Velvet Roundup №5
Welcome to our our probably-not-weekly article where you’ll find interesting articles, links and ideas, and also little updates about what we’ve been up to.
Professional criticism in design
Let’s start with a thoughtful essay by Khoi Vinh in which he argues that design community is focusing too much on technique and ignoring deeper discussions on why we do what we do — we’re missing professional criticism. Nowadays when we are sitting at the table and there are more and more people are starting to see the importance of design, we struggle to understand the larger meaning of design in our culture and are unable to articulate it to our clients, partners and shareholders.
“These lapses in our ability to assess our work go largely unnoticed, but they have an unmistakable effect: They reinforce the mischaracterization that design is largely a superficial exercise. Even though we’ve made substantial progress defusing the myth that designers are only concerned with how a solution looks or “making it pretty,” we’ve only really replaced that notion with the idea that designers are only interested in optimizing for clicks. That’s scant progress, and continues to position designers narrowly in our enterprises.” — Khoi Vinh
Lets talk about web page length and scrolling
As long as I have been involved in creating websites we have had conversations and spent countless hours in meetings about scrolling, before the fold, page lengths, etc. Great times 😏
Marli Mesibov writes in an article at uxplanet.org about the myths that people don’t read or scroll, and concise content means less content.
Ethical use of scarcity in design
David Teodorescu writes a nice analysis on scarcity in today’s design practice with great examples and tips on how to apply it correctly.
“Some might argue that this forces them to make a decision, but as long as the numbers are real, what’s the alternative? Isn’t the sense of regret or frustration caused by us failing to tell them about the scarce product in time just as bad? Aren’t we offering an awful user experience if that happens? Rushing people into making a decision seems rather fair as long as we’re presenting them the facts.” — David Teodorescu
This week at our place and some humblebrag
On Thursday our long time partner and client Denim Dream e-commerce site won awards in three categories from Baltic E-Commerce Summit. Best user experience in:
- Fashion, footwear and accessories
- Best in Estonia
- Best in Baltics
On Wednesday morning our friends from Noored Olümpiale came over to watch our young athletes, Kristjan Ilves and Karl August Tiirmaa, compete in the Nordic Combined at the Olympic games in South Korea.
