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(via Nowtoo Sugi – Cartoon Latte Art Video | FreshnessMag.com |...

Wed, 22 May 2013 15:57:29 -0400

(via Nowtoo Sugi – Cartoon Latte Art Video | FreshnessMag.com | Page 2)

"The truth is, learning how to learn is the hardest part of acquiring knowledge. Learning takes..."

Wed, 22 May 2013 12:09:01 -0400

“The truth is, learning how to learn is the hardest part of acquiring knowledge. Learning takes courage, to admit what you don’t know; it takes paranoia, to question the wisdom of those who tell you what they know; it takes persistence in the face of the impossibley (sic) formidable weight of the amassed brilliance of those who came before you. Most of all, it takes a brash foolishness to believe that you could ever add anything of worth on top of said brilliance.”

- Love this post. You can learn a lot from people’s reactions to a reference point, even if that reference point is wrong. It becomes a conversation that’s relative to something as opposed to being in absolute terms.

(http://gist.io/5522214 - Why I Say Dumb Shit)

"What will save you is tacking into the love of the work, into the desire that brought you there in..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 16:15:52 -0400

“What will save you is tacking into the love of the work, into the desire that brought you there in the first place. This creates a suspension of time, opens a spacious room of your own in which you can walk around and consider your response. Staring prejudice in the face imposes a cruel discipline: to structure your anger, to achieve a certain dignity, an angry dignity.”

- http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/opinion/sunday/how-to-be-a-woman-programmer.html?pagewanted=all

"Many people my age or older half-joke about wishing to be younger. Wishing to be young is a coward’s..."

Wed, 01 May 2013 15:12:12 -0400

“Many people my age or older half-joke about wishing to be younger. Wishing to be young is a coward’s wish. People who wish to be younger would squander that miracle. They’re wasting the time they have now pretending they’d make better use of a different now.”

- Wise words from Scott Berkun on getting old(er).

http://scottberkun.com/2013/on-getting-old/

BRYCE DOT VC: If You Want to See How We'll Live In the Future...

Wed, 01 May 2013 12:03:10 -0400

BRYCE DOT VC: If You Want to See How We'll Live In the Future...:

brycedotvc:

…”look at how rich people are living today”.

Was said as a passing comment in a recent conversation. But I couldn’t let it just pass.

Think about it.

When you imagine Gordon Gecko from the movie Wall St. what image do you have in mind? Mine is the one of the poster boy of wealth clutching…

Really great insight.

Another place to look is the automobile industry - if you want to know what features the Accords/Camrys will have in a few years, look at today’s Mercedes S-Class.

We can look at things like this and ask - is this worth scaling and can it scale?

A potential keyboard for really small screens.

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:32:04 -0400

A potential keyboard for really small screens.

"As the details fade, the stories - what we remember of them - become more interesting as the rough..."

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 10:50:25 -0400

“As the details fade, the stories - what we remember of them - become more interesting as the rough edges smooth out. My memories are better than the reality. Not only is that ok, it sustains me as I get older.”

- http://blog.aweissman.com/2013/04/memories.html - Great post on why time and distance between memory and fact can be good/valuable.

"What I discovered is that if you care about other people first, even business people cannot help but..."

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:15:56 -0400

“What I discovered is that if you care about other people first, even business people cannot help but care back. Of course, it is theoretically possible that someone cannot reciprocate empathy, and in that case my approach will not lead to a deal. But I haven’t found anyone like that yet, and I wouldn’t want to work with them if I did.”

- http://qz.com/77020/the-secret-to-a-higher-salary-is-to-ask-for-nothing-at-all/

"In retrospect, Flowers believes that “the most sophisticated thing designers ever do is decide what..."

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 23:47:58 -0400

“In retrospect, Flowers believes that “the most sophisticated thing designers ever do is decide what to design.” Telling students in an introductory class to design “something” thus challenged them with the most complex task they could face. It’s much more reasonable, he says, to get them to think about “how do you solve this problem—rather than what is the problem.””

- http://www.technologyreview.com/article/422808/a-champion-for-supernerds/
Thank you Timehop for resurfacing this profile of MIT professor Woodie Flowers.

My bag’s making faces at me… #anthropomorphism

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 22:04:35 -0400

My bag’s making faces at me… #anthropomorphism

"Going beyond empathy is imperative for designers. At its best, our discipline allows people to..."

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 18:15:56 -0400

“Going beyond empathy is imperative for designers. At its best, our discipline allows people to understand, debate, and acknowledge our differences, but also work for the greater good. Isn’t this an imperative for the larger world?”

- http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/march-april-2013/confessions-of-a-human-centered-designer

Jodi was a professor of mine at CMU, and appreciate the perspective that empathy is important, but it doesn’t end there - it’s just the start.

"Modern science was only invented 400 years ago, and it is a good example of what social thinking can..."

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 20:42:51 -0400

“Modern science was only invented 400 years ago, and it is a good example of what social thinking can do with a high threshold. Science requires a society because even people who are trying to be good thinkers love their own thoughts and theories — much of the debugging has to be done by others.”

- Lots of good stuff in this interview with Alan Kay. http://techland.time.com/2013/04/02/an-interview-with-computing-pioneer-alan-kay/

(via Scars on Behance)

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 22:35:41 -0400

(via Scars on Behance)

"Most experts say that the larger solution to the growing electronic waste problem is for technology..."

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:20:14 -0400

“Most experts say that the larger solution to the growing electronic waste problem is for technology companies to design products that last longer, use fewer toxic components and are more easily recycled. Much of the industry, however, seems to be heading in the opposite direction.”

- http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/19/us/disposal-of-older-monitors-leaves-a-hazardous-trail.html?ref=technology&pagewanted=all&_r=0

"Simplicity is not about making something without ornament, but rather about making something very..."

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 16:56:05 -0400

“Simplicity is not about making something without ornament, but rather about making something very complex, then slicing elements away, until you reveal the very essence.”

- From this interview w/ Christoph Neimann regarding his app Petting Zoo. Both highly recommended.

"Imagine that it is your professional duty to report a cost-benefit analysis of liberalizing..."

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 14:07:24 -0400

“

Imagine that it is your professional duty to report a cost-benefit analysis of liberalizing immigration policy. You wouldn’t dream of producing a study that counted “men only” or “whites only,” at least not without specific, clearly stated reasons for dividing the data.

So why report cost-benefit results only for United States citizens or residents, as is sometimes done in analyses of both international trade and migration? The nation-state is a good practical institution, but it does not provide the final moral delineation of which people count and which do not.

”

- http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/business/the-egalitarian-tradition-of-economics.html?smid=pl-share&_r=1&

Stowe Boyd: 'Invisible Design' Is A Cognitive Trap

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 11:01:00 -0400

Stowe Boyd: 'Invisible Design' Is A Cognitive Trap :

shoutsandmumbles:

stoweboyd:

Timo Arnall debunks the current infatuation with the #NoUI concept, suggesting that it demeans the user and oversimplifies the difficulties involved for design to make complex things seem simple. His argument is directed both at the metaphor of an invisible UI, but also the value of what it…

Perhaps the most important point he makes in my opinion is:

3. Invisible design ignores interface culture

Interfaces are the dominant cultural form of our time.

We cannot ignore and purposefully disregard the cultural context that these products are fitting within. Yes, an interface can be simple, minimal, but it must not be invisible to the user. We need to have distinct visual cues and experiences.

I wonder if invisible is a poor choice of words (kind of like ‘flat design’). I don’t know if writers strive for ‘invisible writing’, but clarity and brevity are certainly valued.

I think ‘implied design’ is more appropriate. I don’t think all interfaces need to disappear (I don’t know if it’s possible either), but designers should certainly take advantage of when interactions and information can be implied which allows other (possibly more important) elements in the interface to stand out.

Semantics aside, this and the original post are well worth the read.

Thoughts on user research

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:14:00 -0500

I frequently get asked about process and how projects get structured where I work. One of the main questions is does user research happen. It’s always a little disappointing to say “not really”, but I wanted to think about why that’s the case.

Coming out of school, user research was positioned as an almost magic bullet that can solve any problem. We watched this video about IDEO using research to inform the design of a new shopping cart. It seems like an easily repeatable process of conducting research, gaining insight, and creating a solution. It’s been disappointing to learn after school ended, that the story doesn’t always end that way.

Design/user research at its best is an amazing process. We learn and gain some insight about people that we previously didn’t have which leads to better solution. The problem is (and this might be my problem), we don’t always gain insight. Instead, we confirm our assumptions about the world and it’s in this scenario where we get in trouble. Confirming our assumptions feels like a less valuable outcome because it ends up feeling like the research was unnecessary and a waste of time. This makes research hard to sell in my opinion because it’s hard to get people to admit when something is an assumption versus when something has been validated.

What are ways to make this better? I’ve got a few ideas:

1. Do better research and develop more insight. A fair criticism would be that maybe our research process isn’t good enough and needs to be improved. However, it’s a bit difficult to think every assumption can be overturned.

2. Acknowledge that we are making assumptions in the beginning, and one outcome of the research process is to validate that our assumptions are correct. This makes the scenario above a lot less painful since the expectations are much clearer up front.

This is pretty messy in my head and re-reading the above, it’s messy in words too. I’m hoping that by getting this written and out into the world, I can straighten and smooth things out a bit.

"But a more subtle yet much deeper problem lies in the very concept of functionally skeuomorphic..."

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 11:44:00 -0500

“

But a more subtle yet much deeper problem lies in the very concept of functionally skeuomorphic interfaces, independently of whether their appearance is realist or not.

That problem is that when borrowing elements from a design’s previous incarnation, you often also bring its limitations along for the ride, even when these limitations have no reason to exist anymore.

For example, calendars have traditionally featured one month per page, because they’re limited by the physical concept of the page.

But although the digital medium has no such limitation, many digital calendars still adhere to the one-month-per-screen rule out of tradition instead of (for example) centering the view on the current week.

”

- Sometimes people write posts you wish you wrote-this is one of those.

An excellent articulation of the problems with skeuomorphism and why the pendulum is swinging towards flat design.

http://sachagreif.com/flat-pixels/

Sesame Street Venn Diagram (via @cshapiro)

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 10:49:58 -0500

Sesame Street Venn Diagram (via @cshapiro)