Linknote — — 108 words

Human-centred approaches — User experience — User research

The 9 rules of design research

One of the hardest things about design or user research is convincing people that it actually needs to take place. That is especially maddening when working for an research organisation.

(Researchers themselves are sometimes the most reluctant to undertake user research before spending serious amounts of money on ineffective websites.)

So this snippet, among a series of useful rules of thumb, made me cheer. 🙌

If you’ve ever worked with a leader who was resistant to doing qualitative research as part of a million dollar project, ask yourself whether they would skip doing their own research before buying a $50,000 car.

Linknote — — 117 words

Personal — Web

A few notes on daily blogging

A striking article, partly because I find it slightly eerie that the author chose to start blogging daily on 1 October, the same day I started blogging again.

I haven’t quite managed to blog on a daily basis. Although I do publish something at least once a day, I tend to write multiple posts at a time and schedule them for future publication.

(As an example, I’m writing this on Wednesday 28 February, in the expectation that I will publish it on Tuesday 6 March.)

As a result, I’m not sure I have benefited yet from resuming my regular blogging. Perhaps I will endeavour to carve out some time each day to write something.

Linknote — — 115 words

Human-centred approaches

Design, system

Ethan Marcotte on the “delicate act” of working with a design system. It’s the same challenge facing anyone working with a hub and spoke structure.

How do you balance a drive to standardise designs (or business processes, or policies, or whatever), against the often legitimate requirement to meet unique local needs?

It’s easy for an organization to look at that one-off pattern as a problem of compliance, of not following the established rules. And in many cases, that might be true! But it’s also worth recognizing when a variation’s teaching you a lesson: namely, that your design system isn’t meeting the needs of the people who’re using it.

Linknote — — 43 words

Architecture

Woolworth’s British shopfronts

A great history of the architecture of Woolworths shopfronts in the UK.

It’s amazing how often you can be walking around a town and Britain and recognise a former Woolworths just from the shape of the shopfront that remains.

Linknote — — 111 words

Culture

What colour is a tennis ball?

It’s the dress part two!

I make this decision as much on the basis of what I think I know about tennis balls—that they are yellow—as I do on what color I recall that they looked when I last saw one… In other words, like the color of a lot of objects, how we label [a tennis ball] is determined both by perceptual and cognitive factors: the actual physical light entering your eye and … knowledge about what people have typically labeled the objects.

I have to say, it never occurred to me that a tennis ball might be any colour other than yellow.

Linknote — — 79 words

Human-centred approaches — Technology — Web

If Google wanted to get found in Google

If you ever have to say you’re simple, you’re not. Because if you were truly simple then you wouldn’t have to waste time telling people you are. You’d just be simple. Only those with complexity syndrome feel the need to explain that they are simple. The more you have to write about how to use your product or service, the more you have failed as a designer.

Linknote — — 22 words

Architecture

Kia Utzon-Frank creates brutalist-inspired marshmallow treats

I love concrete, but I can’t say I have ever wanted to eat any… Until now!

Linknote — — 76 words

Business

The big problem with change programmes

An intriguing connection between modern human narcissism and corporate change programmes. Did they both start in the same place?

> Far from pursuing some unrealistic dream, perhaps we’d be much happier if we learned to live with our imperfections, neuroses and human frailties…
>
> Maybe we need to accept that not all problems are there to be fixed. That our organisations are flawed. They always have been and always will be.

Linknote — — 112 words

Media — Politics — Technology

Inside Facebook’s hellish two years — and Mark Zuckerberg’s struggle to fix it all

A very lengthy, but entertaining and informative, read about how everything went wrong for Facebook in the past two years, and why it is a mess of their own making.

While Facebook grappled internally with what it was becoming—a company that dominated media but didn’t want to be a media company—Donald Trump’s presidential campaign staff faced no such confusion. To them Facebook’s use was obvious. Twitter was a tool for communicating directly with supporters and yelling at the media. Facebook was the way to run the most effective direct-­marketing political operation in history.

Linknote — — 43 words

User experience

Satisfying fundamental human needs

How UX designers can ensure they “satisfy our intrinsic needs”.

There are lots of really interesting examples that I hadn’t seen before. If nothing else, it’s a pretty eye-opening insight into why Costco is designed the way it is.

Linknote — — 19 words

Culture

Oxford comma dispute is settled as Maine drivers get $5 million

Sometimes grammar pedants are annoying. Sometimes they’re worth $5 million.

Linknote — — 56 words

Technology — Web

Last blog standing, “last guy dancing”: How Jason Kottke is thinking about kottke.org at 20

As some ponder the apparent resurgence in blogging, Jason Kottke looks back on the past 20 years as one of the few who never stopped blogging. But reading between the lines, it sounds like he wouldn’t bother starting up a blog today.