Defining the problem goes a significant way toward solving it.
Proprioception—sometimes regarded as the sixth sense—helps us understand our orientation, coordinate our movements, and make sense of the world around us. It helps us turn space into place, turning an abstract set of dimensions into an environment that we understand and can manipulate accordingly. (via a list apart and Cennydd Bowles)
When LayerVault 2 launched earlier this spring, we believed that we were taking a risk by pursuing an entirely flat interface.
Well-loved products on the web share a similar design aesthetic, with roughly the same kinds of bevels, inset shadows, and drop shadows. For designers, achieving this level of “lickable” interface is a point of pride. For us, and for a minority of UI designers out there, it feels wrong.
We certainly didn’t invent the flat style but arriving at it was a violent process. We tore through hundreds of revisions (we have the LayerVault timelines to prove it) to potential interfaces before arriving at the answer that now makes us say “of course.” The desk at LayerVault’s original headquarters (my Manhattan apartment) still has the battle scars from objects being slammed down in anger. At one point, while working on a mockup, a MacBook was slammed shut so hard it was nearly unhinged.
It’s your job as a designer, and a communication professional, to find the right language to communicate with your client. When you say a client doesn’t “get it” you might as well be saying, “I couldn’t figure out how to get my point across. I am a lazy designer. Please take all my clients from me.
Too true, and something I’ve increasingly realized over my first year as a freelance web designer. (Happy freelance birthday to me!)
(via timoni)
Metrics for success can be internal or customer-focused. Keep both, but make final decisions based on those that are customer-focused. (the things your customer does care about)
Six Sigma is a methodology for improving the quality of everything from the manufacturing of minute electronic parts to the development of complex software.
At its core, it has a set of tools that helps identify and eliminate defects, waste and undesirable outcomes.
While there are many tools in the six sigma toolbox, here are six that we apply when improving the user experience of websites, software and hardware:
