Posts Tagged ‘design’
Analysis Paralysis
Tuesday, November 29th, 2011
Analysis paralysis. Wikipedia describes it well: “a situation where the opportunity cost of decision analysis exceeds the benefits that could be gained by enacting some decision, or an informal or non-deterministic situation where the sheer quantity of analysis overwhelms the decision-making process itself, thus preventing a decision.” Another name for this is paralysis of choice.
To prevent analysis paralysis then is simple (or so it seems)—reduce the number of choices. However, some companies instead provide a plethora of options to consumers, believing that amongst those options a user will find at least one of them to be perfect for them. They believe that users want choice, and some users do, but for the majority it’s not the case. For example, although one of those options may be perfect for me, the process of narrowing down all of the options can be daunting and cause… you guessed it… paralysis. (more…)
Tags: design
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Content Strategy
Sunday, May 8th, 2011
“Content is king,” they say. Yet, it’s often the last thing to come from a client when designing a website. Ideally the design of a site should highlight and adapt to the content, it being king and all. But when you don’t have the content in advance it makes that tasks much harder.
There are some of us who give content the respect it deserves and implement content strategies. It is for you I post this link I recently found on Firehead.net titled 1001 Content Strategy Links.
And don’t worry about it being an unwieldy list of 1001 links—it’s broken down into useful sections for easy navigation such as introduction, writing, design, and UX. And the list actually stops at 101, but you’ll see why.
Tags: content, design
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Making Site Diagrams
Sunday, January 9th, 2011
One of the first things I do when tasked with developing a web site is pull out a sheet of paper and create a simple site diagram to make sure I account for all the content that I needs to be included.
Since I usually both design and code sites myself, the site diagram is very elementary and doesn’t get seen by anyone other than me. But recently when working with two other developers I found it useful to create something a little more detailed.
After a little searching, I found this Box and Arrows posting titled Site Diagrams: Mapping an Information Space useful. The author, Jason Withrow, provides some great guidelines for creating diagrams and well worth a read.
Tags: code, design
Posted in Links | » 1 Comment
The web ten years ago
Monday, August 17th, 2009
Smashing Apps recently published a post titled How Popular Website Designs Looked Like In Late 90’s. They went in the wayback machine and grabbed screenshots for current commonly praised sites such as Apple.com and Google.com, and like one would expect, the sites from the 90′s were horrible.
Note though that both Apple and Google’s site, which have both always been fairly simple in design, have barely changed. Take Apple… (more…)
Tags: apple, design, google, wayback machine
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Twittered Quotes: 2nd Edition
Thursday, August 13th, 2009
Just about everyday, I tweet a quote (@luciantucker). The quotes are usually not directly related to design, but they help to exercise the mind, and the mind is an important tool in design.
The mind is an important tool—I know it’s so obvious it sounds weird to say, but really, it’s important to note. Designers need to read, travel, sketch in their spare time, and things of that nature, if they want to stay sharp.
One tool I use to keep sharp is reading and analyzing quotes, and I’ve decided that I will make a habit out of sharing these quotes with you, thus the title “Twittered Quotes: 2nd Edition.” (more…)
Tags: design, quotes, twitter
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