Well you’re in your little room
and you’re working on something good
but if it’s really good
you’re gonna need a bigger room
and when you’re in the bigger room
you might not know what to do
you might have to think of
how you got started
sitting in your little room
The White Stripes
Here it is: I like to find (a) simple solutions (b) to overlooked problems, (c) that actually need to be solved, and (d) deliver them as informally as possible, (e) starting with a very crude version 1, then (f) iterating rapidly.
Paul Graham
Prolific designer Michael Bierut blogs honestly about a common unease among designers:
The iterative process, the role of improvisation, the adjustments that are made in response to audience feedback, all of these elements are a part of any design process. And, in a way, they’ve always been the ones that have vaguely unnerving to me.
I’ve mentioned [...]
It seems like a bad idea to hide this.A firefighter arrives in an emergency, wearing heavy fireproof gear. It may be dark out. People’s lives could be at stake. Because of that, the firefighter will keep looking.For website users, the threshold for inconvenience is much lower. Many websites hide contact information, hours, and pricing at [...]
Brian Sooy has a great quote, via Guy Kawasaki:
Design consists of creating things for clients who may not know what they want, until they see what you’ve done, then they know exactly what they want, but it’s not what you did.
The quote made me laugh, most designers have issued this complaint at one point. I’ll [...]
Catching up on PJ Brunet’s blog, I read an interesting quote, from Cartographic Principles (it’s the third):
3. SIMPLICITY FROM SACRIFICE Great design tends towards simplicity. (Bertin) Its not what you put in that makes a great map but what you take out. The map design stage is complete when you can take nothing else out. [...]
It had to be said. And Greg Storey (Airbag Industries) said it well:
I’m tired of this nonsense that suggests a “non-designed” site will be more successful because people are sensitive to using applications that aren’t under the thumb of the man. Or maybe I missed the part of human evolution where people are extremely brand [...]
Robert Scoble posted some thoughts on what he calls “anti-marketing design.” Scoble contends that ugly designs make better websites: more sticky, better brands, more fun, and more revenue. He cites Google, Craig’s List, and MySpace as ugly successes.I disagree with Scoble that ugliness drives the success of these sites (which is an idea he reinforces [...]