The Cosmonauts

Translated from the original:

I write novels. And I work everyday as well as I can. This is a job, not a gift from God. I’m not an artist. I have a moral obligation to myself and to those who read me. I have to focus on that and not going around theorizing on literature, which I don’t give a damn about.

Arturo Pérez Reverte at El Cultural

And the original quote, in Spanish:

Yo escribo novelas. Y trabajo todos los días y lo mejor que puedo. Esto es un trabajo, no un don divino. No soy un artista. Tengo una obligación moral conmigo mismo y con la gente que me lee. Tengo que concentrarme en eso y no ir por ahí teorizando sobre literatura, que me importa un carajo.

Arturo Pérez Reverte en El Cultural

I think of UCD (User-Centered Design) a little as I think of Christianism. The fact I’m an atheist today does not stop me from recognizing that some Christian values have shaped my worldview and my belief system in very positive ways.

César Astudillo

A few months ago I wrote an article expressing my displeasure with American Airlines‘ hideous online presence. I also spent some time mocking up a redesigned version of their website. To my surprise, a user experience designer at AA.com emailed me an amazing response describing some of the design problems faced in large corporations. You should read my original article here and the response from Mr. X here.

An hour after I posted the response, American Airlines fired Mr. X.

Dustin Curtis at The Incompetence of American Airlines & the Fate of Mr. X

(Thanks Bastian)

A few quotes on design by our admired Massimo Vignelli:

I don’t think that type should be expressive at all. I can write the word ‘dog’ with any typeface and it doesn’t have to look like a dog. But there are people that [think that] when they write ‘dog’ it should bark.

Creativity needs the support of knowledge to be able to perform at its best.

There are no hierarchies when it comes to quality. Quality is there or is not there, and if is not there we have lost our time.

Any color works if you push it to the extreme.

There is no design without discipline, there is no discipline without intelligence.

We detest the demand of temporary solutions, the waste of energies and capital for the sake of novelty.

I like design to be semantically correct, syntactically consistent, pragmatically understandable.

I like it to be visually powerful, intellectually elegant, and above all timeless.

It’s not important to develop your own style but your own approach.

And finally a couple of videos of him, one explaining his hated/admired NYC Subway map of 1972 and the second one on his appearance on Helvetica (with Spanish subtitles):

Mark Coleran just commented on our recent post about designing interfaces for sci-fi movies giving very interesting insight:

In the movie business, screens and interactive elements have a very low priority in the grand scheme of things (with a few notable exceptions).To really sum it up, there are just three considerations.

The first is to do somethign that sits with the look and feel of the environment and set. The nature of the film always dictates. If it is in the future, then the desire is generally to have a different way of interacting or displaying things, than is currently the norm. It is a small way of differentiating the interfaces. The reality is that these systems might already exists, but are not widely used or known about outside of labs or specialist groups.

The second is the worst part. Prior art. Some of the people involved, directors, production designers, producers, bring with them their own biases, pre-conceptions and pragmatism that can result in less than satisfactory interfaces in the films and content on those interfaces. It is not uncommon to hear people day “I want it like it was in that movie” whether a good example or not. People try to play safe at times and it is not always easy to overcome.

The third and most important part is that the interfaces are there for only two things. Set dressing and story. Irrespective of design and plausability, if they tell the story they are deemed a success by those commisioning. CSI might seem implausable in action and stylistically but they do one thing and one thing well. Tell you what happened or what they have found. This can lead overall to interfaces and systems seemingly doing some very unrealistic things, but in the end the story is all that matters.

Mark Coleran

Approach A

A lot of designers want to increase the line height or padding in order to make the interface “breathe.” We deliberately don’t do that. We want to squeeze in as much information as possible above the fold. We recognize that information density is part of what makes the experience great and efficient. Our goal is to get users in and out really quickly. All our design decisions are based on that strategy.

Irene Au, User Interface Director at Google

Approach B

Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that. I’ve grown tired of debating such minuscule design decisions.

Douglas Bowman, Former Head of Visual Design at Google

Which one would you take?

(thanks, Missha)

We like the definition of the game as “free movement on a rigid structure”. The more rules the game has, the funnier it is. These limitations -or explicit rules- encourage the creation of other implicit ones: for instance we now have groups of users setting the topic of the day and postng videos on that topic. That is much funnier and exciting than a user posting all the videos from his favorite band in a single day.

Alberto Romero on designing unvlog.com (Spanish)

SEO is using deodorant instead of washing. SEO is masking bad coffee with sugar. SEO is cramming instead of studying. SEO is using pain killers instead of going to the dentist. SEO is taking weight loss pills instead of exercising. SEO is a comb-over. SEO is Scientology. SEO is Paris Hilton. SEO is the Zune. SEO is the morning-after pill. SEO is astroturf. SEO is not the real thing. SEO is cutting corners. SEO is not the solution. SEO is bullshit.

Ehogan McCabe from Contrast

We can’t wait for the government to do anything that’s up to us.

Michael Braungart

In the end they will not ask you what you have known but what you have done.

Jean de Gerson

A few days ago I posted something about defining interaction design. Luis Villa replied with a comment that is one hundred times better than the original post. I don’t have his explicit permission to make a post out of it but since he made it public I assume I can. Here it goes:

Sometimes I see patterns…

Information Architecture: how it’s structured
Interaction Design: how it behaves
Information Design/Visual Design: how it looks

Front end
XHTML - How is structured
JS - How it behaves
CSS - How it looks

Backend
Model - Data and structure
Controller - Behaviour
View - the look, the skin of the system

Restaurant (I don’t know if I’m kidding here…)
Kitchen: data, ingredients, structure…
Waiter: behaviour, orders
Table: presentation, look

From my humble point of view, all of these layers in any of the domains (conceptual, logical, physical) has a lot to do with design. Maybe I live in a special place sorrounded by programmers and developers who act_as_designers ;-)

As a pattern, we’ve got three layers: a fundation, an intermediary which routes actions betwwen surface and fundation and a surface, the part that the user thinks is the system (because, from the user’s perspective, behind the surface there’s magic).

I’m not a philosopher, maybe I’m saying stupid things.

Luis Villa

One of the diseases of this age is the multiplicity of books; they doth so overcharge the world that it is not able to digest the abundance of idle matter that is every day hatched and brought forth into the world.

Barnabe Rich (1580-1617)

Seen at Pasta&Vinegar

From the great Mauro Entralgo:

ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

There are industrial designers who look at an object and they modify it to improve its features in a specific circumstance. They designed the folding chairs, the anglepoise lamp and the unfolding package for the butter.

There are other designers who look at an object and they modify it with the purpose of worsen its features for any circumstance. They designed the three leg stools, the square-shaped glasses and the sinks with no place for leaving the soap.

I found Juan Leal’s post about Verplank’s definition on Interaction Desing very interesting, although I am no fan of definitions and compartimentations. I’ll jump to the train, however.

My favorite definition/description/whatever goes like this:

Information Architecture: how it’s structured
Interaction Design: how it behaves
Information Design/Visual Design: how it looks

These definitions are not mine and I cannot recall who wrote them first. I’d appreciate any feedback on it. I am also aware that the boudaries between concepts are not clear at all, especially between the last two. They tend to overlap a lot.

A propos of the old discussion on thinkers vs. doers, here’s one possible solution:

(seen on Danilocorci’s flickr)

I know, I know… only stupid jokes recently. I’ll post something serious soon, really.