Kismet Arts Tangent

We haven’t had many lectures in the UI/UX class I’m currently taking. We’ve talked about some industry standards–rollovers are dead because mobile apps and the rise of the touchscreen– and some trends in design when skinning (designing the facade of a website). For example, say you’re Morpheus of the Web and you’re offering a user a red button or a blue button. Sure, red grabs attention, but it also means “stop!” where as blue is more serene looking, but in some cultures considered to be sad.

There are skinning priorities being firstly adherence to the brand. I think that comes from the fact that there is so much stuff out there that people forget what they’re doing most of the time and a strong brand link is a good way to bring them back to focus. Imagine you’re switching between tabs in your internet browswer (I know some people that have twenty-some tabs open usually) and you see a website but you don’t remember what exactly it belongs to. Brand colors, textures and styles help the user instantly recall why he or she is at the site in the first place without having to read the text on the page.

And a second priority is hierarchy. What should the user look at first? What’s important? A big question us students have had in this class was “when is it okay to bevel?” In Jason’s photoshop class, he would create an element then apply some corny filters, add a dropshadow and when he wanted to make something look as he said “deliciously awful” he would bevel it. In design, trends come and go as software companies add new features. The industry has grown tired of  the beveled button, but before you know it, the style comes back and recedes again. A rule of thumb is to use gradients, bevels and the like as a tool to create hierarchy.  As the ol’ saying goes, “if everyone is special, then no one is.” So, keep the bells and whistles to the things that truly merit them and you and your user will get along just fine.

A huge part of UI/UX is being part of a team. And a huge part of being part of a team is communication. So far, we’ve done a lot of presenting our findings and designs to the rest of the class, explaining the methodology, user profiles, tasks, wireframes and final screens. Answering the question “why did you do x this way?” with “I don’t know” is signing your death warrant when it comes to design.

Employers (and the team members you’ll be assigned to work with) care about your ability to carry through a process like this. They care about how well you can explain your thinking. I’ve been reminding myself to always summarize the project before I start presenting on a new step in the project. I like the idea that people will be coming in and out of your team and have to be caught up to speed. It makes me feel like a federal bureau investigator and I need to get my operatives up to speed so they can help me better. I think for the rest of my career, I’m going to be thinking I am running all of these secret operations that involve a team of specialists that pull a trigger at my command.

Design is becoming something of a component of a larger endeavor, a team of people that require your cooperation and expertise. As creative scholar Jonah Lehrer writes in his book Imagine: How Creativity Works, our creative projects are no longer the source of a single genius, but a collaboration of specialists bring their talents together for a fresh synthesis. Let us be better communicators of our ideas. Do not be afraid to present something half-baked because someone might present a pocket-sized gas torch. That is a thing that constantly surprises me. The phenomenon when I off-handedly comment, “wouldn’t it be nice if (insert random, way-too-specific device) existed?” and someone says that they have one at their house.

We live in an age where the problems we must solve are getting harder– we’ve picked all the low-hanging fruit. Now must pull together to create something truly engaging.