Why YKK zippers are the brown M&Ms of product design An Article by Josh Centers theprepared.com A ‘pro tip’ for evaluating the quality of a piece of gear is to look at the small details, such as zippers and stitching. Cheap-minded manufacturers will skimp on those details because most people just don’t notice, and even a cheap component will often last past a basic warranty period, so it’s an easy way to increase profits without losing sales or returns. If a designer does bother to invest in quality components, that’s a tried-and-true sign that the overall product is better than the competition. All the way throughThe Cycle of Goodness designdetailsquality
Of Note: Better Text Annotations for the Web An Article by Brandon Dorn www.viget.com Show image 0 Show image 1 Generally speaking (and ignoring questions of styling, API availability, etc.), an ideal Web annotation pattern follows these principles: Annotations appear in close visual proximity to the primary content. Their design neither distracts from nor hides the primary content. The preceding principles are followed regardless of screen width. The only pattern I’ve found that meets these criteria is FiveThirtyEight’s. ...As it turns out, FiveThirtyEight didn't invent this pattern. It likely originated in medieval illuminated manuscripts which contain “interleave notes” — comments written literally between the lines. readingwwwaccessibility