Reading Time: < 1 min I recently finished reading Don Norman’s excellent “The Design of Everyday Things“, and I highly recommend it. He mentions in the book something I’ve heard about a bit before that he coined decades ago call “Norman Doors”. As he explains: Somehow, when a device as simple as a door has to have a sign telling […]
Design
The magic is in the mundane
Reading Time: 2 min Apple tends to do something very special with their products that other companies miss — they get the tiny details perfect. I disagree with some of their larger features and goals, but when they do something, they do it right. Going all the way back to the Apple II, Steve Jobs insisted that the chips […]
People aren’t tennis balls
Reading Time: 2 min For an official Type 2 tennis ball, which weighs between 1.975 – 2.095 ounces, dropping it from a height of 100 inches should bounce back up between 53-58 inches. If you take the same tennis ball and do the same test, you’re going to get the same result. People are quite different than that, which […]
“Make it darker” is not an acceptable form of feedback
Reading Time: 2 min Feedback can be a wonderful thing, as I’ve shared many times on here (like “Feedback is a gift“), but only if it’s the right kind of feedback. If someone says “I like it“, that’s not very helpful, because our clients are not the people that we build websites for. Their liking it or not is […]
Make the complicated simple
Reading Time: < 1 min Making something simple can be a very tricky thing to do. Historically, Apple has been fantastic at this, with hugely complex products that have a very simple and intuitive UI. As I shared a few years ago, many things start out simple, gradually become more complex, and then need to put in some work to […]
Set them free to do their thing
Reading Time: 2 min When building websites, or really any kind of marketing deliverable, we have to strike an interesting balance. On the one hand, we have a tight scope of work and a clear directive on what needs to happen. On the other hand, we’re not always sure exactly what that looks like. If someone needs a new […]
Keep it simple: Sonder to Empathy, or Experience to Work
Reading Time: 2 min I’ve written a few times on here about the goal of keeping things simple, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t fall prey to overly-exotic words sometimes. Two examples showcase that. Sonder First is the idea of sonder, which I wrote about a few years ago. While many people may not know the word, reading […]
Be Radically Relevant with your own name
Reading Time: < 1 min I recently finished Blake Howard’s new book “Radically Relevant“, I encourage you to pick up a copy. I easily consider Matchstic, the company he cofounded, to be one of the top branding companies in the country. Anything that comes from Blake is bound to be fantastic, and this book is no exception. The book is […]
Eliminate to get great
Reading Time: < 1 min I’ve mentioned a few times on here that the more you polish a piece of writing or a speech, the shorter it will generally become. As you refine your points, you can find easier ways to get things across and allow people to understand your point with few words. These great quotes from Blaise Pascal […]
Your brand is simply your reputation
Reading Time: < 1 min Branding has been a hot word in marketing for many years, and for good reason — a strong brand can help make sales that a weaker brand wouldn’t be able to make. What is your brand, though? While building a solid visual identity and messaging framework is vitally important to sharing who you are, at […]