Do not confuse it with Dark Mode

The hype of “The Social Dilemma” made many viewers become aware of the power of technology and its influence on all of us. For UX Designers, the use of dishonest tricks in digital platforms is not a new topic. We call them dark patterns.

Dark Patterns are tricks used in websites and apps that make you do things that you didn’t mean to, like buying or signing up for something. The purpose of this site is to spread awareness and to shame companies that use them.

Evil design patterns, unfortunately, are very common…

In 2020, tech bootcamps are not a new topic anymore. They have been around since at least 2012, offering courses in diverse subjects (typically, web development, mobile development, UX/UI design, data science, and project management) and flooding a digital-starved market with new graduates each year.

Last year, something changed. The number of corporate training bootcamp graduates has surpassed the number of classic bootcamp graduates. This reveals a new trend, not only in the bootcamp market itself but also in enterprise operations. Companies are acknowledging the benefits of intensive, accelerated learning programs to qualify their workforce for digital roles.

The advantages of bootcamps for companies

Workforce Reskilling

Reskilling: learning…

In the last days, the most recent Instagram update has been in the news for the worst reasons. Many users and influencers have publicly spoken out their dissatisfaction, namely James Charles, who, in a rant video, advised his followers not to update their apps.

At the center of these negative opinions is the new layout, where the basic Instagram options — camera and notifications — have been removed from the bottom menu bar and instead are displayed in the upper-right corner of the home page, next to the direct message button.

You must have heard about solving design problems through design patterns, their implementation steps, and some problems that can arise from them. But do you realize the impact these patterns have on the user experience? A few weeks ago, I didn’t at all.

After finishing the UX Nanodegree by Udacity and landing a new role as UX Engineer, I decided to continue with my education on the matter. So, I decided to join the Interaction Design Foundation (IDF) which offers several online courses with certification at a very affordable membership price.

Disclaimer: This post contains one affiliate link however, this…

Beauty Tech was one of the big highlights of CES® 2021 and is definitely one of the hottest topics in tech right now. Investors are curious, new beauty startups appear every day and Silicon Valley cannot ignore this trend anymore. But what is it, after all?

Beauty Tech is the name of the digital transformation applied to the wellness and beauty industry. AI-powered skin diagnostics, wearable UV trackers, AR mirror apps, and smart hairbrushes: the applications are endless and highly promising.

Beauty giants like L’oreal, Shiseido, and Estée Lauder have already entered this space, but today I want to talk…

Remember when your stories were curated? Remember when your stats page displayed a very motivating message stating “Distributed by curators in” following a list of topic labels? Yeah, those were good times, when the Medium algorithm was, a little bit, more transparent. Knowing the topics your stories are being curated into provides useful information, such as which subjects your writing is a good fit for and where your readers are finding your stories on the platform. In other words, it helped writers to better understand their niche inside Medium.

Back in October 2020, Medium removed this information from the stats…

Specially predominant in social media and online videogames, Internet trolls can be found nearly everywhere, from online newspapers to governmental pages.

As of 2021, it’s right to assume that everyone on the Internet has encountered an Internet troll, either in a passive way, by reading comments on someone else’s work; or in an active way, by receiving their feedback and maybe even engaging in a discussion with them. In any case, their presence creates a negative mood in any online space.

The only effective way to stop these toxic online users is ignoring them, which can be quite frustrating because…

Last week, I woke up to an uncanny trending topic on Twitter: an American stylist was selling a traditional Portuguese sweatshirt as a Mexican-inspired piece. My timeline was full of outraged tweets, despising not only the mistake about the design origins but, mostly, the unequivocal resemblance with the original, too similar to be considered a mere “inspiration”.

As a Portuguese, I must confess that my biggest surprise was: why have I never heard about this piece of clothing before? There is certainly something special about it, for it to be fabricated for more than 100 years, and having its design…