A video pulled from a fastcodesign interview with Deiter Rams, “The Greatest Designer Alive.”

“Here, Rams bemoans that more companies don’t privilege design and he argues that for design to have a truly great impact, designers can’t be insulated at a company but report to high-level management.”

NY Times article: The New Humanism

I wish I could be this articulate when I talk about why human emotion is so important when it comes to designing consumer product. Key points for me are;

“…the unconscious parts of the mind are most of the mind, where many of the most impressive feats of thinking take place.”

-and-

“…emotion is not opposed to reason; our emotions assign value to things and are the basis of reason.”

The quicker everyone comes to understand this the more they’ll rely on choices that use emotion to support wonderful customer experience to be successful.

Source: The New York Times

Jason Putorti: Engineering vs. Design

putorti:

The extranormal guy talking about features still thinks that the consumer actually cares about them, and that’s often the mindset of an engineer. Engineers are very interested in making the impossible, possible— and a device and feature are expressions of that possibility. Designers focus,…

Well said. Companies where superb customer experience is a business advantage require an approach were design and design thinking is central to the organizations culture.

The right questions + research = great start to a solid design process.

This is a good read for those who long to make new and interesting things. For me - the article describes what is simply a great start to a solid Design (with a big “D”) process. This approach offers meaningful contraints to solving problems or adding something delightful to the world.

I love the path of heuristic discovery that leads you to uncover an interesting fact no one person would have realized unless they followed their intuition and backed it up by validating that intuition through observation and play. This approach takes practice and the willingness to be wrong and spend time on things you will very likely throw away. The point is to learn and react so we can offer the world something more than a tchotchke.

Source: fastcodesign.com

Designing an Organization That Designs Better Products

Rebekah Cox, employee number one at Quora, writes about what it means to be a designer at Quora. She offers solid reasoning for why designers need to have authority and a seat at the table - that without it they’re pretty ineffective. Also, commentary on design itself being about choices that get made early on is spot… well - on. Those in the Web biz looking for a designer should read this as she also sets some criteria for hiring a designer that I most definitely agree with.

Source: fastcodesign.com

Sketch, Sketch, Sketch

This is really nice perspective on the purpose of UI sketching. Sketches aren’t a qualification for artistry but a tool to explore a lot of ideas quickly - allowing the continuum of the design process to move forward. I would note - save all sketches. Review them and make your own notes about what you think works, doesn’t and what could use some discussion. Preserve your ideas so that you can share them with others you feel should be a part of the design process. What you thought was a trash-worthy idea might turn out to be a treasure to someone else - sparking a conversation that ends up somewhere completely unexpected and wonderful.

Source: 52weeksofux.com

An incredibly enlightening video I’ve watched many times already.

My art college experience allowed me to come to some realizations about what having gone through the public school system offered me as a young person. Sir Ken Robinson, the speaker in this video, validates some of those realizations with clear, objective reasoning supported by our history as a developing world.

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