case study
Lying vs. Simplifying – Ready? Fight!
Lying and simplifying aren’t the same. In fact, they’re not even friends-in-law. They’re archenemies. That’s right. Think Batman and The Joker, Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan, Glenn Beck and Rahm Emanuel. As designers, it’s essential that we understand this, because our lives are spent shooting for simplification. But far too often in our quest for UI Zen, we fall into the bottomless pit of lies, lies, lies.
My attempt at making a web site look like the logo-plastered walls of any corner store in Guatemala. Also my attempt at Latin Alternative Rock. Listen here.
case study
UIs that lie & the users who believe them
Interfaces are one of the principal sources from which a person learns about his or her work. That understanding gets turned into diagrams, charts, and maps that, whether accurate or not, come to define the work that person does each day.
case study
The Case Against Using Your Head
I’m an amateur singer-songwriter when I’m not at work or asleep (let’s say for now that they’re mutually exclusive), and for the last few years I’ve been writing and performing material with different bands, duos, and on my own. Throughout that time I’ve tried different things to get my songs from pen and paper to studio and stage. It’s a typical creative process – start with an idea, work, work, work, end with a performance or a recording or both. For the longest time, my process for getting from point A (“Mmmm…good idea…”) to point B (“We’re going to play a song for you called…”) was pretty straightforward.
“Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You [can only get there] by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you are doing. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself.”Alan Alda