Designing in the open➝
When we get more confident a new phase opens up. We believe more in our process and we know that things are never perfect. So we start showing work earlier and start talking about our rationale at a given step. We’re excited for feedback on a clumsy design because we know feedback will steer us to a better one. We might even be unafraid to open our tools and do some real work in real time in front of people. This is designing in the open.
This is such an important phase. The best work I’ve done so far has been with people like Martin standing besides me. Talking about what you’re doing is such a relief. Suddenly a lot of things are so much clearer then before and the small problem that you would have thought about for hours is gone.
You don’t need to be afraid to show unfinished works to people. As long as they are at least a bit open minded, they will get what you’re going for and will provide you with valuable feedback. Go out there and look for your own Martin. (
)
What UI really is (and how UX confuses matters)➝
People mix the terms UI and UX together. UX is tricky because it doesn’t refer to any one thing. Interface design, visual styling, code performance, uptime, and feature set all contribute to the user’s “experience.” Books on UX further complicate matters by including research methods and development methodologies. All of this makes the field confusing for people who want to understand the fundamentals.
A Manager’s Manifesto➝
Above all, this: never, ever get in the way. It’s better to twiddle your thumbs and squint up at the clouds than to obstruct progress for the sake of that stupid, childish thing called ego.
Julia is product design director at Facebook and obviously knows what matters.
Blind Pilot – 3 Rounds and a Sound
Dribbble HD➝
Ever wondered why Dribbble, a plattform for designers and things that should look pretty, only features such small images? Well, this plugin for Chrome rocks.
We Redesigned Musical Notation So It’s Actually Easy to Read➝
Blake West:
Learning to play an instrument is hard, but sheet music makes it even harder. I’ve taught dozens of students, ages 4 to 60, and traditional music notation never comes easily. It can often take months (or longer) to pick up. Worse yet, those frustrations often lead to thoughts like, “I’m bad at music.” It’s tough to hear; as their teacher, I know that’s not true. The sheet music just isn’t intuitive. And that shouldn’t be the hard part—when you read a great book, you think about the *meaning*, not which letter is which.
Whoa, Hummingbird seems like something even I could wrap my head around. Also: It’s beautiful.
Transitional Interfaces➝
Pasquale D’Silva:
Designers love to sweat the details. Much time is spent pixel-fucking buttons, form styles, setting type, & getting those icons as sharp as a tack. A+, great job, don’t stop you guys.
…but there’s little consideration about how it all fits together outside of a static comp. You tap a button and the form just …appears? You swipe to delete an item and it just vanishes? That’s super weird and un-natural. Nearly nothing in the real world does anything as jarringly as just swapping states. It would feel like a glitch.
Pasquale D’Silva on animations in user interfaces. Smart thoughts amazingly well illustrated. Take a few minutes and treat yourself to some insights into the wonderful world of animation.
In Defence of the Floppy Disk Save Symbol➝
Connor Tomas O’Brien:
Those who believe that the floppy cannot represent saving a document because nobody uses real floppy disks anymore miss an important point: while symbols initially piggyback on the meaning we assigned to a material object in order to stand in for something more abstract, once a symbol is used often enough, the symbol itself is enough to carry meaning, and the material object is no longer important. (You could think of the physical object upon which a symbol is based as a kind of scaffolding). This is how all symbols operate, by the way. Once any symbol enters a culture’s visual language, the physical object it was initially based upon is no longer really relevant.
That’s exactly what I ranted about on twitter 10 days ago:
The only thing that’s wrong with the disk is that we’re not using it anymore. As long as everone associates it with saving, we’re fine.
— Marcel Wichmann (@UARRR) March 28, 2013
The making of Medium.com | Teehan+Lax➝
We didn’t really know what to expect. There wasn’t an agenda. Just an hour blocked in a calendar for a chat. Ev had hinted that we would talk about what he may be working on next. It was intimidating to meet the guy who is partly responsible for blogging (Blogger) and of course, Twitter.
A beautiful and detailed article on how Medium came to existence. Worth a read.
April Fools: Google Chrome’s Broken Image Icon Heals Broken Hearts➝
Google didn’t stop at just making a more humane broken image icon, it’s making sure that the icon is targeted, personalized, and highly localized as shown in the variations below.
As goofy as it sounds, I think there is a lot of stuff inside this article that actually would be a good idea. If anything it shows again that you can revolutionize everything as long as you invest some time in thinking about it. In this case it’s just a joke, but hey: It sure would be a great “missing picture” icon!