Learn How to Conduct UX Research Interviews Part 1 - Setting Goals, Recruiting, & Writing Questions

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This video covers the key things that you need to think about when considering running your own UX research interviews. This video is a part of a multi-video series that goes over how to set research goals, how to recruit participants, and how to write an interview guide. These are the first and also some of the most important steps when it comes to improving your product based on real user feedback. Running UX research interviews takes a lot of practice, and may seem awkward at first, but hopefully this video can help set you on the path to learn some additional tricks and tips to get you researching that much better. Have questions or comments about UX research or running research interviews? Ask in the comments section! I'll do my best to help out where I can.

Learn How to Improve UX with Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics

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Link to the Nielsen Normal Groups article (published in 1995!): https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/

Excellent UX design is much easier said than done. We can always do our best to do what is right for the people using our designs, but it's very easy to forget some of the most basic things when you don't have a list to double check. That's where Jakob Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics are an excellent resource.

Each one of these 10 heuristics serves as a checklist item to ensure that you're doing the right things to make for the best user experience possible. I'll talk over each one of these 10 items breaking down what the descriptions mean, and also showing some real world examples of them in use.

Hopefully you find it helpful, and as always, I look forward to seeing your thoughts around the subject in the comments section. :)

How to Get FREE Super High Quality Photoshop Brushes from Adobe Tutorial!

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This video goes over how to get completely FREE and amazingly awesome brushes for Adobe Photoshop, from right within Adobe Photoshop!

For whatever reason, Adobe sort of buried these inside a menu inside the tool, so I walk through how to find the Photoshop brushes, and then how to install the Photoshop brushes so you can use them! :)

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Learn What is Card Sorting and How It Helps Improve Product UX

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Nielsen Norman Group article on card sorting - https://www.nngroup.com/articles/card-sorting-definition/

This video goes some high level information about how to run card sorting tests. Card sorting is a great way to uncover how your users think about various pieces of information, a.k.a. to uncover their mental models. This is a commonly used technique in UX research, and will greatly benefit your projects once you learn how to do it! It's very easy to conduct, and the information gained can provide immense value to the projects you're working on.

Card sorting is IDEAL for working through website or product information architecture as it will help you learn more about how people categorize content. When you can understand how people categorize and group various pieces of information, you can quickly find a path to making that information easy to discover.

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How to Turn Photos into Textures inside Adobe Photoshop Tutorial

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This tutorial shows how to turn easily turn almost anything into a texture inside Adobe Photoshop! It will go from desaturating the photos to leveling them out to make them a usable texture. From there it will show how to use channels to pull the texture from the background. The final step shows how to apply the texture to objects using a layer mask, and the benefits of doing so. Overall creating textures inside Photoshop is very easy to do, and adds an incredible amount of flexibility to the appearance of your work!

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How to Quickly Find and Change Multiple Fonts at Once in Adobe Illustrator Tutorial

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This Adobe Illustrator tutorial goes over how you can quickly and easily find and change multiple fonts at once! Sometimes you have a font scattered across a document and you need to change every instance of it at once. This tip lets you do that quickly and easily all at once, saving the need to find and change them individually. You can decide if you want to change fonts one by one, or swap them all across the document with a single click.

Have any questions about what you've seen in the video? Feel free to leave a comment!

How to Recolor Photos to Make Them Pop in Adobe Photoshop Tutorial

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This tutorial goes over how to recolor photos inside Adobe Photoshop using a mixture of selective color and color balance. When you use these two options together it gives you incredible flexibility and freedom to create highly specific tonal shifts. This is a much more detailed method than simply using the typical hue/saturation options.

Have any questions about what you've seen in the video? Feel free to leave a comment!

How to Easily Create Text Effects in Adobe Illustrator Tutorial

Candal font used in video: https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/candal

This Adobe Illustrator tutorial goes over how to quickly and easily create great looking text effects. There are a ton of different effects built right into Illustrator that makes applying them just a few clicks away.

I also show how to add effects to grouped items like banners with text in the middle to make sure that everything lines up properly and looks great. The same thing applies to shape only objects, so these effects can be used however you best see fit.

How to Create Type on a Path in Adobe Illustrator Tutorial

This tutorial goes over how to create type on a path in Adobe Illustrator. Type on a path is a super quick way to make text follow various shapes, and it can create powerful visual outcomes with relatively little effort on your behalf.

I go over how to create type on a path using a circular shape as well as a linear shape, and also go over the character window and type on a path options to further customize your creations.

How to Use Alternative Characters in OpenType Fonts with Adobe Illustrator Tutorial

Learn how to use alternative characters in fonts in Adobe Illustrator!
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Calafia font: http://www.losttype.com/font/?name=calafia
Elsie font: https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/elsie

Many OpenType fonts include a host of additional characters, glyphs, and contextual alternatives. This Illustrator tutorial shows you how to use the glyphs window, built in features inside Illustrator to see what letters have alternatives, as well as the OpenType options window. By using all of the features that a font provides, you can unlock all sorts of new options for your typography!

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Learn How to Create Sliced Text in Adobe Photoshop Tutorial

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Learn how to easily slice text (or pretty much anything else) inside Adobe Photoshop! This tutorial will focus on the layer via cut command which is EXTREMELY useful for many reasons, and will greatly increase your workflow when used in the right situations.

Have any additional questions or comments? Feel free to leave them below! :)

How to Quickly Turn Layers into PNGs and JPEGs in Adobe Photoshop Tutorial

Quickly turn layers or folders into PNGs and JPEGs!

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If you've ever had a Photoshop document full of images and layers and wanted to export just one of them out as a PNG or JPEG, then this video is for you! This is actually super easy to do and has been a huge time saver for me as soon as I discovered how to do it.

How to Create 3D Type in Adobe Photoshop Tutorial

How to Create 3D Type in Adobe Photoshop Tutorial.
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How to Create 3D Type in Illustrator: https://youtu.be/0jnojoBWOdo

This video goes over one method for creating 3D extruded text inside Adobe Photoshop. The effect is primarily achieved by stacking drop shadows on top of each other in a layered method until eventually you get a solid 3D effect.

As most things Photoshop there are no doubt many potential ways to create similar effects, so if you know of any others, feel free to share them (or any questions you have) in the comments section!

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How to Load Brushes in Adobe Illustrator Tutorial

How to load brushes in Adobe Illustrator Tutorial
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This tutorial is perfect for beginners as it goes over how to load brushes (or pretty much anything else) inside Adobe Illustrator.

Using new Illustrator brushes can totally change the way your work looks, and the impacts of using different brushes can be huge for beginners and super advanced users alike.

Have any additional questions or comments? Feel free to leave them below! :)

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How to Create Sliced Text in Adobe Illustrator Tutorial

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This tutorial for Adobe Illustrator goes over how to create sliced text using the pathfinder window. This effect is actually pretty darn easy to create once you know how to do it, and the end result can add quite a bit of visual flair to your typography project.

This video covers creating the line to cut your text with, using divide in the pathfinder window to cut the text, different methods for stylizing and working with your type, and how to fine tune the finishing touches.

I try not to skip over any of the major parts of creating this effect to hopefully make this Adobe Illustrator tutorial beginner friendly.

Have any additional questions or comments? Feel free to leave them below! :)

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How to Make Retro 3D Type in Adobe Illustrator Tutorial

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Arvo Font: https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/arvo

This tutorial for Adobe Illustrator goes over how to create a retro inspired 3D type piece using the appearance window. The appearance window allows you to easily create awesome 3D extrudes in a way that allows the type to still be fully live and able to be further changed and customized.

I also go over things such as using swatches to add colors, and adjusting the miter join limits inside of Illustrator to prevent strange distortions from happening on certain parts of fonts.

I try not to skip over any of the major parts of creating this effect to hopefully make this Adobe Illustrator tutorial beginner friendly.

Have any additional questions or comments? Feel free to leave them below! :)

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How to Create Screenprint Style Overprints in Adobe Illustrator Tutorial

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This tutorial for Adobe Illustrator goes over how to create screenprinting style overprints. Overprints are traditionally used as a way to save the use of an additional cover when using ink based printing methods, but they can also create some really powerful and interesting visual effects.

This video covers using the appearance window inside Illustrator to make that happen, as well as covering some of the built in swatches that work great for this effect, and some potential color interactions that you can make happen.

Questions or comments? Feel free to leave them below! :)

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How to Scale Patterns in Adobe Illustrator Tutorial

This tutorial for Adobe Illustrator goes over how to scale patterns in order to make the actual pattern larger or smaller to best fit your project.

You may have noticed that when you try to scale an object in Illustrator that has a pattern inside of it, the object will typically get larger or smaller, but the pattern itself will stay the same size. This tutorial shows how to fix that problem.

This video also covers how to access and use the different pattern libraries in Adobe Illustrator - some of which are super useful.

Questions or comments? Feel free to leave them below! :)

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Adobe Photoshop Displacement Map Tutorial

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Lobster Font: https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/lobster

This Photoshop tutorial goes over how to use displacement maps in quite a bit of depth. 

Creating displacement maps is a fairly easy process, but the really fun part is really diving in and playing around with different blending modes, creating custom layer masks to refine the appearance of the displacement maps, and making sure that your work looks as good as it can on the surface in question.

This video covers a ton of Adobe Photoshop tips and tricks all in one, so hopefully it will be as useful to people who are new to Photoshop as it is to people who are veterans.

Fun fact: My cat attacked me several times during the recording of this video.

Have any additional questions? Feel free to ask in the comments section!

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How to Customize Fonts in Adobe Illustrator Tutorial

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This video goes over a method for customizing and refining fonts in order to personalize them a bit more to you and your style.

This video is a little bit long, but it covers a diverse amount of Illustrator tips ranging from using layers, brushes, the pen tool, and general theories for how to approach customizing type. I did my best not to skip over how to specifically do anything in order to make this fairly beginner friendly. I do suggest watching the below pen tool tutorials before doing this video if you are unfamiliar with the pen tool.

Pacifico Font: https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/pacifico
Pen Tool Tutorial (Easy Overview): https://youtu.be/0B_IQK7hMo0
Pen Tool Tutorial (Professional Way): https://youtu.be/vpOCt6k7Oqg

The tutorial also covers ways inside Adobe Illustrator to tweak and refine free fonts that are often a little bit rough and need some extra attention. When quality fonts are available for free, often times they are used quite a lot and as such can make any project that picks them feel a little bit generic. This method is a great way to get around that by allowing you to take some stylistic control over what the final result will look like.

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