Good design
Yanis Markin and
Good design
Ambiguity in visual design ultimately leads to a greater variety of functions than designs that are functionally fixed.
Andrea Zittel • Andrea Zittel, "These Things I Know for Sure"
Develop an eye to know when to break away from consistency
Despite hundreds of features, the navigation bar at the bottom of the WeChat screen is four icons: Chat, Contacts, Discover, Me. Zhang: “I told the team to establish a rule that WeChat shall always have a four-icon bar, and never add anything to it.”
Patricia Mou • vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat
The Vignelli Canon
The Vignelli Canon outlines fundamental design principles, emphasizing semantics, syntactics, and pragmatics, along with the importance of discipline, appropriateness, and visual power for effective and timeless design practices.
rit.eduBehaviors/dynamics can be discussed and analyzed as discrete "objects" under your control. Design discussions should often be taking place at the level of the dynamic rather than the level of the functionality. Identify what behavior you want to change first, then piece together the necessary functionality that you believe will enable that... See more
What can software product designers learn from game designers?
fascinating insights on designing products from the previous head of design at Quora. think of the dynamic, not the functionality, then piece together the necessary functionality.
Nothing important should ever be more than two clicks away
Steve Krug • Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition
One of the most intelligent case studies in design is the Chinese tea cup. They’re made without handles simply because if it’s too hot to touch, it’s too hot to drink.
Humans naturally want to add more. Add a cardboard sleeve, add a warning on the outside of the cup, add a handle. The result of all these things never cools down the actual contents.
... See more
love this distinction between levels of design. truly higher level designs are designing solutions instead of features, outcomes instead of products. there's no function more important than this.