“Artists are visionaries. We routinely practice a form of faith, seeing clearly and moving toward a creative goal that shimmers in the distance—often visible to us, but invisible to those around us.”
Julia Cameron
“When launching a new [digital] product, let’s focus more on discussing its PURPOSE and less UI details and features.”
“Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one.”
Voltaire
“Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for miseries and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.”
Blaise Pascal
From Zen Focus’ article Three Little Habits to Find Focus
“The quality of your UX shows how much your respect or disrespect your customers”
Alexis Ohanian - co-founder of Reddit, Hipmunk and Breadpig
“Don’t ignore your dreams; don’t work too much; say what you think; cultivate friendships; be happy.”
Paul Graham, The Top of My Todo List
Based on the top five regrets of the dying, Paul Graham added these five items to the top of his ongoing todo list.
Aaron James Draplin - CreativeMornings
The highly colorful and entertaining Draplin presents “The DDC 50 Point Plan to Ruin Yer Career”. Over 50 minutes he’ll take you through points covering No.6 Get out there and get dirty, No.15 Exhibit a little humility, No.40 Don’t worry about awards, No.43 Go pantless and No.50 Be thankful for everything.
“The trick about writing is to write. There is no trick.”
Story Centered Design
Once you’re dealing with an app that has a dozen screens and hundreds of states, you can’t hold the whole product in your head like a poster. I noticed that our team was emailing around individual screens, talking about individual screens, and naming all the screens just to keep track. But we weren’t paying any attention to how the screens and features fit together.
We were thinking of the product as a set of screens. But there’s a problem with working this way: it’s not at all how people experience the product in real life. People use products in little flows that last anywhere from 30 seconds to a few minutes. […]
A product is not a set of screens — it’s the stories those screens enable.
Don’t let your homepage or primary view of your app be like a great opening chapter to a novel followed by disconnected and boring rubbish. I think it’s time to look at my own process again and see what can be improved.
On a side note the Design Staff blog is a gold mine of a blog for designers, entrepreneurs and researchers.
“With disappointment comes clarity, conviction and true originality.”
Conan O’Brien
“In 2112, creativity will be the most valued form of work because creativity is about going against what everyone (including yourself) believes in. By 2112, our minds will be directly connected to computers. […] The ways of thinking and working that artists and designers embody so naturally will be in higher demand. These skills will be universally recognized as how we advance society’s future, rather than a nice “add-on” as they are perceived of today. Creativity will be the new currency of work, the world over.”
John Maeda, on the future and creativity
“Oh that’s really cool! I’ve never heard of ppl using fb to do customer support!! Most just try to shove items in our face and expect us to buy things off fb!! Lol”
- Cher C., in reply to Style Hatch’s support on Facebook that we just rolled out
If you or the brand you work with has “Facebook eCommerce page” anywhere our your social media strategy, you should fire your team. Ok, that might be a bit harsh, but the truth is people interact with brands on Facebook to have a personal connection not have them “shove items in our face”.
Facebook and social media belong in the customer experience world, not “oh look we can sell our stuff there too”.
![Managing Criticism in Design Exploration
Nearly all successful teams understand and value a design exploration approach to solving problems, but how do you productively critic designs when so many options are being explored regardless of job titles or seniority?
Design decisions should always be based on what’s appropriate for the task at hand. If you find your design is being beaten down, the best way to fight back is to counter with “Well, when would my design be appropriate?”. Conversely, before you take pleasure in destroying someone else’s hard work, first make sure that you can answer “When is this solution great?”. […]
Lastly, always remember the golden rule of critique: don’t be a dick.
Read the full post from Intercom and check out their slick new “customer relationship management and messaging tool for web app owners”.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0xtawHXs01qzv45so1_1280.jpg)
Managing Criticism in Design Exploration
Nearly all successful teams understand and value a design exploration approach to solving problems, but how do you productively critic designs when so many options are being explored regardless of job titles or seniority?
Design decisions should always be based on what’s appropriate for the task at hand. If you find your design is being beaten down, the best way to fight back is to counter with “Well, when would my design be appropriate?”. Conversely, before you take pleasure in destroying someone else’s hard work, first make sure that you can answer “When is this solution great?”. […]
Lastly, always remember the golden rule of critique: don’t be a dick.
Read the full post from Intercom and check out their slick new “customer relationship management and messaging tool for web app owners”.
“Among idealists and visionaries, there is no shortage of good intent, but there’s often a shortage on discipline.”
Scott Belsky, Behance
“Burnout is not caused by working hard. Burnout is caused by not shipping.”
