Issue 15: Are you "Ikea effect" or "False blindness"?
Cognitive distortions of designers; Why does a design system need constrains; A big guide to the theory of color and contrast and way more!
Hello, dear readers! ๐
In this issue, among other things:
Cognitive distortions of designers
Why does a design system need constrains
8 heuristics based on mental models
A big guide to the theory of color and contrast
Free music and templates for After Effects
Why arguments rarely work
500+ free icons
3D artists' salary analysis
Quotes from "The Design of Everyday Things" book by Don Norman
Enjoy reading!
๐ This is worth noting
A series of posters for the Jazz Onze+ Jazz Festival in Lausanne
Enzed - Graphic Design - Rรฉalisation: Jazz Onze Plus
๐ Book quotes
Today I'm suggesting you to read a Don Norman's book "The Design of Everyday Things". So many great thoughts in just a single book:
Design is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the designer is communicating.
Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible
Rule of thumb: if you think something is clever and sophisticated beware-it is probably self-indulgence.
The idea that a person is at fault when something goes wrong is deeply entrenched in society. Thatโs why we blame others and even ourselves. Unfortunately, the idea that a person is at fault is imbedded in the legal system. When major accidents occur, official courts of inquiry are set up to assess the blame. More and more often the blame is attributed to โhuman error.โ The person involved can be fined, punished, or fired. Maybe training procedures are revised. The law rests comfortably. But in my experience, human error usually is a result of poor design: it should be called system error. Humans err continually; it is an intrinsic part of our nature. System design should take this into account. Pinning the blame on the person may be a comfortable way to proceed, but why was the system ever designed so that a single act by a single person could cause calamity? Worse, blaming the person without fixing the root, underlying cause does not fix the problem: the same error is likely to be repeated by someone else.
A brilliant solution to the wrong problem can be worse than no solution at all: solve the correct problem.
Cognition attempts to make sense of the world: emotion assigns value.
Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible, serving us without drawing attention to itself. Bad design, on the other hand, screams out its inadequacies, making itself very noticeable.
The problem with the designs of most engineers is that they are too logical. We have to accept human behavior the way it is, not the way we would wish it to be.
Two of the most important characteristics of good design are discoverability and understanding.
The vicious cycle starts: if you fail at something, you think it is your fault. Therefore you think you canโt do that task. As a result, next time you have to do the task, you believe you canโt, so you donโt even try. The result is that you canโt, just as you thought.
It is easy to design devices that work well when everything goes as planned. The hard and necessary part of design is to make things work well even when things do not go as planned.
When things go right, people credit their own abilities and intelligence. The onlookers do the reverse. When they see things go well for someone else, they sometimes credit the environment, or luck.
The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition : Norman, Don: Amazon.ca: Books
๐ News and articles
Cognitive distortions of designers
Koos Looijesteijn applied the most well-known and studied cognitive distortions to the profession of a designer. He described how these distortions affect the development of projects and how they can be compensated.
Types of distortions and ways to eliminate them:
The "Ikea effect" is a bias in which people tend to overestimate what they have created with their own hands. Solution: share your work and ask the opinion of other designers to form a more objective idea
"The Dunning-Kruger Effect" โ the tendency to overestimate the level of your knowledge and skills. Solution: try to devote more time to research and test your hypotheses even at the design development stage. This will help to correct errors in time, if there are any
"The syndrome of rejection of someone else's development" is an attempt to invent something new, instead of using the old but proven. Solution: try to start by looking for simple, but working ideas, and also study the work of competitors
"False blindness" โ inattention in which a person does not pay attention to any object or stimulus. For example, you may not notice some gross error in the text or in the design. Solution: invite users to test your design, perhaps they will find errors that you did not see, because all people pay attention to different things
"Survivor's mistake" is an attempt to learn lessons only from positive examples, ignoring unsuccessful ones. Solution: study failed examples of projects more often and ask yourself why they failed to succeed?
"Confirmation bias" is a prejudice in which we see only what is familiar to us and discard alternative theories and refutations of our point of view. Solution: For example, don't test alone. So you will not be able to interpret the results in your favor
Design better by avoiding your cognitive biases
8 mental model design heuristics
Caleb Furlough offers his own design design heuristics that take into account user mental models. He formulated these principles based on his experience and analysis of a large volume of research. They can be used in conjunction with UX research to quickly make design decisions.ะ
8 mental model design heuristics
An Introduction to Constraint Based Design Systems
Cole Peters writes about how to build an effective design system using a system of constraints and what these constraints should be. He understands what a design system is in a broad sense, why it is needed and how it is used in practice, and also explains how to keep systems under control and prevent chaos in the design.
By limiting variations and different acceptable values, it is possible to simplify the study of the design system. This increases the consistency and predictability of the design.
Examples of restrictions:
Breakpoints
Colors (about 50)
Shadows
Font Sizes
Tracking
Interlining
Radius
Indentation system
An Introduction to Constraint Based Designย Systems
โก๏ธ Briefly
Nielsen Norman Group reviewed 5 methods that will help prioritize the UX project roadmap.
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