Read These (Product design links for your 🦃 holiday commute)

Here’s what we’re reading this week as we prepare and recover from the great Annual American Turkey Bloat™

Thomas: After last weekend’s group-texting with friends about the current state of college football, (and partially wanting to throw my phone out the window as a result), this proposed simple iMessage notification tweak by @lewisplushumphreys to group together multiple short incoming messages caught my eye. Apple are you watching? https://medium.com/@lewisplushumphreys/rethinking-message-notifications-on-ios-c201edea59a2#.wts5d4wgl

Thomas: If for nothing else, to validate that I’m not a the only one fighting the good fight, I enjoyed reading about other designer’s top UX or usability issues they encounter in the world. Testify 🙌 🙌 🙌 🙌 🙌 🙌 https://medium.com/swlh/the-8-worst-ux-mistakes-coming-from-experts-692884971f80#.sac9pn4p5

Sarah: This is a visually lovely site with some weird little usability quirks. Overall good branding and illustration that works to recommend places to check out across the globe. Another benefit is they’re curated by designers, so not the typical tourist list. http://www.onthegrid.city/

Sarah: To be transparent, this link is blatant self-promotion. Over the course of a few days I pitched in on a small project started by some really smart creative people. The goal was around sharing out ways we communicate with each other through difficult conversations. The references to tools and frameworks are helpful for any team. https://www.thegreattask.us/misgiving

Thomas: This post from Jared Spool last October was recently resurfaced to me, and it’s remarkable to see how Axial’s design team taking this to heart over the last year has dramatically improved our process. There’s still a lot more we need to do, but remembering this lesson (and expanding this to other parts of the organization as well) is key to building good products is constantly observing and talking to your customers. It’s like mom telling you every day for 18 years to wash your hands before dinner, and then you forget for a while, until a few bad colds sideline you and you realize she was onto something there. https://medium.com/@jmspool/fast-path-to-a-great-ux-increased-exposure-hours-afde796f2e43#.http0wgqs