TAG: Design

Hire two designers, not one

If you can’t hire a designer it’s probably because you don’t have a design culture.

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Tips on how to hire a good designer

It seems like everyone is hiring designers! They’re hiring product designers, UX designers, creative directors, directors of design, UI designers, visual designers, etc. There are even acquihires of entire design teams! So…how do you find a good designer? First, a quick backstory for people who have never read my blog before. Until this past August […]

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On Apple’s design culture

A fascinating tidbit about Apple’s culture from ex-Apple senior designer Mark Kawano in this interview with Fast.co Design. “It’s actually the engineering culture, and the way the organization is structured to appreciate and support design," Kawano said. "Everybody there is thinking about UX and design, not just the designers. And that’s what makes everything about […]

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Jony Ive on quality

I think it’s really easy for anybody to say “we care about quality” or “quality is job #1”. In fact, I just wrote it twice…it’s very easy to do. But actually executing on quality is extremely difficult as quality takes time and care. And it’s hard to argue for something that takes time when all […]

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Should designers listen to people?

Nice post here on several common design problems: We listened to the people, not the problem. The money quote: “When flexibility itself overtakes your solution, or worse, becomes your solution… that’s a problem.” Too often the takeaway from experiences like this is “don’t listen to people”. But this does not capture the subtlety of the […]

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Always be capturing: a valuable tip for effective meetings

I recently wrote up a really valuable lesson we learned from the Google Ventures design team, that applies to much more than design: Always be Capturing. “‘Always be capturing’ is about the habit of continuously recording the value from your conversation. For example: If you’re talking about a new concept, you should be sketching it […]

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Redesigning Google

Lots of interesting bits in Redesigning Google: how Larry Page engineered a beautiful revolution. The thesis: “We went to Google looking for the person responsible for the new design direction, but the strange answer we got is that such a person doesn’t exist. Instead, thanks to a vision laid out by a small team of […]

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Who Owns Your UX Philosophy?

Brad Feld asks Who Owns Your UX Philosophy?. “I’ve come to appreciate the important of a single person in the company owning the UX with this person being the arbiter of discussion around how to implement the UX. There’s nothing wrong with lots of different perspectives, but a single mind has to own it, synthesize […]

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Design is not veneer

Some good thoughts in Design is not veneer by Aral Balkan, including this one: “There are no shortcuts to good design. There are no silver bullets, no magic buttons, no silver sixpences. Every design problem is unique. Design is a process, not a product. And you cannot take part in the process by ignoring the […]

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What Jerry Seinfeld can teach us about interaction design

Jerry Seinfeld may not be a designer, but we can learn a lot from his life of craftsmanship.

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