Weekly Design Reading List #6: NYC Subway System, Complex Form Design, Game Design and Getting Your Attention Back

Hey everyone.

There are times when its absolutely difficult to find articles and reads for sections and I can’t really help that. The next week, I find a ton of wonderful reads realising how they shape up our society and culture.

I was busy last weekend and hence could not give a summary for the week but here is the one for this week. Happy reading! :)

Graphic Design

1. Michael Flarup says how creating that singular piece of graphic design that users will first interact with each time they encounter your product can be intimidating in Designing Better App Icons.
2. Simon Martin covers How Graphic Design Legend Massimo Vignelli Cracked the NYC Subway System and shows that the problem wasn’t about making a great looking visual system and gridded map for the design community — it was about effectively helping people navigate a complicated infrastructure by giving them the right amount of information when they needed it.
3. Fans and purists will disagree but the new Juventus logo is excellent, regardless or perhaps specifically for how it breaks from convention and tradition and dares to do something different for this specific category. Armin Vit discusses this in New Logo And Identity For Juventus.

Picture Credit: Brand New

UI Design

1. Flat design can be seen as the more sophisticated cousin of minimalism — all design elements are centered on idea of simplicity. However, the simplicity of flat design is hard to achieve. Nick Babich lists out Best Practices For Flat Design.
2. From complex ERP systems to Facebook, applications make meaning out of input. The form — in its many manifestations — provides a gateway for user submission. Andrew Coyle illustrates ways to present forms and the future of data input in Form Design For Complex Applications.
3. Erik D. Kennedy argues that the fundamental skill of colouring interface designs is being able to modify one base colour into many different variations. It’s the tweaking of colour that counts, not the picking of them from the colour theory hat. Read more in Colour in UI Design: A (Practical) Framework.

Picture Credit: Medium

UX Design

1. To spice up their monster essay on icons, iA Inc created an icon monster shooter arcade game. Planned as a one week hackathon, it turned into an amazing one year adventure. Here is What UX Designers Learned Creating An Arcade Game.
2. Faruk Ateş elaborates about when we design products, we keep accessibility, usability, emotional delight and benefits in mind but rarely considered in the process is the social and societal impact of our product being used by hundreds of thousands — even millions — of people every day in A Dao of Product Design.
3. Matt Monihan says and shows how the best piece of software is the one you never had to build in the first place in The World Needs A Better SpreadSheet.

Picture Credit: Voyager

News

1. Get a glimpse into what Opera for computers could become. Each Opera Neon feature is an alternate reality for the Opera browser.
2. Dribbble now becomes a part of Tiny and the Rich Thornett says it felt right in trying to find a bigger, product-savvy sibling that could provide a boost of human capital, resources, and mentorship. Read the Transition Game here.

Picture Credit: Dribbble

Life & Beyond

1. When the scale of our systems with which we interact breaches our comprehension, and control of attention is weakened en masse, the opportunity for manipulation arises. Craig Mod discusses how he saw this and How He Got His Attention Back.
2. Technology didn’t save us. It’s eating us alive. We don’t get any time back, it gets sucked up. Unfettered capitalism doesn’t give you time back or freedom or relaxation. Matt Ruby writes more in “Side Hustle” As A Sign of the Apocalypse.

And with that, I will close for the week. Also Hey, if you like what you just read, please support me with a donation via Paypal.me or share this resource by hitting the green “Recommend” icon so that other people may also stumble upon this reading list.

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