People First Design Inspiration

"Design is not art, but sometimes it can be. But good design is always -AN- art."

"If user research doesn’t make you feel like a different person, you’re doing it wrong."

Another nice touch by Google Chrome design team: Not assuming that users want Google as their default search engine.  Of course, most people installing Chrome will pick Google anyway - but Google isn’t assuming that people will.  Very different approach than other browsers.

Google frequently makes seemingly small design decisions that go a long way with me. When you install Google Chrome, the option to send them your information is unchecked by default.  Most companies keep it checked by default in the hopes that in their haste, users will inadvertently “choose” to send their info along.

To me this is what a MMORPG should feel like - characters with compelling stories, roles, and backgrounds that make you feel part of a larger story. I am always turned off by games where it doesn’t really matter what character I pick because they all have the same goals - kill stuff > collect stuff > get to end level content > become uber. I am sure this game will have those elements, but I look forward to a game that leads me through a story about my character and why he/she does those things.

"If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."

Often attributed to Lila Watson, who wasn’t comfortable being solely credited for something that had been born of a collective process.  She attributes the quote to the Aboriginal Activists Group, Queensland, 1970s.  

“It’s a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trim tab. Society thinks it’s going right by you, that it’s left you altogether. But if you’re doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go. So I said, call me Trim Tab.”

- R. Buckminster Fuller

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

R. Buckminster Fuller

"The most important fact about Spaceship Earth: an instruction manual didn’t come with it."

R. Buckminster Fuller

I love how the web has transformed what it means to be a fan of something.  This piece of Harry Potter fan art is one of my favorites.

The site on which it is hosted could use a UI tune-up in my opinion, though.

Additionally, if you are further interested in sociality on the web and new fandom, check out my grad school friend’s work on Wizard Rock.  

Jen Terrell.  Indiana University.

Why did it take so long for a clock like this to be designed?  Why have we suffered through decades of vulgar beeping and buzzing to shock us out of sleep?

And the ultimate question - Why does something that restores tranquility and beauty to the fundamental human act of waking from sleep cost $100?

Matt Snyder’s blog and portfolio.

Great aesthetic to everything this guy does.