user friendly

September 26, 2024


“User-friendliness is simply the fit between the objects around us and the ways we behave. So while we might think that the user-friendly world is one of making user-friendly things, the bigger truth is that design doesn’t rely on artifacts.

As my collaborator Robert Fabricant likes to say, it relies on our patterns of behavior. All the nuances of designing new products can be reduced to one of two basic strategies: either finding what causes us pain and trying to eliminate it, or reinforcing what we already do with a new object that makes it so easy it becomes second nature.

The truest material for making new things isn’t aluminum or carbon fiber. It’s behavior.”

user friendly book summary

comms class taught us how to network and manage conflicts

  • what are the rules for reaching out to people?
  • how to resolve conflict as a manager?
  • how to compromise for the greater good?

can't stay awake in linear regression. the lights are burning my eyes. feels like i had no sleep at all.

first time experiencing a book club at startup hq. wish i had time to finish this book. met some twitter people there. everyone is so interesting in sf. my goal is to have the level of confidence to be the first to share my thoughts, without fear of sounding dumb. no one will remember me anyways. it's all upside, if what i say resonates, i make an impression on others. if i just stay quiet, i don't exist.

things discussed at the book club

  • what did you understand about design
  • something surprising you discovered
  • what metaphors for design (i.e. defibrillator opens like a book)
  • what was designed for a niche group for accessibility that served the general population (i.e. text to speech)
  • dark UX patterns

xpath is so unintuitive. got distracted every 15 minutes trying to study for the quiz. read a wikipedia page on limerence. i wonder what causes this, if it's a one time thing – you feel it the first time, and as you have more experiences, you manage it better. maybe it is rooted in my attachment styles and childhood and upbringing, or the media that injected the ideas and expectations in my head. experiences vary across individuals, and it's not comparable.