About
“Not everything is design, but design is about everything.” - Michael Bierut
The Tools I Use And Why
A Clean Design Aesthetic
- design is how something works, not just how it looks.
- good design has a strong point of view and streamlined minimalism has just as much of a soul as any other design approach.
- balancing minimalism and information density is the never-ending struggle.
User Research And Usability Testing
- none of the other tools matter if you don't understand what they want.
- the web is such a new medium that it's still easier to flip through a magazine than to use a computer.
- on average, people take about fifteen seconds (at most) to judge a new site and whether it's useful.
- simple and easy-to-use things aren't made for idiots, but the opposite - smart people with a lot to do.
XHTML/CSS
- designing a site means caring just as much about what goes on under the hood.
- you want your site to be seen by as many people as possible, whatever browser they use today and will be using tomorrow.
- you should be able to easily modify and add to your website over time, rather than let the html calcify and become harder to change.
- web pages were meant for search engines as much as they were for people.
- people don't wait around for slow-loading pages, especially if they're on fast connections.
Flash/Actionscripting
- Timeline-based animation has its place on the web - it's just not the only role for Flash anymore and programmers can make it sing for all kinds of things.
- Flash can be an incredibly powerful prototyping tool.
- When built right and used smartly, Flash can be useful and interesting, lightweight and fast-loading, customizable and flexible, backwards-compatible and browser-friendly.
