Design

About Stars and Hearts!

November 5, 2015 Design

Twitter changed the icon for its ‘Favorite’ tweet feature, from a Star to a Heart. A seemingly small aesthetic change for the Twitterverse to react with surprise and angst! Design updates in digital products haven’t been easier for designers to interpret as organizations and users have embraced design changes half-heartedly for a number of reasons.

The longer a system exists the greater the amount of comfort and trust the users build around its framework. After all this the ultimate goal of following usability principles. These emotional aspects of user behaviour also exist even with badly designed systems. It means any amount of change in the system is met with shock and discontent by the user groups since they need to develop a fresh perspective around the brand. It’s not so simple to drive design changes.

Design transitions are also harder because it affects behavioural changes and users resist any change in their ‘relationship’ with the software overall. Twitter was perceived as ‘violating’ that loving ‘relationship’ of the users with the ‘Favorite’ starry icon by replacing it with a Heart. Though I personally believe that making a ‘favourite’ is a matter of the heart which is better represented by the ‘heart’ sign than a ‘star’ sign. In the end, designers must make users see the value brought by the design changes by bringing them closer to achieving their goals more efficiently than before. The aesthetic changes need to be scrutinized through a branding review as well. Twitter has done its homework:

The heart, in contrast, is a universal symbol that resonates across languages, cultures, and time zones. The heart is more expressive, enabling you to convey a range of emotions and easily connect with people. And in our tests, we found that people loved it.

Design is Experimental

November 5, 2015 Design

I came across a sentence from Jeanne Liedtka and Tim Ogilvie’s book ‘Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers’ summarizing design.

“Design, in contrast, favors trying over extensive planning and is overwhelmingly experimental in its approach.”

Design no doubt is a medium of experimentation, though it must also sync with the business model to create value for its audience. This brings lot of anxiety and isolation for most designers as their ideas get iterated but ignored under the influence of business logic and delivery schedules. Designers must build trust through empathy and personal discussions, become design leaders for the project by translating their ideas to guide design decisions, and helping others to see the value proposition. If business strategy or MBA is about planning as inferred in the book, then design is about doing and experimenting! So go for it.

Designocracy – A Design Initiative

August 3, 2012 Design

The designer community depends on Internet resources for learning & research. Indeed many of us rely upon Google to lead us to that particular source of design elixir. Not very long ago a bunch of my passionate graphic designer friends ran an online community fondly called Surfunion. It’s a part of history now, but the experience of critiquing our artworks, sharing our thoughts and participating in debates still refreshes my mind to this day.

Let me come back to 2012. During the course of my daily work I scour the Internet stumbling upon one site to another, and in the process, finding dollops of useful design information. Such information could mean a lot to someone in need. Then Twitter afforded me the luxury of sharing those links quickly and reach out to the designer community without great effort. This concept persuaded me to invest in a personal program which I’m calling Designocracy. The intention is to collect & transmit design insights from around the Internet. You can follow Designocracy at twitter.com/Designocracy.

Designocracy will be a repository of interesting articles and insights on design ranging from graphics design to art/architecture and will feature all aspects of usability engineering. The scope will be limited to design only since it’s one area that I’m keenly passionate about. I hope you enjoy the tweets at @Designocracy and give it all your support and love.

Edit: since the publication of this article I’ve not been able to update the Designocracy feed. And I am not sure when the motivation would return since I’m involved in other priority matters. Let’s hope sooner than later.

Insights Into Web Content Writing

March 7, 2010 Design

I had the privilege of attending a workshop by Techved Design on writing content for the web. I wasn’t planning to leave the house in the killing humidity and heat but changed my mind thanks to my dearest friend Neha Modgil.

Writing immersible content for the web is always challenging. It’s a medium not known to sustain readership beyond a few seconds. Imagine having to sell a product in a limited amount of time and sustaining the attention span of an online user. This is what the workshop intended to address. Content speaks to a specific audience and good content only makes the actions on the website more compelling.

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CHI Mumbai Launch: The Story in Pictures

March 26, 2007 Photos

Mumbai city now has its very own SIGCHI or Special Interest Group in Computer Human Interaction. On Friday, 23rd March 2007, an elaborate ceremony was held at the Hyatt Regency Mumbai to launch this unique initiative which was attended by some 60 participants from across the corporate and design spectrum. It was a pleasure to host Joseph ‘Jofish’ Kaye, a research assistant from Cornell University, who had earlier spoken on pushing the boundaries of HCI at CHI Bangalore. The event was sponsored by Human Factors International and was inaugurated by Dr. Eric Schaffer. Check out some of the pictures from the event.

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