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Now, I don’t have the interest in writing more in-depth things. It is a reflection of publishing in general. You could say that it’s a bad thing because it’s shallower content, but that’s what people want. I’m the same way when I consume content online. I read something and I move on to the next. It works both ways.Armin Vit.

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Before you could have a consolidated conversation in one place, as was the case with Speak Up, now it started to spread all over. Social media, as it relates to the design conversation, doesn’t really add up to much other than, «Hey, look at this! I think it’s great. I think it’s bad.» But that’s it. There’s no real dialogue going on.Armin Vit.

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You should know this: The road drives. I’m trying to be a bit more explicit about steering things, choosing things and pursing them than I have been in the past. Sometimes you make your opportunities, and sometimes you trip over them. You can also plan yourself out of opportunities. The good thing is, at the end of the day I’m totally stoked with where things are right now and what my days look like. Sometimes it’s a matter of following a whim, and to do whatever you want when the pencil hits the page.Frank Chimero.

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Sometimes I say, «Hey, I know you have a lot of expertise here, but this is what I’m thinking. Can you tell me why these ideas are not the right ones?» Or sometimes I’ll go their way. Luckily, the engagements are usually long enough where you can entertain people’s assumptions. That’s all that these things are—they’re assumptions.

In this case, you’re talking about a conflict of assumptions where I have one set of assumptions and they have another set. It’s really important to figure out ways to suss out which are correct. Luckily, when there have been disagreements, my clients have had a rigid enough internal process that we’ve been able to test the assumptions. What’s ironic is that when clients have a set of assumptions that are in conflict with mine, almost every single time we are both wrong.

I think we look at conflicts as if one party is right and one is wrong. Maybe conflict is an indicator that you’re both wrong.

Frank Chimero.

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For me, design has changed from a method of decoration to a manner of construction. How do the pieces fit together? How can we design things so they are useful, scalable and maintainable? This was particularly important when I stopped illustrating, began consulting and working as an interface designer. My new landscape was incredibly technical, with a lot of specific necessities. I think you have an abundance of technical constraints whenever you transition into that space; you’re typically designing for unknown content, so you are designing systems. The scalability of those systems is what counts. It is not simply a matter of how many pages you serve out or how big a page can be. It is also about how different kinds of content can elegantly fit into what you’ve made.Frank Chimero.

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One of the good things about pointed, well-phrased questions is that they are a good bullshit detector. I think well-phrased questions become heat-seeking missiles for clarity. If you want to do anything good in design, it helps to be clear about what you’re trying to makeFrank Chimero.

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But, I’m a big fan of remote working and chat rooms, because you communicate through text. Writing forces you to be specific and articulate. I find that helps me identify problems, sort through my ideas, and identify what needs to be done. On larger web projects, the verbosity of a chatroom helps with the work process. There aren’t terms for a lot of the ideas or methods that happen for interaction design, so it helps to be in constant contact, participating in a kind of wasteful, productive, high-maintenance communication stream. Efficient communication in the workplace is overrated, I think, because it front-loads the responsibility for clarity on thinking alone, rather than thinking together in conversation.Frank Chimero.

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As information becomes more location-aware it will be continually changing as we move from place to place. This means that designers should already think less rigidly about the visual frameworks within which information can be presented and think in terms of customizable filters that dynamically attune to our needs.Malcolm Garret.

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Nearly everyone likes to be liked. And as designers we can sometimes exist in a vacuum where we are trying to impress each other more with our work, than actually doing what is required of us. Aesthetic design is great and obviously is easy to digest and hit that like button for.

But be aware that if you create things to purely look cool or neat without actually solving anything then it is art more than it is design. It’s popularity alone doesn’t mean it’s great design. It’s just easy for others to digest and appreciate it on a more superficial level.

Nguyen Le.