I love well-designed software. Minimal design, intuitive interface, with a very clear purpose. Delicious Library is a work of art. Not only does it clearly demonstrate its purpose (see screenshot), but its amazingly easy to use, from keyboard shortcuts to its webcam barcode reader. Continued…

Awesome animation, concise historical summary, and inspirational talk regarding education paradigms — where they are now and where they should be going.

Video Notes and Summary

Public Education Reform

Every country on earth, at the moment, is reforming public education. Two questions:

Continued…

A friend recently sent excerpts from from a keynote at a major design conference, and I thought I’d share part of my reply with you.

Currently the design industry faces a common problem: that when people reach a certain level of seniority, they are promoted to roles that no longer harness their talent or passion. This happens all the time in every field, not just within the creative industries, but it is perhaps at its most apparent within design. Designers work long and hard to study the craft of the discipline; why in their right mind would they then choose to step away from executing this craft proficiently in order to take on a role that they’re neither trained nor equipped for? I’ll tell you why. Because if no one steps up, the design industry as a whole will flounder.

Every single industry, from design to engineering to education, faces this same problem. In engineering, as you grow you manage a tech team; in teaching, you’re rewarded with less teaching, first to moving into research and later administration. These problems with proper incentives, rewards, recognition, and motivation cross disciplinary boundaries.

there’s a clear distinction between artists and designers. The former get to determine the terms of their own creation; the latter had better be able to articulate ideas and value to clients.

I’ve been reading Drive, which cites studies claiming artists’ non-commissioned work is regularly superior to their commissioned work—working for a client narrows the artists own creative thought and expression. (Quality was judged by an independent board of experts.)

Just re-thinking how society restructures our incentive systems—any thoughts on how the results of this study might play into the artists vs. designers thought?