfaces to trick users into taking actions they may not choose otherwise.

We've improved the application and fixed some bugs along the way.

Follow @uxcompanion on Twitter for more updates, news and teasers!

Your UX Companions,
Cyber-Duck
www.cyber-duck.co.uk

April – the month of practical jokes and sporadic rain. We’re not the greatest fan of either, but excited to share our first themed release!

Typography is the star of the show. We have two new articles for you:
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1. Leading – the space between each line of text.
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2. Modular Scale – a series of numbers used to create consistency and rhythm.

We're now on Twitter! Follow @uxcompanion for updates, news and teasers.

Your UX Companions,
cyber-duck.co.uk

We’re three months in already. This year is ‘Marching’ on quicker than ever… but less terrible puns, more updates!
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This time, our line-up includes:
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New article: Cognitive Bias, the inherent thinking errors that people make while processing information.
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New resources: Chunking, Lean UX, Multivariate Testing, Tunneling and Visual Weight.
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We love to hear from you! Send your feedback or ideas to info@uxcompanion.com.
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Your UX Companions,
Cyber-Duck
www.cyber-duck.co.uk

This month, we’ve shaken things up a little. We added one new article for your reading pleasure, and boosted our current topics with some great recommended material.
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This update ships with the following article and new resources:
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Anchoring – A cognitive bias describing the tendency of users to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered.
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New resources for Adaptive Web Design, Call to Action, Card Sorting, Colour Theory, Ethnography, Gestalt Laws of Grouping, Hick's Law, Signal-to-Noise Ratio, URL-First Design and User Testing.
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What would you like to see from us in 2016? Send any feedback or ideas to info@uxcompanion.com.
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Your UX Companions,
Cyber-Duck
https://www.cyber-duck.co.uk

New year, fresh start… we’ll focus on what we do best. You can look forward to even more UX articles and resources throughout the year - along with a few other surprises!
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This update ships with the following topics, and great links for further reading:
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1. Agile – An iterative, incremental and highly flexible approach to designing and developing digital products.
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2. Hook Model – A four-phase process that companies use to design habit-forming products and services.
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What would you like to see from us in 2016? Send any feedback or ideas to info@uxcompanion.com.
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Your UX Companions,
​Cyber-Duck
cyber-duck.co.uk

We’re officially in the festive season! Along with the lights, music and emotional adverts comes our last update for 2015.

It’s been a great year – thanks for joining us! As an early gift, we’re giving you THREE new articles. This update ships with the following topics, and great links for further reading (as always):

1. Native, Web and Hybrid Apps – The different approaches used to deliver mobile apps.

2. Tunnelling – Guiding users step-by-step through a sequence of activities, to encourage certain behaviours.

3. UX Versus UI – Explaining the difference between UX (referring to the whole user experience), and UI (a single element within it).

We can’t wait to show you our plans for next year – but it would be great to hear from you! What would you like to see from us in 2016? Send your ideas to info@uxcompanion.com.

Your UX Companions,
Cyber-Duck

What an exciting month! We celebrated our first birthday with a shiny new website – check it out at uxcompanion.com – and won the Best Mobile Campaign, with the UK Agency Awards.

With the balloons slowly deflating and champagne running dry, it’s time to get back to what we do best. New articles!

This update ships with the following topics, and great links to further reading (as always):

1. Miller’s Law – Observing how the average person can hold around seven objects in their working memory.

2. Recognition over Recall – Recognising familiar things is easier than recalling them from memory.

It’s been a great year together – we’d love to hear from you. Share how you use our app, and we might feature your story: info@uxcompanion.com.

Your UX Companions,
Cyber-Duck

Sorry for the wait – we took some time to make some behind the scenes improvements. We’ll spare you the details, though, and get into the good stuff.

New articles! This update ships with the following additions, complete with great resources as always:

1. Adaptive web design - Adapting web pages for the capabilities of the device or browser used to view them

2. Omni-channel UX - An experience including many touchpoints, with consistency and seamless movement between them

We get great feedback from users in the real world, but we’d also love to hear from our online friends. Please share how you use the app and we might feature your story: info@uxcompanion.com.

Your UX Companions,

Cyber-Duck

A new month means new articles!

We chose the terms for May by popular demand. The first is a well-embraced product development methodology, and the other is a love-it-or-hate-it design approach.

Download the update to read more about minimum viable products (MVPs) and skeuomorphism.

By the way, do you love it or hate it? Let us know on Twitter with the #UXCompanion hashtag, and send us your requests for new terms – we always welcome feedback from real users.

Your UX Companions,

Cyber-Duck

Hey there, us again. This is the second of our regular updates and we have a pair of great articles for you this month:

1. The practice of limiting user actions on a system in order to make it easier to use
2. A qualitative research method where behaviour is observed in its natural setting

Take a guess at the terms and download the update to test yourself!

Over 15,000 of you have downloaded UX Companion now, and we’re interested to learn how you’ve been using it. As a learning or re-learning tool? A teaching resource? For inspiration? Share your stories with us: info@uxcompanion.com

See you next month.

Cyber-Duck, your UX companions

It's new article day!

What do you know about atomic design? No, it's not what the United States was up to in 1945, but we're not going to say any more until you update the app.

You'll also see "graceful degradation" pop up in the list of terms. Take it all in and thank us later.

As always, send your feedback and suggestions to info@uxcompanion.com or @cyberduck_uk on Twitter.

Till next time,

Cyber-Duck, your UX companions

Wow—version 1.2 was downloaded over 10,000 times! In true UX fashion, we decided to celebrate with a round of bug fixes and minor UI improvements with version 1.3.

We addressed some minor issues in order to improve the user experience and you can now swipe back from an article to return to the index, tap the status bar to scroll up and cancel loading resource pages. And if you don’t have a data connection, we won’t even think about trying to send you to a website.

Want more? Good, ‘cause the holidays are around the corner and we’re feeling generous. New articles are on the way, and we might even have something in store for our weird friends on Android. (Shhh.)

Send your feedback, suggestions, complaints or voucher codes to info@uxcompanion.com.

Till next time,

Cyber-Duck, your UX companions