Designing for Feel: Feel is not something we talk much about as digital product designers. It’s difficult to quantify in metrics or even describe in words, so it tends to fall to the bottom of a priority list. But we know it’s important. [...] The industrial designers talked about contours that felt gratifying in the hand and actions that provided... See more
With this experiment, we wanted to explore the uniquely dynamic capability of software, which are hard to replicate in a printed, linear medium, for writing.
With so much of our socializing, organizing, and life administration routed through screens and networks, we face the contradictory risks of things disappearing or things staying findable forever. Nothing on our computers stays the same for very long. Software updates, websites disappear, and newspapers edit their copy and hope to get away with it.... See more
Providing this acknowledgement for the people you love is something that I think we could all get better at. Validating the other person’s perspective, reacting and explaining your own, maybe sending a smile. Just like the silence in Wong Kar-Wai’s corridor scene, it’s not just about what is said, it’s about what is unsaid: I see you, I’m here for... See more
The book is not designed for reading at a single sitting, but for several days or weeks. Therefore, the book should have a structure, reference tools and some mechanisms for gradual assimilation and learning.
The collection of names is a dictionary. It helps you map different experiences to the same name. Not knowing which name to pin an experience with is a sign of confusion - you’re missing a category. If lots of different names fit, it’s a sign of nuance and complexity. Perhaps, it’s a lollapaloza effect.
The best stories are often the trickiest ones. The good and bad things about stories is they're a kind of filter. They take a lot of information, and they leave some of it out, and they keep some of it in. But the thing about this filter, it always leaves the same things in. You're always left with the same few simple stories.
This brings me to a problem that we've been noodling on for several years, and to my mind, it still a critical open question. So when you're trying to build these end-user extensible, digital document systems, there's a few desiderata that you want: You want to be very fast. You want to be safe, in the sense of, end users aren't going to be... See more