Design Envy

There are three ladies that immediately come to mind when I think of rock star designers that I aspire to be like. They work hard, do a brilliant job, and are extremely successful. Oh yes, and they love what they do (as they should!). These women are definitely shining examples of the success you can achieve when you pour your heart into your work. I’m just one of many recognizing them, and I hope you can draw some inspiration from them as well.

Meagan Fisher has a brilliant eye for design and a great handle on writing clean, accessible code. She shares some great links, tutorials, and ideas on her blog.

Jessica Hische is well known for her beautiful typography and amazing illustrations. She has become an extremely successful freelancer shortly after leaving school. She attributes her amazing typography skills to drawing it day in and day out for three years.

Nubby Twiglet covers design, typography, business, fashion, and many more subjects on her highly popular blog. Her  keen sense of design and grasp on a well run business has taken her far, and she’s happy to share her tips to success.

I try to keep an eye on emerging designers to draw inspiration and am happy as I watch them grow with each success. Along with that, their work is enviable, and as Jessica Hische says, “Envy can be a big motivator.”

Sleek and Shiny vs. Steam

I was reading this article by Rachel Hinman of Adaptive Path and was intrigued by their efforts to make a mobile device that would do well in less tech savvy markets such as rural India. Hinman noted that the sleek, streamlined design of devices such as the iPhone deter exploration and tangible interaction. She goes on to say that her design team turned to the style of Steampunk. “It’s an aesthetic that invites the touch of the human hand and it encourages engagement and fosters curiosity and play.”

I love the aesthetic of steampunk for it’s whimsy and nostalgia, but I realized that there’s another reason. It’s exactly as Hinman describes- it makes me want to explore and tinker with the item. It’s a very visceral aesthetic, which we lack in the digital age. More and more there’s what I would call the Apple Aesthetic, which is one button- if you’re lucky. You have to rely on the gizmo’s internal screen to lead you around by the nose- you can’t just hit a button and have it do what you want (I should note here that I am, at heart, a curmudgeon).

To me it feels flimsy and almost unreal. And if the devices internal computer seizes up, you’re out of luck. With that in mind, Adaptive Path’s idea of adding tangible interactions would, to some degree, be welcome in tech-savvy markets. While the typical American wouldn’t want all the buttons and gauges they’ve included, I would think something with a bit of “real” interaction would be welcome. Though we all oohed and aahed when the iPhone first came out, I mourn the loss of a few buttons to mash when I need something quick. Not to mention the tactile benefit of feeling buttons when you’re trying to call someone and drive at the same time…

My grumbles might fall on deaf ears as I’m taken into the sleek and shiny future, but I don’t think I’m alone in saying I would like the best of both worlds. If technology is capable of anything, then it can certainly give me a few buttons.

Here Comes the Heresy

I’m going to commit heresy by disagreeing with Donald Norman’s article, “Words Matter. Talk About People: Not Customers, Not Consumers, Not Users.” In it, Norman proposes that we stop dehumanizing the audience for our products by calling them ‘users’ and refer to them as ‘people’. He recognizes the potential problem of there being multiple roles in the product development process (the people who design, the people that are going to buy the product, etc) but he states that it’s no excuse.

Here comes the heresy: isn’t that what those ‘people’ are? Users of our products? I don’t think that the term itself is derogatory, but our industry has made it derogatory in that we usually picture the bottom of the barrel when discussing users.

Therefore I believe that the real challenge lies in changing our thinking rather than our semantics. We could refer to users as “geniuses” and still reference them in a disparaging tone. In my mind “user” is still a term for people and it does not have to have a negative connotation. It was a term created to set them apart from the developer and the client. This is the person who is going to use the product.

But I’m not totally dismissing Norman’s point. I do agree that we need to be specific in our terminology when referring to users. Sometimes one product will have multiple users and many different roles. Creating personas is one way to deal with this. For e-commerce sites you can have “Sharon the Shopper” and “Mark the Merchant.” This allows you to get to know your target audience and think of them (as Norman requests) as people.

In the end I agree with the need to put a face on your ‘user,’ but I do not think we need to change our vocabulary when initially approaching a project. Instead we need to take on a more difficult challenge; we must change our thinking. I believe Alan Cooper has the right approach when he says, “Think of your users as intelligent but very busy.” Design for easy, efficient use that compliments your user’s strengths and supports their actions. They are our audience and our partners in design; work hard to get to know them and give them the best experience possible.

Negative blockers and tiny gods

It seems so obvious now that it’s laughable, but until I started working in such a large company, I had never realized how key communication and collaboration were in the development process. It was a naïve notion, but I pictured designers mocking up the UI, ‘throwing it over the fence’ (or in this case, the cubicle wall) and having the developers go at it. In my mind, that’s how the process went. Of course, now I realize that it’s about constant communication and the discussion of ideas so that everyone has a personal investment in the product.

In a perfect world, the designer and the developer would work in harmony, traipsing through fields of wireframes and code with utmost respect for each other and open minds eager for revisions. We have good intentions, but that’s rarely how it goes. So when I came across two great articles that detailed the at times tense dynamic, I couldn’t help but send it out to my department.

“These are amusing to read, but basically can be summed up in a few words: collaboration is key to success. Sometimes developers and designers clash over aspects of the development process when instead they should be discussing and brainstorming. These articles detail how these conflicts arise.

One discusses how designers can become ‘the negative blocker guy’.

Another details how programmers can become fickle gods of their code universe.

The articles are part of a series entitled ‘Things I learned the hard way.’ Let’s not learn it the hard way and instead keep these ideas in mind while developing together.

As it says in this article referencing this series, ‘It’s about approaching developers as co-conspirators in producing great work: designers know what needs to happen and developers know how it can.’”

Both have great skills to bring to the table, so let’s become tiny, positive gods of the domain together.

Function before Form

I’ve been browsing around A List Apart lately for some inspiration, and I found this article: A Dao of Web Design. Extremely well written and carefully crafted, this article gave me one of my new favorite quotes:

Firstly, think about what your pages do, not what they look like. Let your design flow from the services which they will provide to your users, rather than from some overarching idea of what you want pages to look like. Let form follow function, rather than trying to take a particular design and make it “work”.

This states much more elegantly what I’ve been trying to put into words for sometime, and it has a very nurturing language. Instead of forcing your content into a design that’s all about flashy graphics and effects, instead ask yourself “how is this information asking to be presented? What is the best way to showcase it’s most important points?” After all, being a designer is about taking the path that leads to a fufilled user and client- not fulfilling your own desire to create a design that looks amazing but is difficult to use.

Sometimes we get lost in the visuals and forget to ask “Why?” Why does the page have a side nav instead of a top nav? Why is it a three column layout instead of two? These are all valid questions and you might find yourself scrambling for an answer if you didn’t take the time to analyze the information first, and let the design grow out of the function.

But as they always said on Reading Rainbow, don’t take my word for it- go and check out the excellent article by John Allsopp

Uncomplicated

More and more I’ve been checking out Cooper’s blog. It’s all very brilliant, but I especially love how they break design theory down into bite size chunks. They create an ongoing dialogue about design theory for those of us who want to learn more, but don’t necessarily have the time to sit at a coffee shop and contemplate dense design discourse.

My recent favorite is a simple explanation of personas by Chris Noessel. It combines two of my favorite things: the Simpsons and straightforward communication of ideas (is that too specific to be one of my favorite things?). Beyond giving me a great way to talk to clients/co-workers about proper use of personas, Noessel highlights how important it is to find a common language with those you work with. Too often we become wrapped up in our own little corner of the world with our special vocabulary, and we forget that people may not be familiar with all of the concepts and techniques that we cite. We have to find strong examples and illustrations of our ideas in order to get our point across, lest we find ourselves looking across the table to find an assortment of blank faces, glazed-over eyes and, in extreme cases, drool.

Beyond boardroom embarrassment, it’s a shame when good ideas and simple solutions are thrown to the wayside because people can’t understand what in the world you’re talking about. And we certainly shouldn’t look at finding ways to clearly explain our ideas as a chore or as ‘dumbing it down’ for the masses. It’s our job as designers to be clear communicators- whether verbally or visually. Indi Young in her book Mental Models notes that we design types tend to flaunt the scholarly language. She suggests keeping an eye on this and returning such vague phrases as ‘Implement written culinary method’ to colloquial language, which would go something along the lines of ‘follow the directions on the back of the macaroni box.”

Design, much like life, does not have to be complicated.

Psyop

Since a friend pointed the site out to me, I’ve become really enthralled with Psyop. They have some of the most interesting ads; they’re gorgeous illustrations with some extremely inspiring ideas.

What I like best about the site is that they flesh out and illustrate concepts. Change, influence, persuasion- you can’t just draw a simple picture and everyone will go ‘Oh! That’s supposed to be change.’

I’d like to explore that in the future with my own work. How do you explain an idea that everyone takes for granted? It seems like it would be a lot of fun reaching into the abstract and returning with something concrete and visual.