Showing posts tagged design
You can only do so much knowing the fundamentals of design. Typography, color theory, composition, etc. are all fantastic and extremely important skills to know (and know well)… but eventually if you want to excel in your creativity, you must learn the tools of the trade. Painters learn about canvas types, paint compositions, and bristle qualities. Web design is no exception. Learn to code: you’ll be better for it.

BTW, if you’re an interface/interaction designer and you haven’t watched a preschooler using a touchscreen device, you really should. It’s fascinating how quickly they learn some things and just can’t get the hang of other things. It’s a really eye-opening experience.

Jason Kottke

If you’re an interface/interaction designer and you haven’t watched [anyone] using [your designs], you really aren’t an interaction designer.

While the aside from Jason was specifically about the benefits of learning from a toddler, so often I’ve seen “interaction design projects” progress without any actual user input. While a good designer will have ideas on how a user will use their design, they will never truly know until they test.

John C. Abell, referring to the debate over Flash on the iPhone/iPad, notes:

[Flash is] the most over-rated and overused crutch for decent design.

And in one phrase, he has entirely summed up my feelings regarding Flash, both as a technology and as a tool for design.

While good design can be (and occasionally is) done using Flash, all too often something is made all whiz-bang-whirry, fly around the screen and do crazy shit-like just because it can. And this doesn’t make the interface more usable, and most definitely doesn’t make it better designed.

Flash just helps to ensure the design will be noticed1. And good design shouldn’t be noticed, nor should it get in the way of the user. As Jared Spool remarks:

Good design, when it’s done well, becomes invisible. It’s only when it’s done poorly that we notice it.

And boy do I notice a lot of Flash out there.

  1. I’m sure this point has been made before, but isn’t the name Flash itself so apropos? Technically it’s a contraction of FutureSplash, the company that originally created the technology. But anymore, all I see is the derisive meaning of the word…
Clients are the difference between design and art.

  “You are no longer a web designer. You are now a mouse cursor inside a graphics program which the client can control by speaking, emailing, and instant messaging.”


clientsfromhell:

How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell - The Oatmeal

“You are no longer a web designer. You are now a mouse cursor inside a graphics program which the client can control by speaking, emailing, and instant messaging.”

clientsfromhell:

How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell - The Oatmeal

(Reblogged from clientsfromhell)
Ultimately, I figure with the money I save on mortgage, I can rent out the Holiday Inn if I want to have a huge party.

Jay Shafer of Tumbleweed Tiny House Company on the misplaced priorities of people who own huge houses.

(via 37signals)