Embracing Asymmetrical Design An Article by Ben Nadel www.bennadel.com Humans love symmetry. We find symmetry to be very attractive. Our brains may even be hard-wired through evolution to process symmetrical data more efficiently. So, it's no surprise that, as designers, we try to build symmetry into our product interfaces and layouts. It makes them feel very pleasant to look at. Unfortunately, data is not symmetrical…Once you release a product into "the real world", and users start to enter "real world data" into it, you immediately see that asymmetrical data, shoe-horned into a symmetrical design, can start to look terrible. To fix this, we need to lean into an asymmetric reality. We need to embrace the fact that data is asymmetric and we need to design user interfaces that can expand and contract to work with the asymmetry, not against it. To borrow from Bruce Lee, we need to build user interfaces that act more like water: “You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.” — Bruce Lee The pernicious issue with pangramsChanging Our Development Mindset datainterfaces
The Best Interface is No Interface A Book by Golden Krishna www.nointerface.com "There's an app for that."Slap an interface on it!Aim higherThis is UXThe most seamless and wonderful way+4 More The answer to a brief is not necessarily a building
Slap an interface on it! How do you make a better car? How do you make a better fridge? How do you make a better trash can? How do you make a better restaurant? How do you make a better vending machine?
Aim higher “There’s one more thing you need to do: Aim higher the merely trying to recreate Silicon Valley. You should try to kick our butt instead.” — Guy Kawasaki
This is UX When you hire someone to generate UI, you won’t get new, innovative solutions. You’ll get more UI, not better UX. This is UI: Navigation, sub navigation, menus, drop-downs, buttons, links, windows, rounded corners, shadowing, error messages, alerts, updates, checkboxes, password fields, text inputs, radio selections, text areas, hover states, selection states, pressed states, tooltips, banner ads, embedded videos, swipe animations, scrolling, clicking, iconography, colors, lists, slideshows, alt text, badges, notifications, gradients, pop-ups, carousels, OK.cancel, etc. etc. etc. This is UX: People, happiness, solving problems, understanding needs, love, efficiency, entertainment, pleasure, delight, smiles, soul, warmth, personality, joy, satisfaction, gratification, elation, exhilaration, bliss, euphoria, convenience, enchantment, magic, productivity, effectiveness, etc. etc. etc. uxcollections
The most seamless and wonderful way I believe our job as designers is to give you what you need as quickly and elegantly as we can. Our job as designers is to take you away from technology. Our job as designers is to make you smile. To make a profit by providing you something that enhances your life in the most seamless and wonderful way possible. technologyux
The best interface Let’s end the confusion between UI and UX. Let’s stop slapping sirens on children’s toys. Let’s prioritize personal goals over addiction. Let’s get our lives and our health back in balance by interacting with the real world instead of staring into a light, checking new notifications. Let’s think beyond screens. The best result for any technology is to solve meaningful problems in impactful ways. The best design reduces work. The best computer is unseen. The best interaction is natural. The best interface is no interface.
Adapt Digital products can do so much more than have a fancy front end. Even if your company’s core product is an interface, not everything that comes after has to be an interface. If things were that rigid, Apple Computer, the personal computer company, would never become Apple Inc., the world’s largest consumer electronics company. If companies didn’t go after opportunities beyond what they do today, Netflix would still be mailing DVDs in red envelopes. Great thinkers adapt. Great companies offer their customers the best possible solutions, whether they have a graphical user interface or not.
Forgetting Inactivity could be another automatic trigger to erase any stored information. If they haven’t utilized the system in a long time, their food data could automatically clear. With so many services out there trying to grab out attention, knowing that a system collecting more general information will just forget everything it knows about you if you don’t use it for a long time might ease the resistance to trying out the new software in the first place.