"That interface made the iPod experience special even for those who had been intimately involved in designing it. For Stan Ng, the head-slapping moment came when he took his own prototype home for the first time. 'I probably had 80 or 90 CDs' worth of music on my Macintosh; transferring down superfast over FireWire and then being able to pick any music, any album, whenever I wanted to was a feeling of freedom, of empowerment. It was just magic. I don't know how else to put it.'"
19 December 2006
12 December 2006
Elegance
Simplicity may put too much control in the hands of designers. Which is sometimes ok, because we’ve hidden a lot of tedium and the internal structure (the machinery). But if we make everything simple, we’ll end up de-skilling users by only giving them the lowest common denominator in their products. Imagine if all cameras were point-and-shoot!
Elegance removes us from this trap. An elegant design contains the necessary, essential, and occasional features in a way that doesn’t impinge upon any of their uses, revealing and hiding them as necessary. Shaker furniture springs to mind, as do rolltop desks, Leatherman tools, and TiVo.
Nineteenth-century Unitarian minister William Henry Channing puts it best, in what could be The Designer’s Creed:
To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common–this is my symphony.
May all our designs (the common) be refined, worthy, wealthy, and, yes, elegant.
Dan Saffer "Strive for Elegance, Not Simplicity," Adaptive Path Blog, 11 Dec 2006 »http://www.adaptivepath.com/blog/2006/12/11/strive-for-elegance-not-simplicity/
08 December 2006
Interaction Designer from PlainSimple Design LLC - Gilbert Lee, Salt Lake City, Utah
Interaction Designer from PlainSimple Design LLC - Gilbert Lee, Salt Lake City, Utah: "I love this quote from Christopher Alexander, which I got from the latest Getting Real workshop by 37signals:
“When a group of different people set out to try and find out what is harmonious...their opinions about it will tend to converge if they are mocking up full-scale, real stuff. Of course, if they’re making sketches or throwing out ideas, they won’t agree. But, if you start making the real thing, one tends to reach agreement.”"
01 December 2006
Simplicity
Simplify, simplify, simplify -Henry David Thoreau
Seek simplicity and distrust it. -Alfred North Whitehead
28 November 2006
Constraints and Creativity
Humanized > Weblog: Web 2.0: Is Converging Towards the Desktop Good?: "Marissa Mayer, the Google VP for User Experience, said it well:
'When people think about creativity, they think about artistic work -- unbridled, unguided effort that leads to beautiful effect. But if you look deeper, you'll find that some of the most inspiring art forms, such as haikus, sonatas, and religious paintings, are fraught with constraints. They are beautiful because creativity triumphed over the 'rules.' Constraints shape and focus problems and provide clear challenges to overcome. Creativity thrives best when constrained.'"
23 November 2006
landscape that feeds his soul
I just watched this show on KUED. I really enjoyed it. The images and the phrase "landscape that feed his soul" from the following paragraph stuck with me. They reminded me of fall drives in Southern Utah.
"There were many, many artists who at that time, responded in one way or another to the war. Some turned to modernism because they didn’t want to paint anything that resembled in any way the world, this corrupt world that we lived in. Dixon, however, that’s when he becomes all the more determined to go back into that landscape that feeds his soul."
"Maynard Dixon: To the Desert Again," To see more of Dixon's paintings go to Maynard Dixon Collection at the BYU Museum of Art.
01 November 2006
not trying to do too much
"Steve made some very interesting observations very early on about how this was about navigating content," Ive told The New York Times. "It was about being very focused and not trying to do too much with the device -- which would have been its complication and, therefore, its demise. The enabling features aren't obvious and evident, because the key was getting rid of stuff."
Ive told the Times that the key to the iPod wasn't sudden flashes of genius, but the design process. His design group collaborated closely with manufacturers and engineers, constantly tweaking and refining the design. "It's not serial," he told the Times. "It's not one person passing something on to the next."
Robert Brunner, a partner at design firm Pentagram and former head of Apple's design group, said Apple's designers mimic the manufacturing process as they crank out prototypes.
"Apple's designers spend 10 percent of their time doing traditional industrial design: coming up with ideas, drawing, making models, brainstorming," he said. "They spend 90 percent of their time working with manufacturing, figuring out how to implement their ideas."
-----"Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like," Jobs told the Times. "That's not what we think design is. It's not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."
Leander Kahney, "Straight Dope on the IPod's Birth," Wired News, 17 Oct 2006 via signal vs noise
18 October 2006
Orbiting the Giant Hairball
Just finished this book that Rich Running lent to me. An excellent read. I went out to try and buy a copy and used ones are running in the $40 to $50 dollar range. Not bad for a book that at one point could be purchased on Amazon for $15.
Chapter 19
Orville Wright did not have a pilot's license.
That's the whole chapter. Its the shortest chapter, but it gives you a bit of the feel of the book. For me it was a fun and insightful read. Highly recommended. (posted to another blog page on 3/300/2005)
keep going
Other companies had already tried to make a hard disk drive music player. Why did Apple get it right?
We had the hardware expertise, the industrial design expertise and the software expertise, including iTunes. One of the biggest insights we have was that we decided not to try to manage your music library on the iPod, but to manage it in iTunes. Other companies tried to do everything on the device itself and made it so complicated that it was useless.
What was the design lesson of the iPod?
Look at the design of a lot of consumer products—they're really complicated surfaces. We tried make something much more holistic and simple. When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can oftentimes arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions. Most people just don't put in the time or energy to get there. We believe that customers are smart, and want objects which are well thought through.
26 September 2006
makes the future tangible today
'Design helps us to bridge the gap between the present and the future,' says Philips CEO Gerard Kleisterlee, 'and makes the future tangible today.'
Jennifer Reingold, "Design Intervention, Fast Company, Oct 2006, p. 88."
Iteration
In the end we had done 64 different iterations of how Google News could look even before it launched.
"Twenty Top Women on Leadership - Marissa Mayer - Google," Newsweek - MSNBC.com, 25 Sep 2006.
29 August 2006
Good design is timeless
"Good design is timeless, while bad design can be a matter of life and death."
NPR : Edward Tufte, Offering 'Beautiful Evidence':
13 July 2006
start with an understanding
"Even today my work is still very much involved in understanding and recognising trends and the way people or societies are changing…The main thing is to start with an understanding of the user, the consumer, and the life they are living. Of course most designers do that intuitively, even if they don't realize it, but within Nokia there are specialists who do that research in a more methodical way."
http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/experience_design_at_nokia.php
01 June 2006
The Beauty of Simplicity
Here is how Mayer thinks about the tension between complexity of function and simplicity of design: "Google has the functionality of a really complicated Swiss Army knife, but the home page is our way of approaching it closed. It's simple, it's elegant, you can slip it in your pocket, but it's got the great doodad when you need it. A lot of our competitors are like a Swiss Army knife open--and that can be intimidating and occasionally harmful."
Linda Tischler, "The Beauty of Simplicity," Fast Company, Nov 2005.
Is Don Norman right about Google?
Is Don Norman right about Google? - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals): "It’s very hard being minimalist in the face of complicated tasks."
01 May 2006
You feel a little vulnerable.
'It's like having a kid,' Graf says. 'You think he's beautiful, but you know there are flaws. You feel a little vulnerable. You just hope other people see the beauty in it, too.'
15 March 2006
graphic paths that are stunning
The challenge for the new maps that are coming ... Is to allow the users to have maximum flexibility in configuring their information, while at the same time leading them down graphic paths that are stunning. In other words, artistic maps that are also great science.
David Rumsey, "The Past and Future of Mapping," O'Rielly Where 2.0 Conference, 29 June 2005. Podcast from www.itconversations.com/shows/detail633.html - quote starts at 27:38.
05 March 2006
Every time you add something you take something away
A design and usability blog: Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals): "Every time you add something you take something away Jason Mar 04
25 comments Latest by Scott Meinzer
What’s the most ignored paradox in software development? Every time you add something you take something away.
Screen real estate. Interface clarity. Simplified testing. Shorter development time. Certainty. Agility. Managability. Adding anything dilutes everything else. That’s not always a bad thing, just be aware of it. Be aware of the trade-offs.
The dilution effect is why maintaining a clear vision for your product is so important. Without a clear understanding of the limits and boundaries of your product, the product will morph into something you no longer recognize. Or worse, something you can no longer manage or control.
A product people loved can turn into a product people liked. Then the product people liked can turn into the product people can live with. Then the product people can live with can turn into the product people can live without.
Of course the reverse can also happen. A product people can live without can become a product people love, but once you’re at the love stage it can turn around on you just as fast.
This reality reveals itself on release day. The first thing you’ll hear from customers that love your product is how they’d love it even more if it did this or th"
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