How do I perform? For knowledge workers, How do I perform? may be an even more important question than What are my strengths?. A few common personality traits usually determine how a person performs: Am I a reader or a listener? How do I learn? Writing? Taking notes? Doing? Talking? Do I work well with people, or am I a loner? And if I do work well with people, in what relationship? Do I produce results as a decision maker or as an adviser? Do I perform well under stress, or do I need a highly structured and predictable environment? Do I work best in a big organization or a small one? Peter F. Drucker, Managing Oneself personality
What Le Corbusier got right about office space An Article by Tim Harford timharford.com In the 1960s, the designer Robert Propst worked with the Herman Miller company to produce “The Action Office”, a stylish system of open-plan office furniture that allowed workers to sit, stand, move around and configure the space as they wished. Propst then watched in horror as his ideas were corrupted into cheap modular dividers, and then to cubicle farms or, as Propst described them, “barren, rathole places”. Managers had squeezed the style and the space out of the action office, but above all they had squeezed the ability of workers to make choices about the place where they spent much of their waking lives. ...It should be easy for the office to provide a vastly superior working environment to the home, because it is designed and equipped with work in mind. Few people can afford the space for a well-designed, well-specified home office. Many are reduced to perching on a bed or coffee table. And yet at home, nobody will rearrange the posters on your wall, and nobody will sneer about your “dog pictures, or whatever”. That seems trivial, but it is not. workpersonalityownershipmodularitychoice
Downsides of the internet An Essay blog.royalsloth.eu The type of nitpicking behavior that I mentioned earlier, is especially problematic since it often causes the loss of writer’s authenticity. With time, these criticisms cause one of the following: The writer stops publishing their work. The writer stops reading comments and minds their own business. The writer learns their lesson and sands off their edges in order to fit better in the society du jour. The larger the writer’s audience, the more likely it is for the writer to pick the last option and tone down their voice. You can experience this first hand when reading the essays of prominent bloggers. Their early work is usually interesting and fun to read, which naturally brought a large audience to their doors. But the more the show goes on, the more they will waffle around the topic, since with a large enough audience every thought will be misunderstood and nitpicked mercilessly. writingwwwcritiquepersonality
Idiolect A Definition en.wikipedia.org Idiolect is an individual's unique use of language, including speech. This unique usage encompasses vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. An idiolect is the variety of language unique to an individual. This differs from a dialect, a common set of linguistic characteristics shared among a group of people. Things you didn't know you can be bad at languagepersonalityidentityexpressionspeech
A case against "pixel perfect" design An Essay by Chuánqí Sun uxdesign.cc I feel the push for the “pixel perfect” design has largely overlooked many of its practical, social, and ethical implications. We are working against the grain of the woodGood design is practical design
We are working against the grain of the wood A woodworker works along the grain of the wood to prevent splinter. A butcher slices across to the muscle fiber to improve tenderness. A sailor trims the sail to balance the lift and drag from the wind. When we respect the material, the material pays us back in convenience, safety, and efficiency. Good web design requires the same understanding of and respect for the materials. And that material is the browser, along with its semantic HTML, default styles, and standard behaviors. But the wide use of design software such as Figma, Sketch, and AdobeXD has trivialized the nuances of such material into “canvases” or “artboards” of pre-defined sizes. The convenient styling and manipulation of pixels and objects have disguised the hierarchy of the DOM, the constraints of the device, and the personal preferences and browser setting from real users. Dishonest tools encourage dishonest design. We are working against the grain of the wood. The Web's GrainWhat the brick really wants.What the material wants to be materialwwwdesign
Good design is practical design In the context of web design, Dieter Rams’ principle is not only a resounding criticism against mindless trends and meaningless decorations. It is a humanist reminder to put material honesty and social responsibility above the pursuit of the “pixel perfect” design. Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible fashionethics