I frequently reflect how difficult it is to define what makes a good designer. And that's no wonder, we find it hard to define good design itself. It's a bit like leadership, some people are definitely good leaders and some are surely bad ones. There is a huge variation in outcomes, skills and styles, yet …
Think about it deeply, then forget it
Our mind can produce ideas when we step away from a problem. In the TV series 'Mad Men', the central character, a creative head at an advertising agency, gives this advice to his junior to get ideas: Just think about it deeply, then forget it. An idea will jump in your face.This was a common …
What people say and do and… make
It's almost a given that you should not listen to just what your users say, but observe what they do. As the author Nassim Taleb suggests: https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1070982609331781633 Yet we have companies built to measure what people say. Surveymonkey is a public company started in 1999, Google Forms is a similar product, and we even have growing …
Power of email
Email has been around a long time, from internet history standards. It began in the 1960s and is still here. Even though now we have so many other ways to message - including WhatsApp, Slack, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn and even Behance. https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/576174141708996608 So by the Lindy effect, email will be here for a long …
Climbing your creative family tree
Today I came across this little exercise from 'Steal Like an Artist Journal'. The exercise is simple - note down name of someone who influenced you, then write down their influences and so on. I started with Steve Jobs and checked Wikipedia entries on people whom I knew influenced him. My ignorance turned out to …
Addition and Integration
When you write about something, you can present a list of ideas, like Buzzfeed does, or you can make the ideas into a coherent, connected whole. The earlier is faster - you just throw things together and let the reader make sense of it. But the latter lasts longer, gives deep satisfaction. The same thinking …
Accessibility as a priority at Microsoft
I have been slow to change my mental model of what Microsoft has become. I still carry the image of the aggressive Bill Gates who stole the design of the Mac OS, and shipped IE bundled with windows to hurt Netscape, and was hit with anti monopoly laws. But today it's a very different company. …
