July was a pretty busy month for me, the weeks seemed to fly by in a blur. But as I think back, I don’t really have any big updates that seem worthy if a monthly update.
The twitter hack was really interesting to me, the reaction was maybe more interesting through. With people calling for twitter to be better, that critical infrastructure depends on this website and the accountability of a public company. It’s especially troubling when we have a president that uses the platform to inform the public on policy changes and to call other world leaders names.
I redesigned the illinoiscovid.com website to be much smaller and simpler. It now includes hospital data and rate of infection based on positive test results by number of tests given.
Posts
I posted 1 blog a week this month, each Wednesday, here is a recap.
Books
I read a few great books this month, mostly focusing on design
I read Design for Real Life, and really enjoyed the personal stories on how starting with stress cases (read: edge cases) will prove to be better for the entire population on your experiences.
I re-read Remote by Jason Fried and DHH, which I remember being pretty insightful. After reading it while everyone has been forced to adopt a remote style of working, it has some areas where I think it’s too narrowly focused on their size and working style. It’s one of those “your mileage may vary” type books.
Off-centered Leadership is by the founder of Dogfish Head Brewery and his approach to management and building his company. It has a few pieces of good advice, but largely it is kind of a weird format for a book, with interviews at the end of each chapter.
A book I really enjoyed was Insanely Simple by Ken Segall, the creative director of the ad agency Apple used through many of its major products and branding campaigns. The message is simple, Keep it simple, if its not simple, its not good enough. The phrase “Steve was polishing his simple stick” when referring to a new product that wasn’t up the the Steve Jobs simplicity test.
Links
Here are some links from around the web I found this month and made me think, inspired me or that I thought were just awesome
A beautifully designed luxury bunker definitely something I would think more about now living through this pandemic.
Tell candidates what to expect from your job interviews great advice on interviewing.
Improving American Express’s App Payment Process Tom Kenny has a lot of great content on their blog. I love the break down of UI/UX improvements.
Software disenchantment an interesting piece on software being bad in comparison to other systems, like cars, planes and buildings.
How to get executive buy-in for your design system approach design systems are good, but why should your CEO care?
UX Case Study: How to Create a Super App another great article on how to design an app that people want to use, and thinking about experience over just plain function.
Making RSS Prominent Again - I am all for this and thinking about how to make my RSS more discoverable. For now - Tyler's Blog RSS.