Archives for April 2013

April 17, 2013 - No Comments!

GDS Design Principles

Gov.uk

Recently the new Gov.uk digital redesign was named the design of the year 2013, for good reason. It received many outstanding reviews from the design community and more importantly the public, on it's ease of use and clarity across of it's previous sites. The design principles they followed are listed below, and I think they should apply to any type of design in todays world, making products more consistent and user focused.

1. Start with needs
2. Do less
3. Design with data
4. Do the hard work to make it simple
5. Iterate. Then iterate again.
6. Build for inclusion
7. Understand context
8. Build digital services, not websites
9. Be consistent, not uniform
10. Make things open: it makes things better

For more information
https://www.gov.uk/designprinciples

April 12, 2013 - No Comments!

Bike vs Design

20130415-164923.jpg

I found this little gem at the design museum, beautiful newsprint magazine about the relationship between design and the bicycle. I think that a lot of the points made throughout this apply to all areas of design.

 

"the relationship between rider and designer should be an intimate one. Before even starting to sketch out ideas, the designer must start by fully understanding the challenges the rider will face and become intensely familiar with the environment in which the machine will be used. Only through listening intensely to the user and amass in personal experience in the field can they strike the right balance between performance, reliability and usability. For me, design should be 50% facts and 50% art." - Chris Boardman