Resources for designers looking to sketch more in 2020
Just like last year and the year before that, I‘m sharing articles, books, other resources I found most interesting and useful in 2019 (& I also included resources that I created). The resources are organized into 3 categories: Articles; Books; Tools & Other Resources.
ARTICLES
Sketching simple and cool looking human faces by Yuri Malishenk
Do you need a quick persona sketch? For instance, do you want to follow the methods described in the Lean UX book? Here is an awesome tutorial for you by Yuri Malishenko:
Using comic strips and storyboards to test your UX concepts by Chris Spalton
This article is about using comics and storyboarding in your design process.
These are my favorite parts:
“In summary, storyboards are tools created in order to guide the creation of something else. Comics are a format for visual storytelling. They are designed to be consumed, and are finished products in and of themselves.”
“As you can see from the comics I’ve created above, I’m not simply showing the screens, or interactions that the user might move through. I’m actually showing the people involved, and what they might be thinking, saying, and communicating to each other throughout the process.
I think this is where the true power of using comics as part of your design process lies, as the reader can see and understand the real human element in the journey far better than a walkthrough of how a series of form elements will work.”
How To Draw a Croissant When You Can’t Really Draw a Croissant. by Chaz Hutton
In my Sketching for UX Designers course, I talk about a nice way of practicing UI sketching: you just print out a layout you like, than trace it.
In this great article, Chaz Hutton introduces a really clever technique: you can trace your previous sketch!
“This is where the tracing part comes in. Get a new sheet of paper and start fresh with your rough approximation visible underneath.”
“I don’t know about you, but suddenly the idea of drawing a croissant is a whole lot less intimidating when all you need to do is trace along your thickest, most confident lines below.”
Five Habits of Design Thinking by Christina Wodtke
If you work as a designer, you’ll find Christina Wodtke’s article fascinating, it examines design thinking from a fresh and inspirational perspective, for instance she highlights that
“ I believe what makes design thinking special is the “go wide, narrow, go wide, narrow” rhythm.”
“ <draft> Design thinking is the practice of exploring research and ideas widely, narrowing insights down to likely solution candidates, then testing and generating still more wide and weird possibilities until something viable and innovative is discovered. </draft>”
And she also mentions that “ design thinking is always better with some Visual Thinking, don’t you think?” ;).
Mapping your user’s day with the User Clock Sketch by Ben Crothers
There are always new things to add to your UX design toolkit. Here is an interesting mapping technique described by Ben Crothers, author of Presto Sketching.
It’s called the User Clock Sketch!
“What if we mapped a day in the life of the user type we are focused on (in that case it was project managers), to see what that looked like?”
How to Get Stakeholders to Sketch: A Magic Formula by Kate Kaplan
According to my experience, stakeholders appreciate UI sketches, for instance they like that instead of talking about abstract concepts, they have something tangible. In this article, Kate Kaplan introduces some great ways of encouraging stakeholders to sketch:
“The formula is based on three underlying principles:
- Prescribing participants’ tools (thick-tip markers and small spaces to sketch within) hinders the ability to get overly detailed or refined.
- Setting a time limit restricts participants’ inclination to overthink or censor their ideas too much.
- Providing low-fidelity artifacts (such as rough, hastily drawn sketches) as examples removes the perception that sketches need to be “pretty” to be worthy ideas or that participants need to be in a creative role to draw.”
What I learned from running a remote training on visual thinking via Zoom using a document camera by Yuri Malishenko
Working and facilitating workshop remotely is a topic I’m very much interested in, that’s why I find Yuri Malishenko’s article incredibly useful. And he was inspired by Jeff Patton and Eva-Lotta Lamm:
“Something happened in May 2019. I have participated in the training by Jeff Patton and Jeff Gothelf on ‘Smart Product Ownership.’ (It is the best course on product ownership you can find, and I recommend it. But that is a topic for a separate post). And I was blown away by Jeff Patton’s style — he did not use any slides, and instead, he drew all of his explanation on A4, broadcasted on a big screen with the use of a document camera, showing all of his moves in great detail:”
Sketchnotes of Interaction Design Specialization course on Coursera by Anna Iurchenko
Retaining the knowledge you have learned after completing a course or reading a book is not easy, that’s why I love the idea of creating sketchnotes based on Coursera courses:
The problem with problems, and a better way to frame them visually by Ben Crothers
Ben Crothers, the author of the awesome book, Presto Sketching wrote this great article about problem framing, this is his “Problem Framing Sketch” concept in a nutshell:
“The Problem Framing Sketch is a visual pattern you can draw to help you explore, structure, and clarify a particular problem, especially if that problem is complex, ambiguous or misunderstood. By visually mapping the problem space, new connections and questions can emerge […]“
How to improve illustration skills by Katarzyna Dziaduś
This article contains a lot of great tips on collecting inspiations for your drawings / sketches.
“When you are collecting your references — you are building your visual library. But it’s not just one way to extend it. One of the most significant things for me was traveling, and still, it is. I’m taking pictures, extending my knowledge, learning new cultures and watching how things look like in real life. It’s nothing wrong to feel like a child who is discovering the world like a new place. But even if you can’t travel so far, you can take a camera or even your phone and go somewhere in your city — discover your surrounding. Or if the weather is terrible — open google maps and go somewhere there.”
15 conference tactics for designers by Krisztina Szerovay
Yes, I shamelessly included my own piece :) In this article, I have collected 15 conference tips for designers, one of these is about how to start conversations with fellow participants:
“And btw. live sketchnoting is also a good conversation starter, people sitting next to me during a talk often ask about what I do!”
The article also contains 13 sketchnotes created live during the WebExpo conference.
Draw your problem by Katie McCurdy
Your hand, a pen and some paper are your greatest problem-solving tools!
My favorite parts:
“The above examples are misleadingly tidy; drawing your problem doesn’t need to be pretty, and it doesn’t have to make sense to anyone but you. At this stage, you’re just writing words down and drawing shapes in an attempt to create some meaning out of that jumble of thoughts that’s smashing around in your big, smart brain.”
“Drawing helps you explore new angles, more easily map out relationships, and process things in a different way than you could through typing on your computer.”
A summary of Interaction19 via sketchnotes and wholly-inappropriate plugs by Chris Noessel
Interaction 19 is a conference organized by the Interaction Design Association (IxDA). This article by Chris Noessel contains many-many great sketchnotes created during the event:
Go Back to the Sketchbook — The (Many) Reasons Why You Should Step Away from the Laptop Karen McClellan
My favorite parts of the article:
“I begin every design with my sketchbook — or rather, the big pile of loose leaf, oversized sketch paper stacked under my desk. Or a whiteboard. Or a scrap sheet. And I feel very strongly about this. See, screens are good for many things, but they’re not great for concept iteration and early wireframing.”
“But, if you stay on paper, you are only limited by your imagination — keep sketching until the limitations of the sketchbook are greater than the limitations of the screen.”
“Because here’s the thing — design software invites a level of fidelity that is too high for early concept exploration. Sketching, on the other hand, easily accommodates any fidelity.”
The Power of Re-Ordering — Turning sketchnotes into more robust summaries with a two-step process by Eva-Lotta Lamm
I often get the question: how can I structure my sketchnotes? How can I “predict” the future? How is that possible that each of my sketchnotes require exactly one A4-size paper?
Well, of course I can’t predict the amount of information I’ll want to include. And I wouldn’t say that this just magically happen. There are 2 things in my case:
1. Experience helps
2. I can control the amount and the representation of the things I want to include, e.g. if there is only 2 minutes left from the talk, and I still have a lot of space left on the page, I’m “allowed” to add more visuals.
Here is an awesome article on this topic by Eva-Lotta Lamm
UX sketching: the missing link by Chris R Becker
In this article, Chris R Becker explains why sketching is an essential skill for designers, this is my favorite part:
“The key to sketching is giving your self the luxury to think through the options. Producing multiple sketches and iterating your sketches from low fidelity to high fidelity to working product is the essence of design. It is all a type of sketching.
If you are too scared to start or think I’m no good at sketching you are wrong you just need some practice.”
BOOKS
The xLontrax Theory of Sketchnote by Mauro Toselli
Mauro is a huge inspiration for me, I love his clean sketching style and the way he deconstructs sketching concepts.
Check out his new book and the very well-documented process of creating it here:
The Art of Visual Notetaking : An interactive guide to visual communication and sketchnoting by Emily Mills
If you are thinking about getting into visual thinking and sketching, this book’ll introduce you all the foundations you need to know:
The Visual Facilitation Field Guide
While I backed the Kickstarter in 2018, my copy of the book has arrived only some months ago, and it is most probably one of the most comprehensive and most exhaustive materials available on this topic, I highly recommend checking it out:
How to THINK when you Draw Books by Robin and Lorenzo Etherington
I often get inspired by comics, and these books has taught me a lot about drawing, I got them via Kickstarter, but you can find — I think almost all — the tutorial here for free:
TOOLS & OTHER RESOURCES
The Power Hour & Power Page Practice by Kate Rutter
As a busy professional, I find the concept of Power Page very inspirational. It incorporates the benefits of other techniques mentiond in the article (e.g. Bullet Journaling from Ryder Carroll):
Scenes by SAP
SAP created a free, downloadable tool for visualizing contexts. It’s called Scenes, and it helps you kickstart your storyboarding process.
You can download their thematic packs (e.g. buildings, healthcare) as a starting point, then you should add your own sketches!
Brill App
Brill App looks very promising, it might save a lot of time for visual thinkers and designers by helping us digitze sticky notes:
“Take photos of multiple handwritten sticky notes and instantly convert them to digital text in 100+ languages. Up to 200x faster than typing.”
UX Knowledge Base Sketches: 100th Sketch!
In 2019, I created the 100th UX Knowledge Base Sketch! 💯
Content-creation and knowledge-sharing is one of passions, I’m really grateful for being able to give back to the community! This sketch describes a design workflow (not THE design workflow — there is no one right way of doing this!), and at the same time, this sketch can alsoserve as a table of contents for the UX Knowledge Base Sketches. You can check it out in higher resolution on the uxknowledgebase.com website! This is the 100th sketch, and this marks the end of this series — at least for now.
Please let me know in the comments section if you know any other great articles, resources about UX design & sketching/visual thinking published in 2019.
