The visual language of our interfaces has gone through a lot of changes over the past decade. Remember what the Web 2.0 interfaces felt like? Giant type, ginormous forms, and buttons that would make Fitt’s Law insignificant. God forbid you went off task or didn’t know exactly what to do next. Icons lined our digital streets (and still do in some parts). Need to cancel something? A big red circle with an “x” is here so you can be sure what it means.

These days it’s about the content. Design starts with the content. Language is the navigation. The interface is words. We’re advised to choose them carefully. Copywriting is now where the interface lives or perishes. We can’t trust those devious icons or that friendly, yet somewhat unclear language from the Web 2.0 days — we need to be clear and say what exactly what we mean. The three most important things here are: Clarity, clarity, clarity.

“Nothing says Send Message, like the words “Send Message”. You can play with envelopes and arrows all you want. That’s not to say that icon-only interfaces are bad. They exchange initial clarity for long term beauty. It’s a choice you sometimes have to make.” — Des Traynor

With touchscreen, a lot of these rules change. The new applications I’ve seen hint at another (potential) stage of how our interfaces might act. One that stands out is Clear. It’s a to-do list app from Realmac Software (designed by Impending). Now, it’s not available yet, so I can only go by what I saw in the video — it’s all assumptions from this point on. It looks like much of the interface is gestures without labels or icons, lacking any sort of visual affordance. There could be an onboarding for it to help you understand what you can do, but we’ll have to see.

What I find interesting about this interface is that it breaks a lot of our current rules for interfaces. This is the type of interface that I imagine a usability expert would have nightmares about. But it looks fun as heck to use. There is an element of play (no, not “gamification”) going on here. Now, in the context of this application, it looks like this will work very well. The limited job this application does for you allows for the lack of language and icons to guide you. According to the designers, it appears their intention was to question many of the current rules of interface design:

“I think the important thing is to never take anything for granted and question everything — all the known interface design conventions, the clichés and rules of the genre. These are formulas, and to us formulas are just a fancy way of describing the rut you’re stuck in.” — Phill Ryu, in a Venture Beat interview.

The biggest problem with gestures is that they look fun to use, but aren’t always that great. Swinging your arms around like Tom Cruise in the future looks pretty damn cool, until gorilla arm sets in after doing that for an hour. The usability expert might point out that most users today wouldn’t know what the gestures are to navigate without being instructed. And Jakob Nielsen would be somewhat right.

But, I don’t think that’s who this is designed for… or, should I say, when this is designed for. This app feels like an app for the future. One where a toddler today, that has used an iPad her entire life, will be comfortable with it in the future. If some time traveling designer from Web 2.0 created the Clear app, the interface would likely feel very awkward and confining to this next generation of users.

I think it’s interesting to watch interfaces evolve. Especially moving from what we Web nerds call skeuomorphic interfaces. I don’t think our future is trying to manipulate “a picture under glass” of some physical looking thingy.

I understand that the gesture-based navigation for the Clear app is still a finger, swiping at things under glass. However, the playfulness and animated elements unraveling are very intriguing to me. It reveals something interesting happening with our interfaces. We’re just beginning to figure a lot of things out. As Wilson Miner so eloquently puts it in his Build talk:

“We’re not just making pretty interfaces. We’re acutally in the process of making an environment where we’ll spend most of our time, for the rest of our lives. We’re the designers. We’re the builders. What do we want that environment to feel like? What do we want to feel like?” — Wilson Miner

** Author’s note: This post was written the night after Steve Jobs left Apple. As you know, he passed away less than a month later. I believe that my feelings about the future of Apple have probably changed since then. But not the thoughts on the legacy of Steve. Thanks for reading. **

The news was hard to avoid last night. The conjecture on the future of Apple without Jobs steering the ship will go on for longer than I care to pay attention.

This is the beginning of Steve Jobs’ departure. Apple will never be the same.

Most of the sentiment is that people are sad to hear the news and are taking the time to reflect on his career and his impact. However, there are a lot of folks reminding us that Apple, and the talented people there will still be making great things without Steve. As if to say, there are never any star players, it’s always a team effort.

I think that is a load of politically correct talk, and I disagree.

The influence of one person on many others is what makes change happen. Steve has influenced many tipping points. He’s taken us into the PC era and right up to the starting line of the post-PC era. Amazing.

“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.” — Dalai Lama XIV

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For an industry that generates probably more buzzwords than any other, we love to pretend to shun them. So, unless you’ve been living in a cabin in the woods for the last year, you’ve likely been bashed over the head with this term: Responsive Web Design (RWD).

This is the latest in a long line of terms that will eventually spawn thousands of articles, hundreds of books, generate tons of debate within the industry — if it hasn’t done so already. Like every new movement within our community this one has its supporters and detractors. Although, the detractors seem to be few and far between.

Mediaqueri.es – The latest gallery focusing on “Responsive Web Designs”

I haven’t seen the perspective of RWD as much from a UX/design lens, although there have been a handful. We’ve lived with it for a while, tossed it around, written some how-to posts, tested out some things, and now have a gallery of examples (whether or not they are the “right” examples remains to be seen). It’s embedded into our industry and here to stay for a while. Continue reading

In 2005, Cameron Moll wrote an article about something that was as incessant then, as it is now: The redesign.

In a nutshell, the concept he put forward is: Great designers adjust an existing work with little disruption of the foundational design for a goal or purpose. The end result is a modification to the design that improves the user experience. Good designers, on the other hand, recreate existing work focusing on the aesthetic, with a misunderstood notion that it will always improve it. However they end up disrupting and/or damaging the user’s experience making no real impact with the effort.¹

“Like a kid in a candy store, we creatives redesign like it’s the new black. Why do we possess such an insatiable desire to refresh and remake? Why do we thrive on renewal? What tempts us to be seduced by the sway of renaissance?” –- Cameron Moll

His idea that “good designers redesign, great designers realign” seemed to be embraced by many. I say seemed to, because not much has changed since that time. The redesign has continued as an incurable obsession and the realign is a forgotten buzzword of an earlier era. The redesign is the wonder drug of the Web: Bad experience with an app? Give it a new design. Don’t like how Craigslist works? Here’s a free redesign for you.
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There is a well-known saying by Benjamin Franklin that states, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” If we take that lens to interaction design, we could say: In design nothing can be said to be certain, except eye candy and following new trends. The screens are changing, but the approach, sadly enough, is not.

Designers have penchant for all things with textures, embellishments, 3-D characteristics, as well as over-emphasized and generated effects — this is where design is currently hovering. It is heavy on the visible layer of design and that is the intention. This approach is limiting because it places focus on getting attention for the design itself, rather than designing for purpose.

If I had to describe Web/interface design today I would say it looks like anything that Apple does — multiplied by ten. They have certainly given us some of the best examples of experiences and proven to be very profitable with them.
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In 1928 Edward Bernays wrote a book called Propaganda. He is considered by many to be the father of public relations. For him, good PR was not as much about selling stuff, but rather setting up circumstances where things would sell themselves. Instead of selling a piano by putting ads in the newspaper, Bernays convinced the reporters at the time to write about a hot new trend.

The most interesting part is this trend had been completely manufactured by him: “Sophisticated people were putting aside a special room in the home for playing music. Once a person had a music room, Bernays believed, he would naturally think of buying a piano. As Bernays wrote, “It will come to him as his own idea.”¹

This is essentially what we do. We are part of creating an experience. We are manufacturing something that wasn’t there before. Sure usability is important. Yes, it needs to be designed well. Of course, it should function without a glitch. But, are those really what sell the experience? There’s something more intangible that drives people to products: The desire to use it.
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With all that’s happening in the world I find the design community a bit frustrating sometimes. Ok, maybe not so much the community, but a handful of people. In a great moment of success for a fellow designer we find ourselves trolling and upset about something very insignificant. In fact, it’s meaningless. Next week we’ll find another “squirrel” and be distracted by that. Meanwhile, historic things like WikiLeaks and an uprising in Egypt go on in the background.

There is a certain entitlement that we as creative people sometimes carry. It’s a sort of underlying attitude that –- whether or not we see it –- is there. We think that we know much better than everyone else. Our eye for design is untouchable. Our opinion of a designed experience is always right, since most users are “dumb.” We are the chosen ones; The design thinkers and the only creative minds that can impact the world.

Creativity isn’t ours. Just because you can draw better, doesn’t make you a better thinker. Design isn’t just aesthetics, it’s more than that. Even if the shiny stuff we do is what gets the most attention in our industry, it’s not what makes design what it is.
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Aspiring designers are failing. They are being let down by their schools and sometimes by our design community. In America, creativity is on a decline. The resources available online are massive; Quality content is hard to find.

“I’m eager to hire the next great class of designers, but to my dismay–and the dismay of many young hopefuls who’ve often spent many years and thousands of dollars preparing to enter the industry–I’m finding that the impressive academic credentials of most students don’t add up to the basic skills I require in a junior designer.” — Gadi Amit¹

The design community has a new challenge. It’s not how we push design to the next level. It’s not how we best design publications for the 80 tablets coming out this year. It is something I see as much more critical: Guiding the next generation of designers.
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Much of the design advice given today speaks to personal growth. In Brian Hoff’s post “In a sea of Designers: My ‘best’ advice,” he explains how, as a young designer, you have to be able to speak to your value and meet that level with your work. There is great advice here about learning design and understanding what you bring to the table.¹ In another post by Frank Chimero, he gives some great advice to design students everywhere. He eloquently breaks down the experience of learning about design and in this process gives a glimpse into what design means to him.²

There is a certain feeling created about design when reading these thoughts. It is seen as a very singular act. Which generally speaking is true. People convene, discuss, and disband to their corners of the office (or globe) to work alone.

Without the involvement of others we can only reach a certain level with design. The thing we need to make design great is to be more aware of what other perspectives bring and how each of them can make design better.
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Most days we stay in a safe zone with our work. In fact, it’s built into our thinking and how we process decisions. It’s called loss aversion.

Losses feel worse than gains feel good. Rationally we should treat losses and gains the same. But that isn’t the way we are built. Consider how people make decisions when buying and selling stocks. Most people will sell stocks that go up in value, but they will tend to hold onto stocks long term that are going down in value. Selling the losing stock will make the loss tangible and the feeling of that is much worse to deal with. No one wants to lose. It’s painful.¹

We hold onto design directions on projects that seem to be going poorly, hoping that they might turn around. To stop and scrap it all would be admitting that you, as a professional, made a mistake and wasted the client’s money. Starting over is hard after a loss. So we build up boundaries to avoid it. Time is a precious commodity and we can’t risk losing time by taking our design too far into that unknown place. We find ourselves sticking with what is doable, acceptable, and that works every time.

Failure and loss can be good. If you aren’t finding failure in your design work, then you aren’t really exploring all the possible solutions.
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