Blog & resources

We like to share our learnings, thoughts, opinions and ‘how to’ knowledge on different design-related topics.

10 Essential tips for choosing accessible fonts for educational digital products

Photo of Mariana Morris
05 Nov 2024

Discover ten essential tips for choosing accessible fonts for educational digital products, designed to enhance readability and engagement for school-age children. Perfect for developers, educators, and designers looking to create user-friendly learning tools.

Enterprise UX: Designing complex platforms

Photo of Mariana Morris
24 Oct 2024

This post explores how effective enterprise UX design can simplify complex platforms, improving workflows, compliance, and decision-making for large-scale organisations.

The importance of continuous discovery for product success

Photo of Mariana Morris
02 Oct 2024

Discover why continuous discovery is crucial for product success. This blog explores how ongoing user research drives informed, evidence-based decisions, highlights key discovery activities and explains how to embed continuous discovery into your development process.

Wireframes vs. UI design deliverables

Photo of Mariana Morris
30 Sep 2024

Discover the difference between wireframes (structure and flow) and UI design (visual styling and branding) in our design process. Learn what to expect at each stage of your project for better results.

User-centric cyber security is the next big thing for the industry

Photo of James Morris
16 May 2024

Effective cybersecurity relies on people at different levels as it’s a complex field with a lot of data and technicalities. Therefore, user-centric design (and UX research) is a key factor in ensuring that once cyber threats, vulnerabilities and other risks are identified, they can be reported and managed as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Laws of UX for better user experience

Photo of Jessica Reynolds
29 Feb 2024

Human psychology plays a key role in shaping user experiences (UX) in the digital space. UX designers aim to understand human behaviour and align with pre-existing mental models to deliver experiences that feel intuitive.

Ensuring product success: Product Managers and UX Designers

Photo of Jessica Reynolds
21 Feb 2024

A Product Manager is responsible for harmonising UX, Tech and Business requirements. While ideas are valuable, executing them is difficult!

Optimising mobile user experience: Key considerations for success

Photo of Jessica Reynolds
12 Feb 2024

In today's digital era, where mobile devices have become an indispensable part of daily life, catering to mobile users is not just a choice but a necessity. In this blog post, we'll delve into key considerations for creating a seamless mobile user experience that fosters customer satisfaction and retention.

Accelerating time to market: leveraging UX for operational efficiency

In the race to bring products and features to market rapidly, a strategic focus on UX design can be a game-changer.

Scaling UX design capability

Photo of Mariana Morris
04 Sep 2023

UX skills are in high demand, but hiring design talent to improve your product development can be a bit of a minefield. But there are ways to make it easier...

Designing for all: Accessibility 101

Photo of Mahika Naidoo
Mahika Naidoo
21 Jul 2023

What is accessibility and how it can benefit your design work.

Designing medical imaging software

Photo of Mariana Morris
09 Mar 2023

The challenges of designing medical imaging software for devices such as MRI & CT scanners, X-rays and ultrasounds - and the crucial role of user research.

Is a Design Sprint really your best option?

Photo of Mariana Morris
19 Jan 2023

Design Sprints are a great tool, but they’re not the only option. Find out how UX studio Fruto adapts the approach to deliver better design outcomes.

Designing with the Government's Digital Service

Photo of Carmen M. Freile
Carmen M. Freile
03 Oct 2022

Designing with GDS for a government service. This blog outlines the benefits and challenges of working with the GDS design system and a few tips that helped me when working with the design system.

How we deliver our designs

Photo of Jamie Cooper
Jamie Cooper
15 Sep 2022

When it comes to UI design we have a huge wealth of experience and expertise at Fruto in delivering highly intuitive, accessible, and visually exceptional interfaces. We can offer page templates, pattern libraries, seamless dev handover, and implementation support during the development process.

UX Oxford talk: Building a robust design system foundation

In this talk, Carmen takes us through the concept of design systems, the elements that come together to form them and she gives us a practical step by step guide to the creation of a robust design system foundation.

Digital design considerations for child vs adult user groups

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Carmen M. Freile
04 Oct 2021

A guide to designing better user interfaces for children

Designing for healthcare

Photo of Mariana Morris
24 Apr 2021

When it comes to UX design, healthcare has to be one of the areas where it’s most critical that it’s done right.  The difference between good and bad design could literally make the difference between life or death. From patient care to the clinical experience, there are many aspects to designing digital products for healthcare...

UX Oxford talk: UI colour palette

In this talk Carmen will take us through a hands-on approach to the creation of colour palettes for UI Design.

Practical creation and application of a UI colour palette

The goal of this webinar is to offer a hands-on approach to the creation of colour palettes for UI Design. In this webinar we apply concepts to create and successfully apply a UI-focused colour palette to an app interface.

Mental model mapping

A mental mod el mapping is a visual summary of the mental states that a user goes through to achieve a goal.

A guide to colour in UI design

Photo of Carmen M. Freile
Carmen M. Freile
24 Jun 2020

Colour has a great impact in the world around us and this is no different in User Interfaces (UI). However, it’s not always given the importance it deserves. Sometimes colour is understood as a purely aesthetic element that is completely relative and subjective. Nonetheless, colour plays a key role (on multiple levels) in the user experience of a product, and therefore it is worth our attention as designers.

UI design systems

Photo of Carmen M. Freile
Carmen M. Freile
06 Mar 2020

In this blog post I will define these terms and outline how a design system might be beneficial, as well as some of the drawbacks. I will also talk about how important it is to create a system that is customised to your project.

How remote working has made me a better designer

Photo of Carmen M. Freile
Carmen M. Freile
14 Jan 2020

As designers, and more specifically, digital designers, remote working might not only be feasible but beneficial. Remote working is a growing trend and as a full time designer that works from home, I can see why.

From UX to UI to development

Photo of Carmen M. Freile
Carmen M. Freile
13 Dec 2019

In this post I will run through what it takes to go from UX to UI, and finally to development, and I will give some tips that have helped me (as a designer) with these different hand-offs.

Multifaceted designers: The overlooked key skills and attitudes of a good designer

Photo of Carmen M. Freile
Carmen M. Freile
24 Sep 2019

There are many qualities that play a key role in becoming a good designer. These qualities are far from being only technical. A designer must be an innovator, a researcher, a communicator a connoisseur, a mediator, a problem solver and a business thinker.

How to improve the user interface (UI) of your product

Photo of Carmen M. Freile
Carmen M. Freile
16 Aug 2019

UI design plays a fundamental role in the overall quality of your end product. The UI not only supports the UX work, it enriches it and expands on it by bringing together concepts from interaction design, visual design, and information architecture.

UX for patient referral system

This talk by our MD Mariana Morris and Nick de Pennington, neurosurgeon and medical director of the Oxford Biodesign Programme, was given at the joint DHOx and UX Oxford event on UX in Healthcare at the Old Fire Station, Oxford, in October 2016, talking about how NHS Beta is digitally connecting patients to health services.