The five best design links, every weekday

Category: Essay

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alex.miller.garden

Grid World

When I was a kid, my dad gave me a piece of paper with a grid printed on it.

lessons.design

Lessons of Design

The musings of a designer on why he designs the way he does and what he’s learned along the journey.

technologyreview.com

Design thinking was supposed to fix the world. Where did it go wrong?

An approach that promised to democratize design may have done the opposite.

pluralistic.net

Tiktok’s Enshittification

Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers.

kadlac.com

Minimalism is boring

Unlock your own creative taste, and splatter your experiences into a sea of blank canvases

paulstamatiou.com

Craft

Thoughts on elevating product quality.

matthewstrom.com

Ballet Dancers and Shot Putters

Why design isn’t always creative, and why that isn’t always a bad thing

medium.com

Designing for “Delight” is Dead

The ultimate goal of product design has to be well-being — not delight.

ralphammer.com

J.J. Gibson—The meaning of the world

Are we cut off from the outer world, trapped alone in our personal experience?

uxdesign.cc

Design 4.0: leading design in the new industry

Is there a need for designers to up their skills and knowledge in the new industrial revolution?

doc.cc

The aesthetics of our new fictions

Visual symbols are powerful ways to make social constructs —from fashion to government— feel legitimate, trustworthy, and familiar.

ethanmarcotte.com

Truthish

On design systems and this idea of “a source of truth.” Whose sources, and whose truths?

thesephist.com

Design with materials, not features

Some software interfaces are windows into collections of features.

eyeondesign.aiga.org

Today’s Design Is Shaped by Likes. And That’s a Problem

Design has become intertwined with the most harmful dynamics of the social web.

imkylelambert.com

More than making rectangles

I remember the first time I opened Microsoft Paint and created something on a computer.

uxdesign.cc

I’m not a robot (but, are you?)

Who are the humans and who are the bots? Human authentication, while preserving privacy, and removing anonymity is the answer.

surma.dev

The cost of convenience

It is tempting to build abstractions so developers have to do less and build more.

doc.cc

Returning to Craft

How returning to the craft taught me to be a better leader.

daverupert.com

Goodbye, IE

In 1995, I got my first PC with Windows 95 and my first web browser, unbeknownst to me at the time, was Internet Explorer 1.0.

miriamsuzanne.com

Am I on the IndieWeb Yet?

I haven’t signed to any major web labels.