05: Design. It’s like your grandma’s secret family recipe—without the Crisco.
Let’s be honest—none of us really know what we are doing in the uncharted world of digital design. Here at Mahalo, we want to thank all writers and publishers who are trying to pave new roads ahead. In Issue #05, we’ll continue to dive into this new era of design. It’s a lot like that family recipe that’s slowly being passed around, clueing us all in to the secret ingredients (keep reading for more awesome metaphors too!).
Traditional computational design thinking?
1-hour video→ • 7-min summary →
John Maeda blew me away with this insightful tech report he presented at this year’s SXSW. There are a few different mediums for you to digest the content (PDF, SoundCloud, Youtube), but I liked the video because I could hear their narration while following the PDF. Check it out! I’ll post some of my thoughts below:
John compared ‘Classical Design’ with ‘Design Thinking’. These two kinds of design differ in practice and outcome — a paradigm shift I’ve been making for a few years now. I was hoping he’d make similar comparisons to computational design and designing thinking. I think the overlap for those two are quite large. I love that he pointed out that computational designers are “working with data, models, and algorithms” and grounded in “mind and Computer + Social Sciences.”
If you’re in school, you don’t get any business, no data stuff. When you are out of school, you want [to know] the business stuff and data stuff. And this is a problem.
Transitioning out of traditional design, to digital design, to UX design, to product design, to experience design—what’s the necessary foundation here? This “design thinking mindset” is the key—which we, unfortunately, can’t really learn in in schools. John awesomely notes that more business schools are offering this type of education (and some free programs!?). I’m also thoroughly excited for Rochelle King’s book, Designing with Data.
Designing (the entire product) with data. 8-min read →
On the topic of designing with data, I found this article about Netflix very interesting. They use data for more than just recommendation engines—it now defines the very products they are creating. If they can see that their market is loving shows about young teenagers hunting monsters,—driving stock up nearly 20%—then by golly, make more teen monster shows! The article got me thinking about how other businesses could start using live-user data to not only influence their product, but define it. Have you seen other examples of such adoption of big data?
Is the user ever wrong? 3-min read →
I had a discussion with a coworker this week about the ever so popular form design. The main question we had was, “Should error validation help guide a user in inputting the right number?” The answer wasn’t easily settled. After I read this article by Jason Zimdars I quickly realised that there are many perspectives on this, with none necessarily being the right one.
In Instagram’s case, they make users feel uncomfortable for taking screenshots (as Jason aptly titled his article “Ugh, you’re doing it wrong!”). Is the feature in IG wrong in helping users share, then? My personal thought, and a similar one to what Jason arrived to, is that the feature is good, but it can be better.
Inside the design process at Intercom. 7-min read →
Brendan Fagan, Sr. Product Designer at Intercom, wrote this awesome process article around redesigning the Profiles feature in their product. From the beginning, I was hooked:
The problem? Nobody was using the feature. Shortly after release, only 13–15% of customers had fully completed their profiles. Most were being partially filled in while many others were left untouched.
While I loved that the goal of the design process was for users to use the feature and complete their profiles (they actually increased the percentage of completions by 300+% with the new design), I’d like to see a follow up article on why profiles exist, how that will then help each business in the long run, and what metrics they have to support profiles as a worthy feature.
Quick input on outcome-based processes: I think that’s where Digital Telepathy’s design process, Objective Based Design, nails it. Check out Brad Soroka’s abstraction of it on his life here.
Shooooots — that’s awesome.
The new technology dictionary, sort of. Sideways dictionary has 70+ words with some insightful (and hilarious) analogies explaining words or phrases that you might hear in the tech world. Don’t be ashamed—I looked up API.
Don’t forget…
Atomic’s Product Design Weekly
Curated posts from Designer News Email Digest
Mahalo Design Digest is a way to give thanks to those in the wonderful, awe-inspiring world of design, UX, and digital-experiences! I (along with periodic guests) will curate links from around the web for you to be stoked on. If you want me to check out what you’ve been up to or an article that inspired you, send me a message! — Cody Iddings
