this year, these are the things to watch out for. we've got to start solving real problems, problems that are hurting people and the world and need to be solving. we need to be saving the world, because we're the people who can think our way around it, and we have the best technology and power any generation has ever had. but as mike monteiro writes, "we don't need another app to rate your sandwich."
we are cautioned to pay attention and respect to all the design that has come before us and try to avoid being so ignorant and arrogant as to presume that we should solve a problem all be ourselves without considering all the headway that's already been made.
the next two, i think, are pretty well linked, and things that i'm going to be struggling with from here on out… we've gotta stop wasting our energy trying to salvage work that obviously isn't going to come together. we've gotta recognize a dead end and start over before we drain anymore time and effort into a hopeless situation. but it's hard, because that means giving up on something that you've already spent a good deal of time on, and letting that time you've already lost be well spent because you've eliminated an ineffective possibility, rather than clinging desperately to it. similarly, we've got to stop doing what we think we should be doing rather than what we actually want to do. we hobble ourselves against the idea that the clients want a certain thing and even though it's not how we would prefer to do it, we end up undermining our instincts by trying to get inside somebody else's head without asking them. the common thread here is this vague sense of obligation or insecurity that makes us feel the need to do things right by somebody else and generate only the right answer. gotta get over that.
this next one's easy, or at the very least, simple. it's all our own faults. nobody is climbing inside and messing things up for us. we need to own up.
we also need to remember to stay curious, and not get content with knowing the things we know, as though they are unchanging and will always be enough. (they won't.)
in the same vein of the earlier related two, we've got to learn to screw up earlier and move past it sooner. that way we can abandon the things that aren't working, stop trying to save them, and move on.
i really adored this next resolution: stop being mean to your mom. or more specifically, stop using her as an example of the lowest common denominator of user proficiency. "so easy your (obviously incompetent) mom could do it" is the tragic phrasing (and subtext) of way too many people encouraging intuitiveness. intuitiveness is great, but let's be a lot more respectful and a lot less needlessly, bafflingly sexist.
resolution number nine really warmed my heart, too. we've gotta get good at writing. if we can't write well, we're going to have an awful time selling our work for the ingenious problem solving it is. "good design" doesn't just "sell itself," apparently.
and relatedly, we've gotta be able to man up and assert ourselves when our solutions are challenged and we feel that we are right. obviously criticism is always important to receive gracefully and respectfully, but sometimes if we explain ourselves more clearly, people change their minds.
the web is 95% typography.
while in the early ages of print, it was the typographer's duty to organize and dole out text in a way that was conducive to the reader experiencing the information in a painless and intuitive way, in these days of digital information, it has become, in today's language, more the domain of the designer and information architect. the typeface is much less important than the structure and readability of the text, and it's an exercise in highly effective design to "treat text as a user interface."
reactions to "the web is 95% typography."
very simply this reiterates the things at the heart of the previous page. web design is not about making something look exactly the same on everyone's machine. it is not about constructing an arbitrary grid and jamming information into it. it's all just about guiding the user through the information in as simple and readable a way as can be, on as many different platforms as possible. my favorite moment in this expansion of the first article is less about web design and more just a quote the author tossed down about receiving criticism. he says: "adapt quickly, ignore impoliteness, take everybody seriously." that right there is wisdom to live by.
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