Issue 25: Liquid death methodology
Overview of patterns for designing dashboards; What is wrong with the Lean Startup methodology; AI PBR Texture Generator and so much more!
Hello, dear readers! 👋
In this issue, among other things:
- Overview of patterns for designing dashboards
- What is wrong with the Lean Startup methodology
- Overview of various design systems and tips for designing your own
- AI PBR Texture Generator
- Service for storing and organizing design systems
- Affinity Product Updates
- Tips on designing a notification system for order statuses
- Nvidia introduced new AI for generating images based on a text description
- Free web service for quickly creating well-designed presentations
- Quotes from "The Inmates Are Running the Asylum" book by Alan Cooper
Enjoy reading!
📚 Book quotes
This time I suggest you pay attention to the book "The Inmates Are Running the Asylum" by Alan Cooper. Read the quotes and decide if it's worth your time and attention.
In all other construction disciplines, engineers plan a construction strategy that craftmen execute. Engineers don't build bridges; ironworkers do. Only in software is the engineer tasked with actually building the product. Only in software is the "ironworker" tasked with determining how the product will be constructed.
Sort of like the pilot saying, "We're gonna make Chicago on time, but only if we jettison all our baggage!" I've seen product managers sacrifice not only design, but testing, function, features, integration, documentation, and reality. Most product managers that I have worked with would rather ship a failure on time than risk going late.
High cognitive friction polarizes people into two groups. It either makes them feel frustrated and stupid for failing, or giddy with power at overcoming the extreme difficulty. These powerful emotions force people into being either an "apologist" or a "survivor." They either adopt cognitive friction as a lifestyle, or they go underground and accept it as a necessary evil. The polarization is growing acute.
Eric Raymond says, "Good programmers know what to write. Great ones know what to reuse.
The real interaction designer's decisions are based on what the user is trying to achieve.
Like putting an Armani suit on Attila the Hun, interface design only tells how to dress up an existing behavior.
To deliver both power and pleasure to users, interaction designers think first conceptually, then in terms of behavior, and last in terms of interface.
You can predict which features in any new technology will be used and which won't. The use of a feature is inversely proportional to the amount of interaction needed to control
Most software is used in a business context, so most victims of bad interaction are paid for their suffering. Their job forces them to use software, so they cannot choose not to use it—they can only tolerate it as well as they can. They are forced to submerge their frustration and to ignore the embarrassment they feel when the software makes them feel stupid.
You can blame the "stupid user" all you want, but you still have to staff those phones with expensive tech-support people if you want to sell or distribute within your company software that hasn't been designed.
The Only Thing More Expensive Than Writing Software Is Writing Bad Software
Product successes and failures have shown repeatedly that users don't care that much about features. Users only care about achieving their goals.
Writing software is not a variable cost, but it's not really a fixed cost either. Writing software is an ongoing, revenue-generating operation of the company, and it is not the same as constructing a factory. The expensive craftsmen who build the factory leave and go to work on some other job after the building is erected.
Alan Cooper
🗞 News and articles
4 Major Problems With The Lean Startup Methodology
Sachin Rekhi thoughtfully criticizes the Lean Startup methodology, which involves experimentation and a quick launch of MVP, instead of planning and thorough development. He explains why a meaningful product design is better than an iterative approach, and also examines the 4 problems of Lean Startup, which were brought out by the founders of companies such as PayPal, Wealthfront, Pinterest, Netscape and others.
4 problems of the "Lean Startup" methodology:
- Excessive rejection of long-term planning and strategy. Lean Startup literally offers to look for luck randomly
- The Lean Startup methodology suggests giving up unsuccessful MVPs too early. Sometimes it's worth taking into account mistakes and making the product work
- Lean Startup strives to please users, instead of creating innovations
- Lean Startup supporters rely only on organic audience growth at the expense of the product itself and forget about marketing
Sachin Rekhi
A detailed overview of design patterns for creating dashboards. The authors analyzed the popular types of graphs, diagrams, structures and principles of interaction, explained in which cases they should be used, and also prepared convenient visual cheat sheets.
Vertical and horizontal version of the cheat sheet.
⚡️ Briefly
Design Systems: Useful Examples and Resources. An overview of various design systems and tips on how to make a design system that will be convenient to use.
Cosima Mielke
Transactional Notifications: Their Characteristics and When to Use Them. NN/g give advice on designing a notification system for order statuses. How to choose delivery channels, what to write, what not to write.
Bruce Tognazzini
Figma added support for the "screen reader" function to the prototypes and published a file that tells about this update. Prototypes are converted to HTML so that screen readers can read their contents.
They also announced support for screen readers in FigJam and invite those who want to sign up for closed beta testing.
