Archive
10/04/15 by holden
Utility vs. Beauty
A good designer always works to keep the form, function and the aesthetic quality of a design in balance throughout the life of a project. Just because something looks good doesn’t mean its useful. And just because something is useful does not make it beautiful. More often than we want to admit, we use glitz [...]Archive
10/04/14 by holden
Constraints Fuel Creativity
We are often led to believe that the more freedom we have the more creative we will be. Full creative license? Sweet. Unlimited budget? Awesome! No timetable? Even better. Yeah, right. I say embrace your constraints and draw out of them the very solution that sets you apart from the crowd. The imposition of constraints [...]Archive
10/04/13 by holden
Deliverables vs. Delivery
Wireframes, flow diagrams, personas, card sorts, content strategy documents, etc. All of these things are important to design, and designers need some combination of them to synthesize their user research and communicate what they’re doing with the other members of the team. But too often these deliverables are the last line of contact for designers. [...]Archive
10/04/12 by holden
Solutions are easy if you know the problem
“Good design is problem solving.” – Jeffrey Veen You could say that actually solving the problem is good design in practice. This rarely boils down to choosing whether or not to apply that “1px inner glow” or rearranging a few blocks of content. Quite often, it means eliminating one’s own assumptions and applying problem-solving techniques [...]Archive
10/04/11 by holden
Solve Existing Problems
In our attempt to create amazing user experiences, we often want to push the envelope, to create something new, to show people a bright new future. But too often we fall into the novelty trap. The novelty trap is when, in an attempt to dazzle our clients and our users, we focus too much on [...]Archive
10/04/10 by holden