Why do we assume that simple is good? Because with physical products, we have to feel we can dominate them. As you bring order to complexity, you find a way to make the product defer to you. Simplicity isn’t just a visual style. It’s not just minimalism or the absence of clutter. It involves digging through the depth of the complexity. To be truly simple, you have to go really deep. For example, to have no screws on something, you can end up having a product that is so convoluted and so complex. The better way is to go deeper with the simplicity, to understand everything about it and how it’s manufactured. You have to deeply understand the essence of a product in order to be able to get rid of the parts that are not essential.
What’s clear, and it’s been said before, is that there’s an opening for a new type of designer. Someone that understands interaction design, product design and can add character to things through behaviour. A light touch. Very subtle in order to make them believable – without them being too ridiculous.
I had a lovely time chatting with @JenSimmons, host of The Web Ahead podcast on the @5by5 network. We talked about interface design, working in design teams, and the joy and pain of critical feedback. Have a listen, won’t you?
Why are some company’s websites more memorable than others? On the surface, it might seem to have to do with originality, visual impact and branding. But what if I were to tell you that the most important factor is how a site makes a visitor feel?
That’s the premise of a new book by Aaron Walter, the lead user-experience designer for Mail Chimp. Based on the title, Designing for Emotion could have been just another collection of pretty design samples embroidered with squishy commentary. Nothing could be further from the truth. Walter’s approach is direct, rigorous, at times scientific and filled with practical insight and humor. The book is part of the truly excellent A Book Apart series, and Mail Chimp, if you haven’t had a chance to use it, is easily the most pleasurable of the gazillion SAS email marketing platforms out there. So despite the title I found my finger ineluctably moving to the checkout button.
My weekend morning ritual in these chilly months of fall and winter begins with a fire. I love our fireplace. After eighty years of service to the families before us, we had it rebuilt brick by brick so it can warm our family for years to come. It’s the center of the house. It brings the family together, warms cold feet, and supports hand-made Christmas stockings. How else would Santa visit our house?
A friend of mine has a new fireplace, and has struggled to learn the art to lighting a fire. The first year of our new fireplace was fraught with false starts, incessant relighting, and frustrating fire baby sitting to keep the flames alive. After a great deal of experimentation and some tutelage from friends, I’ve finally figured out how to light a fire with just one match and keep it going with little effort.
There are a host of interesting books about psychology, design, emotion, and how our brains work that informed my book, Designing for Emotion. Here’s a list of essential books for the shelves of any user experience designer, web designer, or content strategist interested in the topic of emotional design.
We take our brand very seriously at MailChimp, not because we are hyper brand-nazis, but because our brand is our personality. It’s who we are as individuals and as a collective. We think a lot about how to convey our personality consistently while adapting to different contexts. MailChimp’s Content Curator, @katekiefer, has been pondering how to shape the MailChimp voice while adapting tone to the emotional state of readers. We have a lot of people writing for us, and guiding them into the voice of the brand can be tricky. That’s why we’ve created a simple little website that shows our writers how to use the MailChimp voice. It’s called Voice and Tone.
