Collecting amazing and interesting things on the web.
October 6, 2013
design / kathy sierra / presentations / user experience
If you, like me, struggle with terrifying stage-fright, you might try this: as you prepare a presentation, keep a giant post-it in front of you that says, “YOU ARE JUST A UI”.
October 4, 2013
Some great tips on how to modify a typeface to make a good, solid logo out of it.
October 4, 2013
General advice on public speaking, from Brad Frost.
October 3, 2013
User research works best when you match your participants to the people who will use your designs. It makes sense that teams would try to use the demographics, often compiled by the organization’s market research team, as the basis of their recruiting efforts. However, this can be problematic.
September 25, 2013
design / jared spool / meetings / user experience
It became obvious to us that the more effective teams saw their meetings as something that needed thoughtful design. Even quick problem-solving sessions had a rehearsed intentionality that was visible to everyone in the room. The process of collaboration was designed.
September 24, 2013
content strategy / design / reading / user experience
First, it’s 45,417 pixels tall. It’s an absurdly long page, yet I was not bothered in the slightest by it. Why? Because page length doesn’t matter when you have a compelling story to tell. People read on the Web. People scroll. The reason why we think they don’t is because they scan before they read. The next time you hear someone say “People don’t read on the Web” you know you’re talking to someone who writes poor content.
September 24, 2013
The reasons people attempt redshirting their kids, and the data that belies the assumptions behind it.
September 24, 2013
apple / design / jony-ive / user experience
“That is exactly it,” he says emphatically. “It’s just easier to talk about product attributes that you can measure with a number. Focus on price, screen size, that’s easy. But there’s a more difficult path, and that’s to make better products, ones where maybe you can’t measure their value empirically.”
“This is terribly important and at the heart of what we do. We care about how to design the inside of something you’ll never see, because we think it’s the right thing to do.”
“I’ve said this before, but simplicity is, well, it goes back to… you’re trying to define the essence of something and come up with a solution that seems utterly inevitable and obvious,” he says. “I think a lot of people see simplicity as the lack of clutter. And that’s not the case at all. True simplicity is, well, you just keep on going and going until you get to the point where you go, ‘Yeah, well, of course.’ Where there’s no rational alternative.”
September 24, 2013
Milton Glaser reflects on education and mentoring. “… it was a profound example of somebody – an adult, authority figure, sophisticated man – who was willing to put aside his own desire for something, his own direction for my life, and recognize me as a person who had made a decision… encouraging it with this incredibly gracious and generous gift.”
September 24, 2013
Brilliant poem from Brian Zahnd about how to read the Bible.