Talking about Design: Some things any kind of Designer should know

Lat month in book reading routine I hit the magic number of 8 books read. Though not meticulous about note-taking I like recording or summarizing what I have learned as key takeaways. Writing them down is another way to remind me (or whoever stumbles on this page) insights from good authors and thinkers.

In the book, I read from 100 things designers should know here are some takeaways incorporated with my own examples that may be of interest.
--------
People use peripheral visions to understand the context, fill in gaps and form visual patterns. It is important for designers to know whether it is stocking inventory in shopping is or laying ads on a webpage, peripheral vision more than our central vision. Patterns make it easier to sort out all the new sensory information we’re constantly bombarded with. Even if there are no obvious patterns, your eyes and brain work in conjunction to create them. Basic shapes like rectangles and spheres are identified in everything you look at in order to make sense of what you’re observing. If you were to imagine say a couple of pairs of lines or dots or even reading a jumbled paragraph with typos our mind can still comprehend and attempts to make sense of this information. Research has found if you increase the number of options in a design or a layout a paralysis of choice takes place in one's mind. Designers have realized the magic number for providing options is 4. Organizing your design elements in the patterns of three and four seem to be optimal layout but I personally think this kind of simplification is often hard to do. If you or your organization can get there - you are designing something simple but operationally to make that happen the underworkings of the carriage or the engine is extremely complex. Design and information that helps users remember are important but forgetfulness is also key for the designer to know for dissemination and consumption of information or a design layout.

User stories and logical transitions that evoke emotions and longing is another trick designers should be aware of. Storytelling is an effective way can captivate audiences because the consumers of the story have pre-programmed cortexes that try to make a chronological narrative that implies causation. This can be used to your benefit. Since the human brain is constantly looking for patterns, it fills in gaps by making leaps of causation. The formula of “this caused that, then this happened, then that” – the basic pattern of any story – is easy for the mind to follow. Over 2,000 years ago, Aristotle came up with the three-act story structure. The beginning sets the scene by explaining the characters and situation; the middle provides obstacles for the characters and a means of resolution, and the end shows the climax and conclusion. Moviemakers, scriptwriters, dramas often follow this pattern.
Use stories and clear organizational systems to make ideas suitable for long-term memory.

When designing your product or interface remember people crave empathy at different levels that follow established social rules. For example when you smile at a stranger often a stranger will smile back. This is because of mirror responses where the premotor cortex activates the mirror neurons causing the person to smile. Imitation and empathy are the way people connect with others and adherence to socially established rules is often followed. Hence designing for cultural context and sensitivity becomes a huge consideration. Advertisers for international brands learn this the hard way. There is a famous case study of Toyota's launch of a car and the advertising campaign didn't work in China plummeting and a design decision that led to the killing of that product but huge losses for the company. When designing a product or a campaign, it’s essential to think about the interactions your audience will have with it. Make sure it follows the rules of social interaction!

The book also talks about the wandering state of people's minds and incorporating a flow state in your design. A study undertaken at the University of California found that people think their minds tend to wander 10 percent of the time, when, in actuality, it’s more like 30 percent of the time. It can even be as high as 70 percent – say, if you’re driving on an empty highway. So when you’re in the process of designing, it’s vital to remember that people’s minds wander and that they’ll only focus on something for a limited period of time. So if you’re designing a website, it’d make no sense for the welcoming page to be dominated by dense blocks of text. People simply won’t read it. It’s wiser to break up the information with images, play with the text format or include other media such as video. This will give your audience the illusion of wandering while staying focused on your product. I like Google's about page and a lot of websites today use the big visual image concepts and very little text to convey their information fast for various devices and platforms. However, the flow state is the polar opposite to the wandering state of the mind. Designing for flow states of the mind is understanding how to give those quick dopamine releases and feedback loops quickly. Social engines like Facebook, Twitter are examples of causing small dopamine releases in your mind when someone likes your pic or tweet. Apps that give goal orientation and feedback for showing achievement often get traction. I am always impressed by coffee shops or smoothie makers who give cards to their patrons with two stamps already marked or showing a simple tracker that gets you that free drink is novel ways of incorporating the flow states of engagement.

Recognizing people like having options and restricting those options to the magical numbers so as a designer you don't overwhelm or create the choice paralysis is a key to good desingn practices. Lastly incorporate unpredictability as that is another trick in a good designer to stimulate the production of dopamine. I have seen this in good game designers and puzzle makers who take the inherent human need for the quest from easy to higher levels of complexities. Incorporating surprising elements and cues in your user interfaces and product design keep people coming back.

Design - Abstraction

I am a big fan of UI/UX interfaces especially when it comes to software applications but I think of Design not from a web, print or even product perspective with rules that follow the principle of form follows function;  but interfaces or products that also go the other way around where function can follow form and evoke delight, emotions and holds for the user a sense of belonging, pride and deep yearning to return to use it more often.  Harry Beck was a 29-year-old engineering draftsman who had no idea about user interfaces or user experience principles yet contributed a breakthrough

invention with his design of the London Tube map which has become the defacto standard of all metro maps around the world.  The earliest designs of the London metro had landmarks of trees, museums and familiar places that people would know of. Beck's important design insight was when he realized that people do not care for these symbols when they are underground. All they want to know is where to get off and where to get on at a given station. He simplified the design in horizontal and vertical lines spaced the stations equally, color-coded the lines and routes like an elegant electrical circuit. This simplified abstraction of a user interface initially became pocket maps for early commuters and still followed by modern-day tube maps.

Programmers are very familiar with the concept of abstraction. In design principles for products or interfaces coming in the middle of abstraction is where the success of masterful design lies (at least that is how I comprehend it). European school of design be it in the crafting of writing instruments or the most beautiful car design have this inherently built into the craft of their production cycles. Make it too abstract the product or system becomes unusable, make it too realistic the design of the product or system becomes boring. Abstraction is coming in the middle where it might not be exact or perfect but user acceptance and connectivity with the design come to a place of universal embracing.