The third issue of your favorite UX magazine is here

If the title hasn’t already given it away, we’ve just launched the third issue of our UX magazine, CRUX. I say this every time, but it really only feels like yesterday that I was announcing the first and second issues. Soon we’ll be announcing issue 4!

Looking back on CRUX #2

Crafting a magazine is certainly fun, but that’s only half of it. Part of the enjoyment for us is tracking the readership growth over time. Yes, we’re nerds.

Using the first issue as a baseline, we saw a definite improvement in the numbers of CRUX #2. The second issue also drove up readership of the first issue, which was pretty neat to see!

As for readership time, the first issue saw an average time spent reading of 10 minutes, but we managed to blow past that with a read time of 15 minutes for issue #2! Numbers are obviously always important, our other important metrics include the number of shares, positive sentiment in qualitative feedback and future contributor engagement. These all increased with the second issue.

What we’re trying to say is that as long as there’s an appetite for CRUX, we’ll keep making it.

Mirror image

CRUX is starting to become a bit of a reflection of the worlds of research and design at the time of publication. Specifically, a reflection of the unique problems that researchers and designers are trying to solve. That means people like you.

It’s important to note that whenever we use labels like ‘researcher’ or ‘designer’, we really just mean ‘people who do the thing’. At least at Optimal Workshop, we all do research. It’s just part of our DNA.

What you’ll find in CRUX #3

With that in mind, we’ve got a number of interesting topics in this edition of CRUX:

• Looking at the pyramid of trust and why you need to start thinking about the basic trust needs of users.
• Alia Fite from Figma talks about the best ways to evaluate design tools, including a number of actionable steps.
• Jennie Leng from Digital Arts Network (now Bendon, Australia and New Zealand) talks about design maturity and what this means in a business context.

Want to contribute to CRUX?

We want to create the best UX magazine – as long as people like you want to keep reading it. But we need your help! We’ve had a whole lot of great people contribute to CRUX #1, #2 and #3, but we know there are countless more people out there who don’t have a platform to share their voice.

If you or someone you know wants to share their ideas with the UX and design communities, drop us a line here.

But for now, please go and enjoy the third issue of CRUX! We work hard on it, and it’s all for you.