Tags: design

Chaos Design: Before the robots take our jobs, can we please get them to help us do some good work?

This is a great piece! It starts with a look back at some of the great minds of the nineteenth century: Herschel, Darwin, Babbage and Lovelace. Then it brings us, via JCR Licklider, to the present state of the web before looking ahead to what the future might bring.

So what will the life of an interface designer be like in the year 2120? or 2121 even? A nice round 300 years after Babbage first had the idea of calculations being executed by steam.

I think there are some missteps along the way (I certainly don’t think that inline styles—AKA CSS in JS—are necessarily a move forwards) but I love the idea of applying chaos engineering to web design:

Think of every characteristic of an interface you depend on to not ‘fail’ for your design to ‘work.’ Now imagine if these services were randomly ‘failing’ constantly during your design process. How might we design differently? How would our workflows and priorities change?

Design is a (hard) job. | Zeldman on Web & Interaction Design

It me:

Writing comes naturally to me when I’m expressing myself on my own site, with no outside assignment and no deadline except my own sense of urgency about an idea. It’s easy when I’m crafting a brief text message or tweet. Or a letter to a friend.

But give me a writing assignment and a deadline, and I’m stuck. Paralysis, avoidance, a dissatisfaction with myself and the assignment—all the usual hobgoblins spring immediately to life.

Variable Fonts for Developers

A showcase of fun experiments with variable fonts, courtesy of Mandy.

Why your design system should include content | Clearleft

Rachel makes the case for integrating content design patterns into component libraries:

Instead of content design systems and visual design systems existing in isolation, the ideal is one design system that accommodates everything, marrying the content and design together in the way it will actually be used and experienced.

Exploring the Frontiers of Visual Identity… | Speculative Identities

Brand identity in sci-fi films, like Alien, Total Recall, Robocop, and Back To The Future.

This makes for a nice companion site to Sci-fi Interfaces.

The Patterns Day Edition | Amy Hupe, content designer.

Amy’s talk at Patterns Day was absolutely brilliant! Here’s an account of the day from her perspective.

The evident care Jeremy put into assembling the lineup meant an incredible mix of talks, covering the big picture stuff right down to the nitty gritty, and plenty in between.

Her observation about pre-talk nerves is spot-on:

I say all of this because it’s important for me and I think anyone who suffers with anxiety about public speaking, or in general, to recognise that having a sense of impending doom doesn’t mean that doom is actually impending.

Patterns Day

Here’s a nice little round-up of Friday’s Patterns Day.

Weeknotes #16 | Trys Mudford

Just look at these fantastic pictures that Trys took (very unobstrusively) at Patterns Day—so rock’n’roll!

Patterns Day notes

Stuart took copious notes during every single talk at Patterns Day—what a star!

Clarity and Style · Matthias Ott – User Experience Designer

Styling something is easy. Making something crystal clear is hard.

Using Hamburger Menus? Try Sausage Links · Bradley Taunt

Another take on the scrolling navigation pattern. However you feel about the implementation details, it’s got to better than the “teenage tidying” method of shoving everything behind a hamburger icon.

Drop caps & design systems - Vox Product Blog

Sit down and listen to a story from uncle Ethan.

Baking accessibility into components: how frameworks help

A very thoughtful post by Hidde that draws a useful distinction between the “internals” of a component (the inner workings of a React component, Vue component, or web component) and the code that wires those components together (the business logic):

I really like working on the detailed stuff that affects users: useful keyboard navigation, sensible focus management, good semantics. But I appreciate not every developer does. I have started to think this may be a helpful separation: some people work on good internals and user experience, others on code that just uses those components and deals with data and caching and solid architecture. Both are valid things, both need love. Maybe we can use the divide for good?

VOCAL

Each typeface highlights a piece of history from a specific underrepresented race, ethnicity, or gender—from the Women’s Suffrage Movement in Argentina to the Civil Rights Movement in America.

Building on Vimeo

Here’s the video of the opening talk I gave at New Adventures earlier this year. I think it’s pretty darn good!

An oral history of the hamburger icon (from the people who were there)

From the days of Xerox PARC:

In your garage organization, there’s always a bucket for miscellaneous. You’ve got nuts and bolts and screws and nails, and then, stuff, miscellaneous stuff. That’s kind of what the hamburger menu button was.

Same as it ever was.

SOTB2018 - Jeremy Keith - The Web Is Agreement - YouTube

Here’s the video of the talk I gave at State Of The Browser last year. The audio is a bit out of sync with the video.

The talk is called The Web Is Agreement. It’s ostensibly about web standards, but I used that as a jumping off point for talking about life, the universe, and everything.

I enjoyed giving this talk, but I’ve only ever given it this one time. If you know of any events where this talk would be a good fit, let me know.

Patterns for Promoting PWA Installation (mobile)  |  Web Fundamentals  |  Google Developers

Some ideas for interface elements that prompt progressive web app users to add the website to their home screen.

W3C TAG Ethical Web Principles

• There is one web
• The web should not cause harm to society
• The web must support healthy community and debate
• The web is for all people
• Security and privacy are essential
• The web must enable freedom of expression
• The web must make it possible for people to verify the information they see
• The web must enhance individuals’ control and power
• The web must be an environmentally sustainable platform
• The web is transparent
• The web is multi-browser, multi-OS and multi-device
• People should be able to render web content as they want

Zdog · Round, flat, designer-friendly pseudo-3D engine for canvas and SVG

Impressively lightweight and smooth!