Bad design is where the customer thinks it’s their fault that something doesn’t work. So if you can’t make your GPS device work in your car — I mean, there should be a riot because they’re so poorly designed! Instead, the user thinks, ‘Oh, I’m not very smart, I can’t make this GPS thing work.’ People should demand more from the things they own, they need to demand that things work.
David Kelley, IDEO
Yesterday there was a great interview with Jim Coudal by Mellisa Pierce of Life In Perpetual Beta.
Anyway, there were quite a few little gold nuggets I took away from this video. I’m sure there are plenty more, but these stuck out to me:
If you can get in touch with what’s happening in the creative process, maybe you can make it happen more often.
3 questions we always ask ourselves before getting started on a project:
1. Are we gonna make money?
2. Will we be proud of it?
3. Will we learn something new?Yes, yes, yes, let’s do it.
You’ve got to fail a lot, or you’re not trying hard enough.
Lotus 2009 EVORA. Very nice. Gorgeous design. This puppy is stocked with a 276 hp 3.5L V6, and only weighs 2,976 lbs.
This car is going to move like a demon!
I want one.
I saw this after Siggraph 2007, but I totally forgot about it. This is incredible. I want it!
One of the projects that we recently launched at Ariamedia is a redesign for the City of Allen, located in north Texas. While this would normally have gone uncommented by myself (we launch a lot of websites), an interesting thing has happened.
A reporter named Emily Goldstein of The Dallas Morning News has a piece outlining the benefits of the new launch, and what started out as an article about the launch ends with a short interview with our CEO, Ryan Thompson, discussing the rationale behind the project and our ongoing relationship.
In any case, it’s always nice to be recognized for your efforts, and especially for a project that was as extensive as the one we completed for the City of Allen.
Yesterday, we (as in Ariamedia, the company I work for), launched a new page describing our Web Design offering.
This is the first time I’ve been able to do — with a few JavaScript libraries (and the help of a true JavaScript guru) — everything I wanted to on a single page.
So, check it out, play around, feel free to give us a call if you’re interested in the services we offer.
So, Wordpress 2.5 is out now, and I have to admit, this version is pretty sweet. There are definitely some improvements that have been long coming, but the feature I am most excited about is the improved visual editor.
We’ll see what comes of the rest, and this new admin interface… very intriguing.
Alright, anyone who isn’t living under a rock has heard about Adobe Photoshop Express by now. But, the big question is what on earth is Adobe trying to do?
It seems to me that this is basically a “me too!” response to a lot of great online Flash-based apps out there like Aviary.
It also seems to me that Adobe has been on the “me too!” wagon for a while now, with their releases of software that are direct competitors, not innovators. This is sad for me because I still have (somewhere) the Adobe 88 Beta discs my father had - back then Illustrator was just “Adobe 88″.
Adobe was the innovator and leader in computer graphics at the time, and then made the brilliant move to buy Photoshop, which is the single most adopted piece of professional software on the planet and has spun a synonymous brand/function name, kind of like the iPod, or Bandaid.
What strikes me here though, is that a once true innovator and creator of entire industries is now struggling to keep up, and buys more proprietary software than it invents.
Is the key here to stay small and agile? Can a company the size of Adobe allow innovation, critical thought, and truly brilliant ideas slip through the crack? Or is it going to be relegated to the Microsoft camp of buying up everything that poses a threat, and bloating existing software by just integrating anything new that might be a need to someone somewhere?
I hope for Adobe’s sake, and for the sake of the community at large that there will eventually be a bright spot in the future where Adobe’s origins in invention break out and something truly new and exciting is born.
I am currently walking from my house down the street to my parents house typing this post on my iPhone.
I can safely say that this product is every bit what I thought it would be, and has enabled me to do things I thought I never would, like managing my website anywhere I am. In fact, I find myself blogging about the fact that I’m blogging about the fact that I am blogging on my phone. That did make sense in my head.
My point is this though — a great product delivers on its promise.
There is a brilliant post on A List Apart that goes into the philosophy of designing for the details.
Consistency displays sophistication and shows that you fully understood and made sound decisions. Consistency should be transparent.
Article: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/designisinthedetails