UX Reading List
Here is a the beginning of a short collection of some of my favorite UX articles I have come across on the web, what I’ve learned from them, and why I think that every UX professional should read them.
Number 1: Frank Chimero - The Web’s Grain
Frank Chimero challenges the way that we design for the web. According to him, we need to stop designing the web like a layer cake - stacking elements in horizontal layers while fighting the spread of vertical elements with tricks such as breakpoints and media queries.
What would happen if we stopped treating the web like a blank canvas to paint on, and instead like a material to build with?
Rather than draw a box and try to cram all the elements into it, we should design the elements without borders and then position the view-port over them. We need to create a world of elements with a boundless experience that users can peer into through the window of their browsers, not a box jammed to the brim with poorly fitted objects.
[Websites should be] an edgeless surface of unknown proportions comprised of small, individual, and variable elements from multiple vantages assembled into a readable whole that documents a moment.
My take away… Rather than drawing a box first and then my features, I’m going to try to design the elements first and then overlay the constraints. Perhaps by using a transparency with a box drawn on it which I would then overlay over my elements. Letting the view shine a spotlight on the elements.
Number 2: Travis Gertz - Design Machines
This article strikes at the core of my profession as a UX Researcher and Designer. He argues that we rely too heavily on copy-and-pasting other people’s designs, trying to chase their success and avoid their failures. He also worries that we put too much weight on pseudo-scientific user research.
There’s a lot of hubris hidden in the term “user experience design.” We can’t design experiences. Experiences are reactions to the things we design. Data lies to us. It makes us believe we know what a person is going through when they use our products.
We need to think more critically about our designs, our content, and our research. By not understanding how to do research correctly and by stealing others designs, we are turning into design machines, crafting designs that are superficial and fail to create the experiences we want. And the content that we are pouring into these design templates lack substance, it becomes a vehicle for sales rather than communication.
What are we putting out in the world? If design is the expression of content, and the content is worthless, what is the point of good design? Most of the shit we are compelled to put out in the world doesn’t deserve the pixels it’s rendered on.
Rather than chase others’ designs, relying on superficial data, and reducing our content to something written by a part-time intern, we should not be afraid to take chances with our designs and to break down the artificial barriers that segment our fields.
My take away… The two things that I take away from this article are: 1) the importance of both content AND design, and 2) the need to break away from the assembly manufacture of design.
I used to be a content-first proponent before reading this article, but now I realize that it is more complicated than that. Design and content tango through our websites, focusing too much on one or the other is like trying to dance without a partner.
The secret isn’t content first or content last… it’s content and design at the same time.
Additionally, while it is important to use research and utilize tested design patterns, I am going to take more pride in trying to break the mold. My personal website does not have a splash page with a stock photo with big white lettering on it? Maybe it is not such a bad thing. It might not work or look good, but it is original and a risk I have to take in order to be innovative. After all, the iPhone did not look like the Blackberry.
This has become a longer article than I originally intended, so I will end it here. Look forward to future installments, assuming any of this was helpful or interesting of course.
