design

The perils of designing for scale

“We are in the midst of a major social transformation — moving many of our day-to-day activities from physical places to information-based places that we experience on our phones and computers. The central question here is: How can we design these information environments so they serve our social needs in the long... See more

I’m glad that I’m not the only one who misses old school human curation. For me, it’s more about wanting a connection moreso than valuing the actual thing being shared. I think this trend is accelerating. With generative AI and the ever-present algorithm that has sucked itself into every facet of our life, a part of the response to it will result... See more

We learned the hard way that new products are hard enough to figure out, and we should make as many things as familiar as possible. Again, life and new products are hard enough. When you can use a familiar term instead of being original, do so. Never opt for a solution that is more creative but less effective.

First, I think great web design requires discipline. And that’s really the hardest thing about making a website. In this field there are a thousand yes’s for every no because, and here’s the second reason: it’s impossible to hold a website in your hand. It’s hard and sometimes tedious to see all the variations of your work across the infinitude of... See more

To this day, when someone wants to reference the dollar bill in a design, it’s noticeable how certain visual cues remain—even when the medium and the level of fidelity are completely different. Leveraging mental models from previously established fictions helps create a feeling of familiarity, which in turn helps people believe in the new, emerging... See more