Chris Johanesen

This is my tumble log. I do web stuff for BuzzFeed. My home page is here. Thanks for stopping by.

Joshua Porter asks “Is there a process that guarantees good design?” My response:

I think a lot of this type of discourse depends on the assumption that designs are finite, stand-alone products. If a designer works in a continuous and holistic manor, constantly refining and improving the product, it becomes much harder to count successes and failures.

I think that Apple sees not just each product as an evolving design with iterations, but rather their whole strategy for a particular problem is the product. For instance, you can look at iTunes, the iTunes Music Store, and each type of iPod as separate products, or you can look at Apple’s overall strategy (to profit from improving the user experience of finding and listening to music) as a product.

I believe Apple’s success is founded less on process and more on the fact that they take a holistic and iterative approach to “product” design that integrates everything and everyone involved from design to engineering to manufacturing to business strategy.

My co-worker’s new album is out and it’s awesome!

Information Architects vs. Experience Designers from Christopher Fahey

Cmd-~ (tilde) is now assigned to switching among open documents, as is Ctrl-Tab, meaning Photoshop is now consistent with both Mac and Windows conventions.

(via lamb)

I’m sure everyone on the internet is linking to this and saying “if you haven’t read this yet, you need to read it now” but, well… yeah. RIP DFW.