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The Design Of Everyday Things?
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Commonality of design.
Both are objects meant for throwing by hand. It would follow there is an ideal size for handheld thrown objects, and therefore handheld thrown objects would be the same size.
Same reason doors you push and doors you pull have different handles and it feels wrong when the wrong handle is used for the wrong side.
Read The Design of Everyday Things to learn more.
The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman is a really good general design resource.
In fact, doors that are ambiguous in the direction in which they open are named "Norman Doors" after him.
Yeah. There is something hilarious about an extremely highly up-voted post calling 85% of all people idiots. Presumably a decent chunk of them up-voted this post.
Also presumably the OP considers them self in at least the top 15% intelligence of all people - and they work in retail...sure guy.
A customer walking into a store they've never been to before will face some level of confusion/disorientation compared to a retail worker where that store is their entire world - they know every corner of it. Doesn't make either of them "dumb as rocks".
I worked with mechanics who struggled with pretty basic math but could take an engine apart with their eyes closed. Which of is more "intelligent"? People are people. We are good at different things.
There's an interesting book, The Design of Everyday Things, which really describes in detail how people interact with objects/environments. A big theme is that if someone is struggling to interact with your object/environment/system they aren't stupid - your thing sucks.
...You don't even know what UX stands for, do you? It's USER experience, just FYI. And that means it applies to everything from websites to real world products.
"The Design of Every Day Things" by Don Norman - Really focused on the nature of objects as things that solve problems first and foremost. Centered on industrial design rather than digital, but for a non-designer I think that's actually better, because it helps break the "design = UI" paradigm most non-designers have.
it really does. If anyone else wants to know more about this check out 'the design of everyday things' by Don Norman, its a really neat book, and has pdfs floating around online too :)
If a UI doesn't meet the needs of users, then it should be adjusted. You're hung up on blaming someone - the user - whereas the question is how to modify the tool to stop this situation from happening again. Blaming the end user is all too common of a way for companies to explain problems and that type of mentality is far too pervasive in websites, the area where I work. It really needs to stop being the most common reflex.
I would recommend reading the following book. It was written before the age of websites touchscreens, but is more relevant now than ever. https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654
Crime rates are up, the housing crisis is in full swing, COVID isn't going away as we hoped -- it's resurgent. There are a lot of things going on in the world that weigh on people. We tend to try and carve out a little bit of stability where we can and that may involve an easy weekend watching a ballgame with your favorite beer. While in the abstract sense, a beer label isn't all that meaningful in the greater scheme of things, the change can certainly be felt on a very basal, emotional level by some people -- certainly in these turbulent, stressful times.
Indeed, I think a cornerstone of good design takes that into account. If you're interested in design, you may read some of Don Norman's works like: https://smile.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654/
I didn't say it was less likely that people can get information. I said that it exacerbates informational divides; i.e. the disparity between the people "in the know" and the people who aren't is more severe.
The design of the microwave is essential to its function and if it's badly designed, RTFM just doesn't work for the segment of the population who aren't good at reading manuals. This just marginalizes them further because now their purchases don't work.
A cursory mention in the manual shouldn't absolve anything of design defects. Society might take exploding fiery microwaves for granted, but I don't. https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654
How is it not apparent to you that only 3 out of 8 colours mean the same? That is such little overlap, it is literally worse than randomly guessing.
Holy shit, you're identifying way too much with this bad argument.
I'm saying that arbitrary colours instead of numbers is a bad thing, because it's arbitrary. Is it arbitrary? How about we look at your table. Yes. Arbitrary. Two games by the same company use a completely different and conflicting system. Apparently "Orange" is better than "Yellow", and "Purple" is between the two, and "Green" is sometimes top dog and sometimes basically trash. No reason as to why that should be the case. Clearly completely arbitrary.
Is arbitrary bad? I don't know. How about we ask some designers. Like this book here, which is considered a must-read: https://www.amazon.de/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654
What does he say? Well golly I don't know, maybe someone quoted him? Oh wait, yes, I did, because I read the fucking book: Good design is not arbitrary. You don't need a manual to operate an emergency exit door bar, because those are well designed.
So stop frothing at the mouth like a lunatic, because you're wrong about a dumb thing on the internet.
Colors are a bad design to designate 2500 levels.
Yes. It's a quote from his book. :-)
https://smile.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654/ref=sr_1_1
Don't read this if you don't want to rage forever every time you now suddenly realize how easy it would have been to do it right.
>Sorry if I misjudged you. But I genuinely do not see it as the dev's problem if people get so excited they ignore the chaperone.
Yeah, I completely understand your position and I agree that to some extent people just need to take responsibility for themselves. Even so, the job of a designer (a class which includes developers) is to design for people who are persistently fallible creatures. So generally they design for ten-fingered, two-armed, bipedal creatures with front-facing eyes on heads that swivel (in a limited range) and who are prone to bouts of VR sickness, impatience, boredom, fear, competitiveness, occasional stupidity, and excessive exuberance. Everthing in the previous sentence can act as a design constraint.
> Having played this and many other vive games for the past few weeks, I've learned that the biggest thing people are missing is more space.
Yeah, I strongly agree. Unless room-scale VR is to be the domain of only people who can afford relatively extravagant square footage, it's probably the most challenging issue for hardware designers, developers, VR users, and (eventually, I imagine) real-world housing architects who want to include VR convenience as an affordance.
I'm excited to see how developers solve the problem of space. Already we've seen a number of interesting solutions, and I think we're bound to see far more as the medium matures. This is an exciting time in VR for everyone involved.
>It's a simple trade-off for playing games with vigorous physical activity; not a design issue, a space issue.
Design is a wide field that encompasses use of space / range of movement in this context. Really! Here's a brilliant, funny, engaging exploration of the topic that I hope you'll check out.
[Speaking of excessive exuberance, they just shipped my Vive! Time to open a window and throw everything out to make room.]
I don't think this is it, I don't remember it being about data in a statistical sense of the term. I also stumbled upon The Design of Everyday Things, but it still doesn't strike me as being IT.
Well, one of my final classes was on User Interface and Experience Design. That changed my life. Our textbook was The Design of Everyday Things. For being aimed at creating usable apps, the book covered usability in even pennies and stovetops. Design is everywhere, but it isn't always the artsy-fartsy sort people often think about. Designers are first and foremost creators, and the bridge between pretty and practical.
The best book to read as a developer is The Design of Everyday Things. If every developer read it, the software world would be a better place.
I really enjoyed The Design of Everyday Things. I found it useful even as a software engineer.
Are you asking how to become a better designer, or how to recognize good design?
They are different, but not separate things.
This might help, if you're after the former.
If it's the latter you're after, there's a wealth of books out there: this one among them. But really, learning to recognize good design is a long process of ingestion, regurgitation, trial and error, and experience.
Good design can mean many things. Does it look good? Is it usable? Is it actionable (Does it make you want to do something)? Does it convey a certain mood? Does it reinforce the brand? Does it speak to the target audience? Is it fast? Does it get across a certain message as fast as possible? Is it memorable?
You really have to ask yourself what you're trying to accomplish when it comes to design. What are your goals?
You might not look at something like Amazon and say, "That's great design!", but having your design as understated as possible and maximizing usability is as good design (for their purposes) as much as something like this is meant to be the opposite.
It all really comes back to: What are you trying to accomplish?
Learn the fundamentals of design. Broaden your perspective because fundamentals of design are the same across many disciplines. Now learning to execute on these fundamentals takes practice and feedback, so find someone you trust who is more skilled and experienced in design than you are and get them to critique your work.
Amazon link for today's lucky 10,000
Here are some good books on design:
Photoshop has not been a preferred tool in web design in more than a decade. Figma and Sketch are much more widely used.
(ex-graphic designer, now UI/product designer)
So first up, you are asking the right questions :)
#1 You have visual design skills - use them
Most people coming into product design won't have visual design skills already - this could be your edge. Even if you want to focus more strictly on UX later, this could help you get your foot in the door.
If you do, do the dailyUI it will help build up a portfolio and show that you are serious. "Anyone" can complete a course, and it's far more difficult to create a good portfolio.e products useful and usable is quite different to graphic design. In (my experience) graphic design tries to make products stand out, in product design, you have to make products that are familiar enough that people know how to use them, but visually different so that they don't confuse you with competitors.
If you do, do the dailyUI it will help build up a portfolio and show that you are serious. "Anyone" can complete a course, and its far more difficult to create a good portfolio.
Also, I would start brushing up on your Figma skills. (You can get a free account.)
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#2 Start thinking like you are already in the field
Whenever I interview someone, I always ask a question like, "where do you get your design research form?" or "what was the last book that relates to product design that you read?". When you start getting your information "off the beaten track" you start to build more overlapping opinions and understandings. E.g. When is it better to use surveys or in-person interviews, why is the 8px grid better than the 4px grid, when should I get stakeholders involved, etc.
I recommend: https://uxplanet.org/ , https://uxdesign.cc/, https://www.lennyspodcast.com/ , https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Don-Norman/dp/0465050654
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#3 Create a case study
In my company, there was a graphic designer (mid) who wanted to become a UX/UI designer but I never really took it seriously. I get a lot of people asking questions, but they never put effort into the next step. Anyway, this GD, let's call him John, during the Christmas holidays built out an entire case study for this friend's dad's business. He did interviews with customers, showed them a prototype of the website, got feedback from it, created another prototype, and interviewed them again, created the website for real (in webflow), then documented the whole process in a case study on his personal portfolio.
After I saw that, I put in a request for him to join my team, and all the effort and mentoring I give him has been paid back 10 fold.
Anyway, that's just to say: create a case study and add it to your portfolio.
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#4 Acknowledge that you will have to start at the bottom
With any career change, you will have to start as an intern junior. But that's fine, if you prove yourself you can climb the ladder (depending on your company). When I made the switch, I had been a GD for 3 years, and I then became the most junior UI designer. A year and a bit later, a stakeholder found out what my title and pay were they adjusted me to be a senior UI designer. Admittedly, I am pretty hard-working, and the company I worked for was very supportive.
Also, something else to note: Because of the shift from working 'in-office' to 'at-home', design teams are much more hesitant than they used to be about hiring juniors. But maybe because you have some experience this wouldn't be a problem?
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Anywho, feel free to ask me questions in this thread :)
If you're interested in going the UX route, these two books are recommended reading for the UX team at the software company where I work (not in UX though):
Also, these two look like they might be good, but I haven't started reading them yet:
Hi there! I'm a UX/UI Designer and from what I've read you could have what it takes to be a UX Researcher or a UX Designer. One of the foundations of UX is Cognitive Science, the first guy to use the term "user experience" is Donald Norman who has studied (and currently teaches) Cognitive Science for years. You could try reading one of his books (one of the most well-known books in the Design field): The Design of Everyday Things to see if you're interested in the subject.
I'd also suggest maybe doing the Google UX Certification available through Coursera, it's a good introductory certification that'd get you in the right path to apply for a trainee or even an entry level job.
If you have any questions let me know, I'm 30 and I've worked in tech for the last 4 years :)
As you are studying Comp Sci, you should be able to code your own programs already / have a decent understanding of a language or two.
Out of curiosity, how far are you into Comp Sci?
It would be good to get started in UX/UI already. Programs don't have to "do" anything, but you can mock up stuff (InVision, Pencil Project, Figma or such) and then actualise that in a simple program that shows the interaction, handling states etc.
VUW also have a (https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/explore/postgraduate-programmes/master-of-user-experience-design/overview)[Master[Master) of User Experience Design – MUXD)
Have a read of "The Design of Everyday Things" by Don Norman. Amazon
Grab a (free) copy of Entelect's UI Cookbook
Seeing what other people have done, as others have suggested, is an absolutely great start. Also really getting to know the ins and outs of the Material Design system helps a lot, too.
However, if you really want to understand UI and UX, you have to understand the why as well.
For UX, The Design of Every Day Things is an absolutely indispensable resource. It explains why things in the world work the way we do, and how that relates to digital interfaces. For example
For UI, learn and understand basic design principles like emphasis and balance, and how to leverage the grid system & colors in Material Design to achieve those things.
One of the biggest things that I can recommend, that a lot of people sleep on, is motion provides meaning is a key principle of Material Design:
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>Motion focuses attention and maintains continuity through subtle feedback and coherent transitions. As elements appear on screen, they transform and reorganize the environment with interactions generating new transformations.
Tools like Lottie and basic knowledge of animation principles can not only enhance the "polish" of your application but really help reinforce how the application works.
For an example of what all of this looks like when it works together:
Imagine a fragment that slides onto the screen from the right side of the viewport. The Fragment itself has an elevation, which provides a drop shadow in Material Design. This creates a visual connection to the idea of a "material" like swiping one piece of paper onto another. The motion and visual accents also suggest the affordance of being able to also swipe the fragment off in the opposite direction as you would a piece of paper. No training is necessary, the user understands what to expect because of their real-life experience with tangible materials.
I'm actually pretty much a designer turned developer, so I may have some interesting tidbits of information for you.
Designing something is more about getting a 'feel' for something, rather than quantifying things (unless you're dealing with UX directly). Making sure that the client has a good feel on the representation and symbolism on something will be what you're doing most rather than simply churning algorithms.
Learn the Laws of UX. They come with neat little posters as well that you can print out and hang around your office. Some of these 'laws' are things that you will see daily.
Get into the habit of Wireframing/Prototyping first before moving onto a solid design. Unlike programming, most of the time if you dive head first into making a detailed design, some — if not all — of your time after will be spent ripping things out, re-arranging stuff, changing sizes, layouts, etc. which could've been avoided by just prototyping first.
I recommend this book to everyone who is looking to enter design The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman, it will teach you to re-evaluate the world around and understand why things are designed the way the are. It gets the creative side of your brain moving and I highly recommend it.
>ok gua masih belajar sorry , karena gua pikir bisa dapet impresi bagus kalo pake b.ing dan gua udah coba ebenerin pake grammary
Wkwk, ga usah minta maap, ini bwt elu jg. Bener pake bhs inggris ada nilai tambah, cuman kalo ngaco juga keliatannya anda kurang bagus. Bayanging kalo ada yg bikin CV pake bhs gaul.
Kaya "im really learning a lot" penggunaan im harus ada apostrophe-nya dan "I" -nya harus huruf besar, "really" juga sebenarnya redundant tp masih bisa dimaklumi.
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>iya bener gua baru kelar sampe tahap3 dan belum ada duit buat bayar gua brenti karena free trial abis eheh
Coba apply buat financial support-nya https://www.coursera.support/s/article/209819033-Apply-for-Financial-Aid-or-a-Scholarship?language=en_US
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>gua juga masih ada illustrasi jadi ig buat portofolio itu
Ga perlu, behance cukup.
Gw kasih nilai 2/10. Sense-nya uda lumayan, meskipun banyak yg bisa diperbaiki. Tp untuk UI/UX selain sense of art harus paham prinsip2 lain, ky penerapan utk org difabel, motion, gesture, KPI, metrics, dst.
Saran gw selesain Coursera ampe tuntas (wajib). Video/artikel-nya jgn di skip2, pas test jgn cari2 contekan, pure usaha sendiri.
Abis itu bwt nambah2 ilmu coba cek.
https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654
https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ux+interview+questions
Uda gitu portfolionya dibenerin, ga usah nunggu proyekan bikin ky pet project gitu aja, cari ide sendiri, misalnya app bwt becak online (bacol).
Coba elu research tukang2 becak kebutuhan mereka apa dan pas ditanya bisa elu jelaskan detail kenapa begini/begitu bukan sekedar indah dilihat.
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>itu course dari coursera + yes lu bener banget
Klo lulus dr coursera pasti dpt link certficate dengan nama elu. taro linknya disitu, bwt bukti.
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>dikit doang sih bang , iya mungkin kurang ya?
Kurang dong. Ada anekdot dr designer Apple pertama (dia yg bikin sistem dock) jd dia pas awal interview dia bawa tuh ide dock ke si steve jobs, langsung diterima ama dia, point yg diambil dari sini dia tuh proaktif, tau kebutuhan perusahaan.
Jd misalnya ditanya ama perusahaan, harus keliatan kalo elu pengen bgt kerja disitu. Misal ke gojek, elu tau siapa tim UI/UX-nya, sejarah UX-nya (kalo g salah ada diblognya), dan yg lebih baik elu bilang ke hiring manager-nya "Pak, maaf nih, tp sy sebenarnya ada ide bwt ngembangin app gojek.." terus tunjukin deh portfolio elu ke mereka (tp inget jgn terlihat arogan, ttp humble).
Kalo semua cara yg diatas elu uda lakuin terus ttp ga dapet kerja, ajaib bgt. Semuanya bisa dilakuin dalam waktu 2-3 bln kalo elu kerja keras.
There aren't "docs" for design, because design is not deterministic (if you do this, it is "right", if you do that it is "wrong") in the same way coding is. Design involves analysis and judgement to determine the best solution for the problem based on the technical and sensory requirements.
As much as devs cringe to hear it, a good university education in design is probably the best way to learn design. A good design program will teach you design thinking, and you will get constant critique from experienced designers to help you shape your design execution.
If university is not in the cards for you, here are some research topics to help you get started:
There's actually an entire book on the topic, and it's great.
https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654
You're not going to fix every idiot, but you can make your intentions very clear.
Here is a book recommendation for you.
https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654
This is what others have already said, but just going to reiterate it from an in-industry perspective:
Beta testing or participating in user research programs for a game won't be considered experience for either UX design or research. Beta testing can build some foundation for QA or customer support, which are both avenues to get into other disciplines within games, though (obviously you'll need to put in the work to develop the skills needed in whatever discipline you're interested in, too).
User Research is a highly skilled role: at my company all of our researchers have at least a masters or PHD and come from a cognitive science, psychology, or related background. UX Designers are typically less "educated" but still hold post-graduate degrees and various forms of supplemental education (certificates, workshops/conferences, etc.).
If you're interested in getting into Games UX you can pick up some resources fairly cheaply. Some reading recommendations below.
General UX:
- Design of Everyday Things - Don Norman
- Don't Make Me Think - Steve Krug
- Lean UX - Jeff Gothelf & Josh Seiden
- Universal Principles of Design - Lidwell, Holden, Butler
- Elements of User Experience - Jesse James Garrett
Games
- The Art of Game Design - Jesse Schell
- The Gamer's Brain - Celia Hodent
- Game Usability 2nd Edition (preorder) - Various Authors
Full disclosure: I helped author one of the chapters in the last recommendation (but I don't receive any monetary compensation).
For theory and practice:
The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman is a must-read for understanding usability
Dreyfuss' Designing for People is a classic from the Industrial Designer who famously advocated for ergonomics and usability.
More practically:
Designing for People: An Introduction to Human Factors Engineering
Human Factors Engineering and Ergonomics: A Systems Approach, Second Edition
For reference numbers, I recommend:
Human Dimension & Interior Space: A Source Book of Design Reference Standards This is extremely exhaustive and perfect for your application. This was my ID textbook. It's bar far the most comprehensive set of measurements.
Another less detailed standard is Dreyfuss' Measure of Man and Woman
The Humanscale cards that MuckYu posted are awesome and very easy to use but expensive. It's great to see that Kickstarter brought them back to life.
I've worked in support since the 90s... and honestly, I don't think that's fair.
Learned helplessness is a thing. How many times have you tutted at someone to yesyes just click through all that, that message doesn't matter, next next next? And the next time they try that, everything fucks up and oh god why did you click OK to that, you never let it just... Eventually, they just throw their hands in the air and refuse to engage - and I can't blame them at all.
Software is shit.
Take a read of this condescending asshole.
Every single problem he mentions is down to garbage UX.
Computer has some long confusing error message when the guy tries to log in - because the ethernet wasn't connected and it couldn't contact the auth server. So why in the name of all that is purple did it provide a login box at all? If you know you can't do a thing, don't offer to try and then make excuses when you fail. Imagine how pissed you'd be if you queued up for an hour at a bank, only to be told when you got there, after filling out forms and providing ID, that sorry the network is broken we can't process any transactions here today...
Someone not knowing to drill down three layers into the settings UI to change their HTTP proxy because they changed their physical location? Give me a fucking break. Oh, the bus you're riding has stopped working because it's now in a different postcode from where you started? You need to lift that floor panel and adjust the engine, idiot, don't you know anything?
Again and again and again, it's a case of computers failing to capture the user's intent, and failing to communicate in a way that informs their choices.
And blaming the poor bloody user for this is just the icing on the cake.
It's a trap, and it will make you miserable.
Yes it's frustrating, damn right it is. But put your frustrations where they belong: on the people that design this shit, and on the people who have designed this shit in the past, and broken your users' confidence.
Then go read some Don Norman to regain your equilibrium.
What you're describing is "Goal-directed design" The UI components you're describing are "Form Elements". Here are some resources along those lines:
https://qubstudio.com/blog/how-to-design-useful-products-with-goal-centered-design/
https://medium.com/goal-directed-design/user-goals-f55c42be30de
https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654
https://medium.com/nextux/form-design-best-practices-9525c321d759
https://uxdesign.cc/everything-you-need-to-know-about-form-design-16ce7b5a227f
Put in some work learning visual design. It's really hard to learn global design principles without getting consistent informed critique of your work, If you're not making progress learning on your own, find a mentor/critic, or enroll in graphic design, or visual communication classes at your local community college.
College eng prof here (ME). Two great books to start with: Hachette India The Design Of Everyday Things: Revised And Expanded Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465050654/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_X8ZSX98ND1159JJ1GX9V?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1 And Thinking in Systems: International Bestseller https://www.amazon.com/dp/1603580557/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_55HE9VG5MCB9C698GKVV
Depende a qué area te quieras dedicar. Si lo que te interesa es el arte conceptual o el arte 2D para videojuegos, no te recomendaría que hagas una carrera. Si tenés disciplina auto-educate con youtube, cursos en Artstation, Udemy, Gumroad, libros, etc... (Si sabés inglés, también hay mentorías online)
En otro comentario vi que te interesa el diseño, de ser así podés hacer alguna carrera de desarrollo de software/programación, y conocimiento complementario como:
- Psicología conductista
- Arquitectura y diseño industrial (te recomiendo este libro)
- Economía y estadística
- Ludología
- Etc...
Trabajos de diseñador en uruguay hay casi nunca, acá hay uno de Ironhide, por si querés leer los requisitos. Si estudiás programación probablemente vayas a tener un trabajo bien pago (lo más probable), y si te gusta el diseño te podés ir perfilando como diseñador técnico (si te vas al exterior)
Is it this one? I think I’d like to buy it.
Nice, if your a reader I suggest a book for inspiring architects like yourself, The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0465050654/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_i_K78C4M0JF75QBT849KVC
part 2/3
Like, as part of my personal project to increase my global & general knowledge of creativity, I like to learn & do new things on a regular basis. For example, this was an article I read this week as part of my daily short studies:
It presented the interesting concept of a "Design Garage" with four bays:
- Commercial design
- Responsible design
- Experimental design
- Discursive design
Commercial designing being what is traditionally thought of as industrial design, where success is measured in the economic terms of "return on investment", aka "making money". With Responsible design, the point of which is to help those in need. Whereas the goal of Experimental design is simply to explore, and the goal of Discursive design is to express ideas.
This was a really great article for me to read because it gave me some mental "buckets" in which to sort my concepts into, i.e is this design to help people, to make money, to express ideas, or to explore ideas? It's just four concepts & only took a few minutes to read start to finish, but this type of daily iterative forward progress adds up exponentially over time, with no serious investment of effort or time each day!
As far as practical implementation goes, I picked up a 12.9" iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil 2.0 last year as my creative hub. It was a big investment, but it's been absolutely stellar having an instantly-accessible art store at my fingertips! Four great apps I use are:
- Notability: (notes) This is basically an endless-scroll multi-media notepad. Sketch, write, paste in pictures, screenshots, photos, etc. & organize it all in folders with individual endless-page notes, so you can flesh out ideas & concepts & explore freely-drawn mindmaps & whatever else you want to do.
- Affinity Designer: (vector art) Basically like Adobe Illustrator but on steroids, in terms of the UI.
- Procreate: (raster art) Tens of thousands of dollars worth of art supplies for ten bucks.
- Shapr3D: (CAD) This isn't a super heavy-duty CAD program, but you can sit in the living room & watch TV & come up with crazy stuff in 3D, which is pretty nuts! Side note, I recommend IronCAD on the desktop if you want to get serious about 3D designs, as having used the vast majority of commercially-available & freely-available CAD programs on the market, the triball & non-history-dependency are just unbeatable features.
Over the years, I've built up quite a collection of conceptual design tools at home (3D printer, Cricut vinyl/material cutter, K40 laser, X-carve CNC machine, etc.), with my desktop & iPad as my primary digital design studios. This enables me to physically create prototypes that I can thing vinyl-wrap, airbrush, etc. And of course, it all starts with the spark of an idea, which I express as a simple sketch. I usually point people to reddit's own /r/ArtFundamentals/ & their fantastic Draw a Box learning website:
Having grown up artsy, I wish I had taken a more structured approach like this, as art is a skill that can be expressed as a talent, but there are design principles that start with the basics of drawing & branch out into things like industrial design, interior design, etc. I also usually point people the fabulous book "The Design of Everyday Things":
As well as "The Industrial Design Reference & Specification Book: Everything Industrial Designers Need to Know Every Day":
Going back to the "iteration engine" approach to help us make daily progress in small doses, you can take books like these & spend just five minutes reading one or two pages & thinking about it & taking notes & be done with the entire book in under a year, despite being hundreds of pages long! This approach is one of the reasons I like using the /r/theXeffect/ so much. This is a good explainer:
Zooming out, to be both productive & creative, or in other words, to be successful in terms of actually learning & doing on a regular basis, I love the concept of Grit, as illustrated in this video:
The author has a book of the same name; the core concept is that success is achieved by both succeeding & failing, but continuing to make progress despite our failures, setbacks, not being in the mood, etc. Coupled with the X-effect, this allows us to take the concept of the "iteration engine" to power us in terms of moving forward consistently & growing on a weekly basis by approaching creativity & productivity in micro-doses.
That's not to say I won't sometimes hyperfocus on a project for 6 or 10 hours straight, but rather than I'm (1) consistently growing my knowledge and skills, and (2) constantly shifting my perspective & rotating that gem to look at another facet of my current project in process.
part 2/3
Learn the fundamentals of design. Broaden your perspective because fundamentals of design are the same across many disciplines. Now learning to execute on these fundamentals takes practice and feedback, so find someone you trust who is more skilled and experienced in design than you are and get them to critique your work.
​
Why do you have to highlight over an item with your cursor before you can trade? Just use your eyes.
Arranca por el principio
https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654
https://giphy.com/gifs/a3zqvrH40Cdhu
Haptics won't do shit when you're trying to thumb around looking for the right button. But of course you've clearly thought of that, being such a clearly superior engineer.
Maybe try reading the book on HMI or something. Your lack of knowledge is clearly showing. You insulting me won't change that.
> The average end user is a fucking brick when it comes to intelligence.
That's not a very fair take.
Some users aren't terribly intelligent.
Some users are plenty intelligent; they just choose to spend their limited energy and attention on what they care about, instead of tracking the minutia of computer security. (Some of these users could no doubt complain that you and I are bricks when it comes to their interests and specialties.)
Some users are plenty intelligent; they just mess up from time to time. (If all you knew of me was a random selection of my dumbest mistakes, you might conclude that I'm a brick, too.)
In UI/UX and in product support, it's far more productive to treat users' mistakes as indicating possible flaws in the product design ("the design failed to make things clear") rather than failures of the user ("the user wasn't smart enough to understand"). See Don Norman's <u>The Design of Everyday Things</u>, David Platt's <u>Why Software Sucks</u>, Steve Krug's <u>Don't Make Me Think</u>, etc.
Allow me to plugin another comment I wrote earlier : Sure. A very strong graphic design basis is required.
Basically :
typography : get a good book on the topic, do related exercises, and subsequently, learn font families (didones, serifs, sans, futura-likes, etc.) learn the most used fonts on the Web, and why they are so. Off the top of my head, the most popular are Roboto, Montserrat, Open Sans, Nunito, Raleway. All Google fonts because most it will make implementation 100x easier for your dev team.
Not all fonts are suited to all uses : some are best for titles, some for body, some for buttons. Most can fill two functions but not three.
Once you've mastered this, can recognize the 50 most popular and classic fonts used in graphic design (like Futura, Univers, Times, Helvetica, Gotham, etc.), you can move on and begin to play with non-web fonts on websites, tweak their attributes, etc. But it's very important you understand what makes a good font and in what context it is used. I'd say 80% of a good designer is the right use of typography. You can do so much with it once you're at ease with them. Also don't fret, that may look like a lot but it's a skill that's learnt over a long time, it took me the best part of ten years to do it correctly. But if you can just do the basics, and know for which reason you are using some font or variant, that only sets you apart from 99% of the Fivrr rabble.color : once again, buy a good book on color theory, and most importantly on the design movements and how it was used by them. It will give you a large panel of inspiration to draw from and by studying them you will know what speaks to you the most and you will be able to mix and reuse in your designs. In the meantime, you should look at color pickers like Adobe Kuler, learn the hex codes, and bookmark color palettes inspiration websites like ColourLovers. That's the step where you can browse Awwwards for inspiration, trends, what works or not.
iconography : there's basically two types of icons : filled, or outlined. Both have different uses (for instance outlines are mainly used for undefined states, and filled for defined). You've got some variants like color-filled outlined, but they're mostly fads and you always come back to the two pillars. Take a look at IconMonstr and The Noun Project for good refs. Most projects you'll draw from these kinds of databases because they are good and enough, but of course the real deal is developing your own for a year-long process in a design system. I love this part, it's always fun. One very important thing is that all icons in your design system must have the same weight and fill the same grid (you don't mix 16x16 with 32x32), a mistake most juniors designers do but that's glaring when you begin to interact with them overtime.
negative space is a substract of color theory but no less important. It's how you manage all your elements in a given space. Mostly you can't learn it, you'll pick it up over time and series of exercices. It's the most important part of the design process - managing what you can't see - but the only one you can't just pick in a book.
rigor. I can't stress enough how important this is. When building design systems, ease you way overtime by building incremental blocks of components that you can mix, match and reuse with ease. You hate it when you have to dig into someone else's spaghetti code ? Same goes for designers.
best practices are a set of ill-defined web rules that work and to which people are used, mostly drawn from classic design systems like Google Material design. Like, people expect a login CTA in the right upper corner, hover menus, taskbars in apps, this kind of things. Good for starters, good to be overcome as well, a pain point the Fivrr/Dribble crowd never got over because they didn't get the aforementioned basics first.
Like 99% of the dev process is knowing how to ask the right questions on StackOverflow, 99% of the design process is knowing where, what and why to take inspiration from. The more refs you have, the wider the range of choices you'll able to give your client. Unless you're a genius, no good designer is an artist before being a technician. View it like development.
Once you've had like a month or two of drilling all this into your skull, start a good UI course. I'd personnally recommend Erik Kennedy's LearnUI and Refactoring UI - which might speak you best because Adam Wathan is firsthand a developer. Both are equally brilliant and have their pros and cons.
I'd take a look as well at developement systems like Brad Frost's Atomic Design.
For the psychology part, it's UX and a whole different beast. You've the UXQBDthingI can never remember the correct acronym. I'd stay away from the Interaction Design Foundation. Their courses are good but shady practices and predatory consumer retainment behavior. The two pillar books everybody agrees on the subject are Don Norman's The Design of Everyday Things and Steve Krug's <strong>Don't Make me Think</strong>.
Remember, good habits are easy to implement, but bad ones are hard to unlearn, so don't put the cart before the horses. Good luck !
Merry Christmas !
Tooling:
Learn semantic HTML: learn what each element means, what DOM events it has natively, why it exists, and when to use it. MDN is a great resource for this.
Learn CSS, focus on layout first: Look up grid and flexbox. Jen Simmons is the Yoda of CSS layout, learning from her layout examples is a great place to start.
Learn JS (ES6 to be exact). Skip the intermediary frameworks at first (jQuery, React, Vue), learn the fundamentals of modern js first. If you're into project-based learning, Exercism is great for this.
Now, knowing how to write code is to web design as knowing how to use a saw is to architecture. If you want to be a capable designer, you should also know some universal visual design principles. Here are some jumping off points:
>Georgia institute of technology
Is it this one? https://www.coursera.org/learn/user-experience-design#syllabus
I've had a quick check on syllabus and it seems a bit vague but it sure is a great start for the first step! You're on right right path. And if you find it a bit boring, most of the time, it is. There are great resources out there and you've found a decent one. Beware tho, there are same amount of shit resources pretending that they're the best as well.
If you want to take a step further (and pay a bit) there's neilsen norman group's cerftificate programs and there's this a bit more 'hipstery' but actually good hyper island programs as well.
Also I'd suggest you to start reading this book, it's the bible for ux design. Design of everyday things Make sure to get the yellow one. Black one is a bit older and it's real life examples based on pull-switch fridge handles and folding bus doors. And the yellow is more upto date and talking about with smartphones and electric cars etc lol.
For degree thing, yeah you don't need to confirm unless you're going to apply to an ultra-corporate company. And that's for HR thing. UX and UI outputs are pretty obvious comparing to other branches. I mean if there's a literally product you've released that's a solid proof. That's the working, functioning thing that you've made up and that's exactly what's expected you to do when you get hired.
There are tons of visual outputs when you work on a project. If someone happen to steal someone else's images, just a reverse search on the image would reveal the original poster. Therefore it's a bit hard to lie. Some do give tasks to do before hand tho. Be careful not to spend too much time on them tho. Some companies use this privilege to finish tasks for free.
But at the same time, there are lots of pro social engineers that lie through the interviews but they tend to crash during their work experince (then they end up writing blogs and giving speeches like they've found a cure for cancer)
Hello Danny,
You should def watch this. If did already, feel free to skip the following paragraph.
Basically this applies to every single thing that has a function. So creating a user experience does focuses on creating a flawless experience through the usage of that product/service. It could be an app, or the moment step into M&S and step off - including every single interaction within the shop. This is a user experience. As a user experience DESINGER you should be thinking all of the steps within user's story.
So when you design an experience, the touch points that you've designed wouldn't sound awkward even doing a small talk. For example self checkouts. When you say 'when I was scanning my stuff in tesco' everyone would understand and accept that. That should be how smooth your experience implementations. Not like 'I'm waiting for my bank to send me a card reader thing just to log in to the fucking online banking' This is a terrible user experience *ahem - Natwest and HSBC*
So this is how I would have described UX over pints :) Now I'll get on with your questions.
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What does a typical day look like?
Hugely depends on project. There have been projects that I didn't spend a single minute on computer and there are some I've spend infront of with with out speaking to anyone for months. But these are extreme cases. At the beginning of projects there might be tons of meetings, discussions etc. And if you actually want to design, you might spend most of your time in front of your computer and working.
Prick path: you can just make your way just playing politics and spending zero time doing any kind or research or design. White collar peple love designers because they can be entertaining.
What skills are required to operate in this line of work?
You need to understand how stuff works. If it's an iOS only project, you need to know what you can stack on the tab bar and how and when cards need to be triggered. If it's an atm kiosk project, you need to torture yourself installing a damn windows me on a shit computer and test your screens on it. If it's a luxury car, you need to step outsite from your office and get your ass to the store and investigate whats been going on and watch what customers are doing inside the shop - lol it might sound creepy but there are way more creepy methodolgies than this. eg, 'shadowing'. It's literally shadowing a user, checking on their phone and openly taking notes right next to them.
As for the soft skills, I'd say any visual design tool is a plus. I used sketch for years but the moment figma was out, I switched to that within a couple of months.
Prick path: You can just use word, powerpoint just to do presentations and show of your selling skills. If you feel smart during the day you can even launch excel and scratch your chin while looking at it.
What attributes are needed in someone working this job?
What exactly do you mean with attributes?
Cost of training? I found the Interaction Design Foundation IDF and they look like a fairly legitimate entry point for initial education. Bootcamps maybe?
It starts from free to incredibly expensive. I've checked the IDF but having the forbes quote on their landing page is a huge no no. Forbes is like a paid sponsorship. Did you noticed the don norman on their page? He does have a fab foundation that you can purchase actual trainings and certificates. But it's pricey af. You do learn alot from them tho. They are actually gems. I cannot suggest a specific one tho. But they have tons of consultants that can help you to get what you want.
I'd say start with your own self. Read books about it. You can start with this one. Make sure to get the yellow covered one. The black covered examples are bit old. Read the apple human interface guideline Even though It's focused solely on apple devices it's actually an essential training what should work properly without reinventing the wheel. It openly explains why some stuff designed in such the way they've designed. Through your reading, you might get stuck or get interested in something else. Then you can move forward to that specific direction.
Prick path: You can pretend that you're tired and ask for a training benefit that covers anything you want.
What Freedoms and flexibility do you get?
even if you're working for an extremely corporate company, you might wear shorts.
Prick path: even if you're working for an extremely corporate company, you can wear jeans.
Opportunities for Scalability and passive income streams?
You can come up with your own products / services. But that also means that you have to build your those by yourself. You can sell ui kits, do design consultancy, create your freemium/premium services. Anything you can imagine. Most of the projects on www.producthunt.com are literally the examples of what you're asking. Have a check on there.
Prick Path: trick some new grad devs to be their marketing manager / management consultant. If they get an investment at some point, you can legally strip some that free monies.
What do you enjoy?
Starting a whole new project. It's hopeful and even though I've been doing this for eight years, I still get excited when starting a new project. It's full of opportunities and possibilities.
And at the end seeing those positive reviews flowing is a joy. Seriously. It's the best form of gratitude.
What you don't enjoy?
People who have chosen the prick paths I've described above. Right now the industry is extremely saturated with these random people who are just in to this just they assume 'it's fun'. Any white collar with savings and having a mid-life crisis ends up wearing a reverse baseball cap, grows beard and writes a ux book compiled from their free medium articles. This type of people grinds my gears.
Half of the time, ux is not fun at all. It can mundane, boring and evil. There might a lot of times that you might find yourself creating a fake, dumbed-down cushioned path to trick selling more crap to users. Have you seen the /r/assholedesign ?
Many many dumb people to deal with and try to find the middle way. I remember I had to convince a developer that google fonts are free to use. For three straight days. I remember I had to convince project manager for about a month that 1440x800 is not a mobile resolution.
Please don't just watch videos. I would suggest avoiding youtube. It's mostly pretentious people who're pretending to be design gods. Instead I'd suggest looking into actual designers like Dieter Rams, milton glaser, eric spiekermann. Watch their interviews and study how they approach to problems. Design by word it means a solution method to a problem.
Also this book. https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654 This is like a bible if you actually design something. You can survive without reading this but it'll boost your understanding what actually is design.
In the meantime, I'd highly suggest having a few plays on www.figma.com. Just mess around with it. It's a design tool where most UX designers deliver their stuff and it's free. And it runs in your browser so nothing to lose when trying it out.
The design industry is already heavily saturated with crooks. Even a bit knowledge on these stuff would greatly help to find something.
Knowing how to write code is to web design as knowing how to use a saw is to architecture. If you want to be a capable designer, start with universal visual design principles. Here are some jumping off points:
The Design of Everyday Things - Don Norman
Symbols - Steven Bateman
I'm pretty sure I learned about The Swiss Cheese Model of Accidents in the book Design of Everyday Things.
I believe the author uses both nuclear and aviation as examples, but the lesson taught is to make sure products are designed to have multiple layers of cheese to prevent user error, which is part of the idea that user error is designer failure.
You have a Norman login. It shouldn't be that easy to confuse "back" with "authenticate".
This one isn't specifically interior design, but it is stellar reading material for any subsect of design as an industry.
I was psych undergrad. Software is pretty simple and flexible (whether it's design apps or statistics apps), it's more about underlying ideas in UX. I'd start reading before practicing or you might not do it right; here's a great beginning place.
Also, learn about whether you want to do more UX or UI work; they're not the same.
I highly suggest reading The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465050654/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_1NYtAb5B0R031
Thanks :)
I appreciate your passion and enthusiasm. That's a good trait to have in this field. I've been doing this type of work for little over two decades so I do have a little bit of experience in this realm. :)
You're by-the-book critique is sound and makes sense...technically. But design (of anything usable by people) is a craft...and like any good artisan, one should always consider when it is appropriate to break convention.
> ^“If you can't solve a problem, it's because you're playing by the rules.^” > ― Paul Arden
Now, I'm not suggesting my concepts are perfect - far from it. But I did spend some time considering the points you mentioned. And even after reading your response, I would still contest your assertions (and assumptions).
While it would indeed make perfect sense in something like a productivity app to make proper visual distinction between sorting and filtering (i.e. searching), especially from an IA standpoint, that does not necessarily work across the board, particularly in the context of THIS game.
Platform convention is also out the window on a multi-platform game with an OS-agnostic UI (no standardized, platform-specific nav bars, overlay sheets, action bars or uikit/material user controls).
The design challenge for this exercise was to work within the constraints of an already-established UI. The reasoning: to derive the most value with the least amount of risk (to the developers and the users).
Assuming the devs made a sizable investment in a UI framework (a safe assumption), the problem statement became: What could be added quickly, with minimal technical effort, have the biggest positive impact to players without being wholly confusing to them?
With that, my rationale when it came the Pokemon inventory screen was:
There is very little depth to managing the Pokemon inventory, and therefore no real need to provide distinction between sortable and searchable.
There is also very little real-estate to add in additional, potentially grouped, user control structures.
Anything permanent, that takes up significant space, that is added to this screen (either to the tabs or below them) would be detrimental. With some extrapolated empathy, that would most-likely garner a negative response from the user base.
The fact of the matter is most, if not all players don't care about the difference between filtering and sorting (except us OC UX pedants). They will simply recognize that the contextual menu provides them with the tools they need to manage their Pokemon inventory, and that's it.
They don't need to think very hard about it and will ask less questions, as the menu options are presented clearly, with labels and icons. This satisfies all 5 usability components, which is especially important when introducing new functionality in an established system.
Search works how they expect it to - tap the option, menu goes away and search box appears and can be easily dismissed with the standard X. There is nothing new to learn, and the new functionality is right there where they expect it to be. Sure, they might wonder: "Can still sort while my search is active?" - and to their delight, it would!
> ^“The problem with the designs of most engineers is that they are too logical. We have to accept human behavior the way it is, not the way we would wish it to be.^” > ― Don Norman
Over-analyzing is another common mistake we all tend to make - I'm guilty of it myself. It's good to know the rules, but it's also good to know when to break them.
A couple of books I recommend:
P.S. I'm a fan of UXPin - it's a great tool. Completely replaced Axure for me and my team.
Cheers.
EDIT: Grammar
Have you read The Design of Everyday Things?
Another interesting read would be The Evolution of Useful Things.
It's not specific to software, but I feel like anyone working with UX should read this first: http://www.amazon.com/The-Design-Everyday-Things-Expanded/dp/0465050654
I have a few recommendations, but it really depends on what kind of design you're interested in. UX is an umbrella. If you want visual design skills it'll take some practice and not just reading. There's a bunch of stuff out there on graphic design basics.
Here's a few book recommendations that can change how you think about design:
I edited my post to also contain a book I found useful, The Design of Everyday Things.
we're going digital!
I've been interested in reading this during flights: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0465050654/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=28M2TC6YRURIY&coliid=I2S5KMX0PQ0WWJ or really any other book on my wishlist.
The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman. Then read the k8s docs. If you're working complex systems the book is also relevant.
> do not require to think about how to use it
https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654
"knowledge in the world" - easy to figure out how to do things w/out thinking/knowing all the details. if you know what you need to do, you can figure out how to do it.
vs.
"knowledge in the head" - you have to memorize things. harder learning curve. much much more efficient for power users. most cli tools are "knowledge in the head". most CLI applications in linux are "knowledge in the head" applications because they don't have the same UI affordances as a desktop/windowed application.
GNU screen and tmux ARE CLI applications. you might run one on your desktop directly, but they are even more useful to run on remote servers and keep a persistent session.
also, you may have to tweak the config a bit, but i see almost no difference in actually using screen vs. tmux (except tmux has better features). even the default key-bindings are the same.
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