Writing on the iPad has inherent challenges. In portrait mode, the keyboard is far too cramped to perform any significant typing. It is clear that lanscape was the intended mode of typing due to the more realistic dimensions of the keyboard in addition to the iPad cover’s feature to place the device at a suitable typing angle. However, landscape mode has the problem of vertical space limitations with the keyboard active. With these challenges, I am always interested to see how app designers try to provide more functionality with such significant restrictions. A recent app that has gotten some attention is Writing Kit, which provides advanced writing features as well as in-app researching tools. Unfortunately, it has also followed a design cue I first observed on iA Writer for iPad. Writing Kit adds a formatting bar on top of the iOS keyboard, offering useful features at the cost of exaggerating the problem of writing space. One has to ask themselves how worthy an interface element is if it erodes the experience around the subject it is supporting.

Let’s get into the nitty-gritty of Writing Kit’s interface. Below is a screenshot of the app in landscape mode with a breakdown of writing space and content space.

The app’s content area accounts for only 36.6% of the screen. Due to this small amount of space, only 10 lines of text can be displayed. iA Writer’s typographic choices hinder that further by displaying only 5 lines of text in the default mode and 6 lines of text in focused mode. This effectively places “blinders” on the writer—where they can no longer have a broad view of what they have written. Some may prefer this side-effect, but myself and others undoubtedly do not.

When the elements that are not directly necessary for the function of writing are removed, the ratio of content to interface begins to even out.

If all regions colored red are replaced by additional content area, the content takes up 51.5% of the screen, providing significantly more visible content space. The features provided in the top bar and keyboard are good features, but they detract from the app’s core purpose. With such a space-restricted medium, there need to be new approaches to accessing functionality without persistently taking up significant space.

One approach is to rely more heavily on gestures. Daedalus Touch allows you to move the cursor space-by-space by tapping on the left and right edges of the content area. However, we run into the age-old discoverability issues when relying too heavily on gestures. Therefore I am skeptical of their long-term efficacy. I think that new interface patterns are needed to address these sorts of issues. I do not come bearing solutions yet, but I think it’s something we all need to be working on.

Keeping content as the focus has traditionally been less of an issue with the large screens found in desktops/laptops. Now that phones and tablets are becoming established and app makers are working to inject more functionality into apps, there is a risk of drowning content in interface. We have a lot of work ahead of us to avoid just that.

It is common knowledge that Unicode has an amazing amount of characters, many of which are non-letter symbols (e.g., Arrows, Currency Symbols, Geometic Shapes, etc.). There are many Unicode symbols that represent common icons seen in interfaces. Therefore it makes sense semantically to bind icon glyphs with Unicode characters that represent the same basic subject matter. In doing so there are significant advantages around backwards compatibility. If the fonts do not load or the browser does not support font embedding it will fall back to the Unicode default (if one exists).

@font-face {
  font-family: 'IconicStroke';
  font-weight: normal;
  font-style: normal;
  src: url('iconic_stroke.eot?') format('embedded-opentype');
}
@font-face {
  font-family:'IconicStroke';
  font-weight: normal;
  font-style: normal;
  src: url('iconic_stroke.ttf') format('truetype');
}
.iconic {
  display:inline-block;
  font-family:'IconicStroke';
}
.bolt:before {
  content:'\26a1';
  font-size:32px;
  vertical-align:.15em;
  margin-right:.25em;
  color:#5d504f;
  opacity:.8;
  text-shadow:0px 1px 1px rgba(0,0,0,.3);
}

<span class="iconic bolt">Lightning</span>

The six different forms of sharing were: public (available to all), private (available to no one), shared with your friends, shared with your extended network (friends of friends) shared with groups (classmates, co-workers, etc.) and shared with specific people of your choosing. In addition, each form of sharing could have special attributes (such as the shared content can be available to advertisers) or combinations of various attributes. Additionally, these icons should take up a small profile to avoid being burdensome to the interface it resides in. Accommodating all of these issues proved difficult.

The first step was to concede that an icon-only solution was a fool’s errand. There was simply too much information to communicate with symbols alone. It became clear that the icons could not just be icons. Instead, they would look more like ESRB ratings. While no one will espouse the beauty of the ESRB rating system, few complain about the clarity. The difference is, the ESRB icons devote a considerable amount of space on information that is not about the rating.

There were three main challenges in designing the icons. The first was how to create a system to communicate the concept of “you” in relation to others. That was far more difficult than it initially seemed. Second was how to present the idea of networks (friends, non-friends and groups). The last main challenge was how differentiate something that is explicitly blocked from people to view as opposed to simply not sharing it with certain people. I am still unsure how clear these ideas can be articulated with symbols, but I think these icons head in the right direction. The subject (or “you”) is always larger than any other element in the icon. The subject’s friends are in full view (hence fully opaque) as opposed to people outside the subject’s network. When content is not shared with an individual, they are grayed out. When content is unavailable to specific people, a line (or wall) blocks their access.

Icons for this purpose should to be small, yet clear since they play a fairly minor role an interface. Anyone that has read about my process of designing Iconic and Cue knows that legibility plays a large role in how I design icons. Therefore these icons are designed for a maximum scale of 240×200 pixels and a minimum scale of 120×100 pixels.

I am at the point in the design where it would be useful to share with the community at large to get feedback. I’m uncertain if it’s worthwhile to go through a visual design pass—I would really like to hear people’s thoughts on that.If you have any thoughts on the issue of love to see you add them to comments below. I will be making the final icons available by PDF to download and use however you so desire.

The design world is in a phase of rapid change. Designers who understand and can work with code are becoming the prototype. Your transition is not going to happen overnight and a lot of your thinking will need to bend. However, I think you will be surprised by how much of your thinking will not. A lot of your shift is about understanding that you have already been creatively solving problems as a developer, and that a lot of that thinking is universal.

To be honest, I am still a little fuzzy on it and it seems like I am not alone. However, I asked for some guidance on Twitter and got two similar and logical definitions. Which led me to this most recent update.

The arrow on each gesture has always signified motion of the finger while maintaining contact with a surface. The flick has a portion of its gesture off of the surface. Therefore, the arrow needs to communicate something different. To do this, I removed the “backbone” of the arrow. In doing so, the arrow is not anchored but direction is still implied.

I would be curious to hear what any of you think about this new icon. The new gesture, along with the rest of the rest, is available for download. I hope the icons prove useful.

I am not suggesting that the design community considers writing unimportant. However, I have often experienced it treated as something else. I consider the short list of well-written design blogs to be proof of that. Yes, they exist, but they are the minority. As long as writing is treated as something else by designers, there will be a disconnect between the aesthetics of the visual and the textual. I am suggesting that there needs to be a shift towards considering writing as a required skill of designers. Writing is design. There is no separation.

Designers devote endless hours to make their solutions more elegant. They understand the importance of detail. Clarity and simplicity are cherished. The same is often not said about their craftsmanship of words. Dieter Ram published the 10 principles of design which have served as a guide to some and a set of commandments for others. While I have no right to act as an example to follow, I can propose ways to look at writing so that it is integrated into how one thinks about design. Below are 10 principles of good writing, derived from Dieter Ram’s list intended to illustrate how writing and design are often one in the same.

1. Good writing is reader-focused

The style of writing, the content provided and its format of delivery should be executed for the benefit of its readers. Writing that is published to fit a schedule, prop up traffic or unproductively rant wastes readers’ time.

2. Good writing is trustworthy

Readers need to trust that what they read is honest, genuine and fair. Writing that lacks any of those attributes erodes credibility and lead readers towards poor decisions.

3. Good writing makes its subject useful

Writing will have a limited impact if the reader does not understand how the subject relates to them or how they can move forward. Informing is prerequisite, empowering is ideal.

4. Good writing is unobtrusive

Writing does not need to be verbose to be smart. If a concept can be accurately communicated with simple words, use them.

5. Good writing is focused

A good piece of writing clearly articulates the subject it is covering. The end. Tangents dilute and create confusion.

6. Good writing provides novel information and perspectives

Writing should have something new and useful to say. Piling on a subject with nothing new to share helps no one. Better to direct readers to a well-written piece than duplicate it.

7. Good writing is aesthetically pleasing

The rhythm and composition of words can and should be aesthetic. The meaning of words should carry as much beauty as their visual representation. Well executed typography without well executed writing is missing the point.

8. Good writing is well-crafted

Typos and grammatical errors are unacceptable. Writers should strive for a technically flawless reading experience.

9. Good writing is as little writing as possible

Every word written should count. Any paragraph, sentence or word that lacks significance wastes the writer’s and the readers’ time.

10. Good writing is long-lasting

Our subject matter and language may be impacted by current trends, but our ideas should not have a short expiration date.

Communicating ideas has been and continues to be a primary goal of design. Considerable effort is spent by designers to convey complex emotions, processes and concepts through visual abstractions. These endeavors have merit and provide results. However, sometimes a simple, well-written sentence may prove more effective.

I would like to continue presenting this talk at other venues. While this line of thinking is catching on, there are still far too many organizations that practice design and development in a segregated manner. There also seemed to be some genuine interest on what this talk would look like if focused in the other direction (i.e., how designers are vital to developement). I would love to have the opportunity to share my thoughts on that subject as well.

3D manufacturing is at a transitional state. The tools to design 3D objects are plentiful but the hardware to actually create them are too expensive and complicated for the average consumer to own. This has led startups such as Ponoko and Shapeways to provide production services for individuals’ designs. Concurrently, we have seen organizations such as MakerBot pop up, which provides ideas and support for 3D printing of objects. What I consider to be the most intriguing project to spring out of the movement is Thingiverse which provides a community platform to share your 3D plans for making objects.

Many of the objects shared at Thingiverse are silly and mostly novelty. However, it only takes one practical object to see the potential. Take for example, this design for a Canon lens hood.

It does not take much creativity to consider all the other applications something like this could have. We are surrounded by small objects in our daily lives where the cost seems disproportionately higher than their production quality. Never before in modern times has there been a practical alternative to producing physical objects by consumers. If a person can go on the internet, download 3D plans for a doorstop and manufacture it in their apartment, what is the incentive to pay $5 at a store for the same thing? Simple things such as cups could be produced literally in-house to save people money and allow another outlet for personal expression. The cabinet you buy could come with files to reproduce all the parts in case one breaks. The possibilities are boundless.

This will not remove the possibility for profit, but it will force craftsmen and manufacturers to be significantly better than their open source competitors. Be that through service, aesthetics, function or manufacturing quality, something will need to differentiate their product from free options. This tension has been beneficial to all in the world of software, I see no glaring reason why it would not be equally helpful for physical manufacturing. Open source software leveled the playing field for millions of people in this world, imagine what open source manufacturing could do.

If you would have asked someone 30 years ago if there would be a personal computer in everyone’s home, they would have said you were crazy. Today, that is close to fact. Virtually every American household has access to a computational and connected device (whether it is a traditional PC, gaming console or mobile device). It may not be too far off to expect a 3D scanner/printer in most homes or at least in every community. Such a reality could bring a manufacturing revolution that could make the internet’s impact on business look microscopic.

Three weeks ago, Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S. The phone was a tremendous leap ahead of its predecessors, yet the much of the feedback contained a tint of disappointment. Most of that disappointment stemmed from the news that Apple did not showcase the iPhone 5. Under the hood, the iPhone 4S had been drastically improved, however it did not provide the one thing so many people had been frothing at the mouth for, a new body. This response saddened me because it displayed a general misunderstanding of product design by the media and public at large. Would it be a problem if the iPhone 5, 6 & 7 looked the same? To many, yes. However, I believe the physical design of the iPhone has reached a level of quality that should make us question changing its design to meet the public’s insatiable need for new.

This concept seemed like a perfect fit for the journalism space. I thought it would be fascinating to see news rooms open up what they are covering and be able to participate in real-time with the writing and editorial process. It could be messy for sure, but the potential for insight and richer news stories seems tremendous. Well, the Guardian recently announced that it will be making half of that idea a reality by maintaining an open newslist and promoting Twitter discussions with the #opennews hashtag.

All news stories are broken up by subject matter with the general time they are slated to be published and who is working with them along with a way to get a hold of them.

This process allows the public to help fill in a news agency’s gaps and improve their coverage. By knowing what is slated to run or what is not, individuals can provide valuable feedback to news providers early in the coverage process. This can lead to more efficient use of time on covering the most important news stories of the day. Additionally, providing access to each journalist working on the story creates an avenue for those with pertinent information to help the story along. This two-way access equally aids both the public and the journalists.

So many informational sources are becoming increasingly open. I have found the news industry to be abhorrently behind the curve both in how they disseminate information and how they collaborate around it. With luck, this process will catch on with the public, succeed and expand to other news agencies. I look forward to the day when this level of openness is a standard in the news industry.

Speaking of speaking, I will be presenting at the Plone Conference on November 3rd. Hope to see you there.

Update: The proposed design described below has been released as Cue.

One of the clearly understood problems associated with touch interfaces is people are often left guessing as to what gesture(s) can be performed throughout an app. There are common interaction guidelines to follow, but that can only take us so far. One of the obvious ways to help solve this issue is to articulate the interactions allowed through gestural icons.

These gesture icons act as roadsigns to an app for interaction way-finding. As expected, there has been a significant collection of gesture icon sets that have been made available to fill this need. The current crop of icons succeed in clarity, but they lack the iconic qualities necessary to act as a standard representation of gestures. My goal is to help create a foundational set of icons that are flexible, clear and distilled to a point where they could become a standard visual system to build from – ultimately to be used within apps for when explicit communication is needed.

I have defended Android for years. I own a Nexus One, which I still consider to be one of the best Android phones made. I also strongly believe it does not hold a candle to anything past the first generation iPhone. Much to my dismay, my phone attracts conversations about why don’t have an iPhone. Before a week or so ago, I could speak in theory and philosophy, but now I have a concrete answer.

To preface, I think iOS leads the pack in UX. That said, I still maintain my long standing opinion that Android is the most important ongoing project for mobile. Android, from my knowledge, represents the first successful consumer-level open source operating system in history. This fact has allowed me to look past its shortcomings to this day.

That view became shaky after seeing mediocre or downright poor implementations of Android on various phones and tablets. Seeing carriers hack Android to pull out useful features made me doubt if an open source operating system could work with such harmful or uninspired derivatives being produced. Seeing the Amazon Fire reaffirmed my viewpoint. If you have not read about the Fire, what makes it especially interesting is that Amazon forked Android to make their own special version of the operating system for their device. The interface looks and works quite differently from the Android we are all familiar with. From the reviews coming in, the Fire is a good (not great) tablet that is different in focus from any other tablet on the market. It has a unique software experience from any other device in its category and it does not come from a traditional consumer electronics organization. You could argue that Amazon had been moving in this direction for years with the Kindle. However, the leap in effort required by Amazon to develop the Fire with its custom-tailored interface from scratch would have been risky and outside of their current skill set. This does not happen without Android, period.

For years, we have had confidence that Apple will provide a top-level user experience with their products, especially with iOS. While that is reassuring, I have been hoping to see the same diversity of thinking about design that we saw in the forming years of the Internet. We saw the explosion of design for the web for two main reasons: there was a lot of money to be made and the barrier of entry was relatively low. Few would argue that mobile is currently the prime market for software, but the financial barrier of entry is tremendously high. Similar to desktop computing, many companies have decided to focus on either hardware or software rather than take on the whole piece due to its tremendous costs. However, with Android, there exists a real and practical opportunity for organizations to control the entire experience of a mobile device without incurring the gargantuan overhead of developing an OS from scratch.

To be clear, the Amazon Fire in and of itself is relatively unimportant. However, the device symbolizes what is possible with a functional and established open source mobile operating system. This is has always been the promise of open source. We have seen this promise deliver in small ways through the years, but it continues to be my hope that Android provides that possibility in the mobile space. I am still waiting to see a startup that decides to design a new and different way to interact with mobile devices. I think that is truly possible with an open source Android. I am waiting to see operating systems in our homes, our appliances, our clothes. I think Android provides the best opportunity for that to happen.

Do I think any current Android smartphones are comparatively better than the iPhone? Frankly, no. However, my argument is that while Android continues to be open source, it does not need to be superior in order to prove its worth. It’s worth lies not in what we have come to expect from it, but what comes out of nowhere.

Less than two weeks ago, I updated Iconic with 18 new icons. I have had some time on my hands as of late, so I was able to add another 22 icons to the collection. This update includes bars (for charts or mobile coverage), alternate documents, upload/download, cloud upload download, a pilcrow, microphone, award, aperture and a few others. Most notably, I finally was able to get a camera icon that was decent.

The set is now up to 177 icons. I will continue to create icons as it makes sense, but this recent addition took care of all the pressing additions on the list. Some icons that have been suggested just do not seem possible given the grid used for this set. That said, I continue to give them a shot from time to time. Depending on how the next few weeks treat me, the set may break into the 180′s soon enough.

Go download the updated set.

For all intents and purposes, the cloud has been an overwhelming hit. For most people with readily available high speed internet, it has taken a lot of the pain and cost away from the storage and management of digital content. Adoption of cloud services have hit the point where many people now integrate them into their daily habits. Under normal circumstances, I would consider this to be a good thing, but as things stand, I feel as though this trend is going to blow up in our face. The impending problems have nothing to do with cloud services or the cloud in general. The problem is with the policies placed around how we access it, specifically data caps from our broadband and wireless data providers.

Interacting with the cloud makes bandwidth all the more transparent. Simple interactions with computing, most notably mobile devices that in prior years would have had no bandwidth footprint now do. Our data use now resembles a steady stream rather than spurts. This unconscious background stream will make our bandwidth use all the more indiscernible. However, the advantages of the cloud start to break down pretty quickly without the premise of free bandwidth. As the average household's bandwidth use increases and begins to run up against established data caps, the impending sticker shock coming from overage charges will lead to bandwidth anxiety. This bandwidth anxiety will create a general fear of using any service that is a perceived bandwidth consumer and could end up setting back cloud-based products and services for years to come.

AT&T says the caps will only impact 2% of their customers, but that argument is myopic at best. CNet goes into the details of AT&T's data cap policy:

Now AT&T DSL subscribers will be limited to 150 gigabytes of uploads and downloads per month for regular DSL customers and 250GB of broadband usage per month for U-Verse subscribers. AT&T's U-Verse service is its upgraded and enhanced broadband service with fiber deployed closer to individual homes. The U-Verse can handle more data traffic than AT&T's traditional DSL network. … If customers exceed the monthly data caps for either the DSL or U-Verse broadband services three times, they will be charged $10 for every 50GB above the cap.

Comcast has a similar policy with a 250 GB cap. AT&T and. Comcast represent the #1 and #2 US broadband providers. If a 250 Gb cap seems reasonable, consider this:

In 2009, the average American watched more than 151 hours of video from TV, computers and mobile devices. Increasingly, people are turning to cloud-based services such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant Video or iTunes for media consumption because it often represents a much better deal for the consumer. Netflix recently shared that their HD video is 4800 Kbps, equaling 600 kilobytes per second or a bit above 2 GB an hour. If an individual wished to forgo a cable subscription and watch their average 151 hours of video online, they will have used over 300 Gb of bandwidth — 50 Gb over current caps. Keep in mind this is just by watching video. This does not take into account any other online usage.

To people's benefit, the cloud has become quite transparent in most popular services. People watch movies, listen to music, or work on documents the same way they always have, with “magic” happening behind the scenes. People have had no need to change their habits or expectations. Those habits could soon be problematic for people where they end up paying both to own the content and then to access it. Many will likely opt out of using the cloud rather than change how they consume content.

These data caps from telecoms risk stifling advancements in cloud adoption and evolution. More importantly, it is putting a huge roadblock in an obvious path society is headed. At this point you may ask, what does this have to do with user experience? From my perspective, a lot. The cloud may have sprung up from technology-minded individuals, but UX designers have been championing the benefits of the cloud and finding new ways to utilize it for the sake of a simpler experience. Under normal circumstances, this would be absolutely fine. However, in this new reality, I wonder how responsible it is for us to continually drive more experiences into the cloud. It would be easy to remain neutral in this situation and argue that these types of issues are not our problem; that our job is simply to design the best possible experience and let the things out of our control fall where they may. A narrow view on the impact of our work would make that argument reasonable. However, an over-reliance on cloud services opens people up to the possibility of ungodly bills or forces them into expensive unlimited bandwidth plans. Neither are good options for the average person this economy. There is a responsibility to design solutions that will ultimately not let people down (in this case, through unforeseen bandwidth overage charges). If our work does not deliver on that tenet, it is not providing a beneficial user experience.

I am not suggesting that the cloud is some pariah that should be avoided at all cost. However, these caps present new experience challenges that need to be proactively addressed. There needs to be greater emphasis on how to make cloud connectivity smarter and, at times, optional. There needs to be clear and detailed information provided as to the amount of bandwidth being used by a service, app or device so people can make better choices as to how to use their bandwidth wisely. People will need to have a much greater idea of how they use data than ever before. It is not only appropriate but ethical to make that a high priority when designing for the cloud in the years to come, otherwise we risk people avoiding it all together.

As an aside, I am having a hard time designing certain forms, most notably the camera. Iconic is designed with an 8×8 grid that I try to fanatically follow. The whole premise behind that decision was that it would lead to icons which would be legible at extremely small sizes. This makes detailed icons quite difficult and has a lot to do with the “chunky” feel of the icons. Honestly, I find the challenge of working within such tight constraints to be quite enjoyable. It forces the design to be as stripped down as possible and it is a great deterrent from me “noodling” on paths for hours on end.

I would love to see the set break past 200 icons at some point this year, although that will likely be a challenge. However, the volume of icons is causing a separate issue — processing time and file size. I had to remove the Omnigraffle stencil from the collection as it was ballooning the final download to well over 20Mb. Given the number of downloads this set gets a month, it was beginning to create a sizable Amazon S3 bill. So as the number of icons goes up, I may need to remove certain colors and sizes. I would love to get your feedback on this.

Touch screen installations are by no means new. We have been using them in airports and ATMs for years now. With the advances in computing and gestural touch interfaces, we are starting to see them even be considered at the local Ann Taylor. This trend has often times made processes more streamlined and allowed people to interact with information and services in ways that were impossible a few years back. There is a downside to this however, germs. New studies have shown that our touchscreen devices, most notably our iPads are germ magnets. So while we should not be running back to our caves in fear, we need to understand the implications of touch-based interfaces — especially in the context of public environments. One place in particular where touch-based interactions pose a serious hazard are hospitals. The CDC estimates that 1.7 million hospital-associated infections, or Nosocomial infections occur each year with 99,000 resulting in death. When germs are a deadly issue, the last thing you want is to have thousands of people touching the same thing.

On the other hand, the systems currently in place are horribly outdated and will be increasingly out of step with people expecting to have smarter, simpler and more streamlined points of interaction. There are plenty of areas in hospitals and other healthcare-related clinics where interactive, digital systems could drastically improve the patient and their support network’s experience. These sorts of solutions could also help expedite the digitization of medical records. Interactions such as patient check-in, directory information, patient location, and describing symptoms at an urgent care need a more modern approach. If touch screens pose a health risk, what are some other ways to solve this problem?

I believe spatial gesture KUIs (kinetic user interfaces) from technology being used in products like Microsoft Kinect, with mobile devices as an optional supplement could have a lot of promise. The advances in this space have been astounding and have shown the significant potential that they have. The XBox 360′s Kinect hub shows just how much can be accomplished with simple gestures and an appropriate interface.

I could see interfaces such as the example above being useful for patients to not only input their information to the clinic, but also to look through their own medical records, research information on their health issue and be able to better understand procedures and medication before they opt in to something they may be uncomfortable with. These systems could also support families in waiting rooms who desperately want to know the status of their loved one or understand the details of what they are afflicted with. This information could be available, it just currently poses a significant health risk to provide it with more traditional physical I/O devices.

There are potential challenges of course. Inputting large amounts of text for things such as patient records could be laborious and frustrating. However, creative solutions such as allowing peripheral interactions from mobile devices or voice input could aid these processes. The overwhelming norm of using pen and paper to continually input your information or needing to call a front desk for simply patient information is just no longer going to cut it. Our health care systems need a serious overhaul from start to finish. Perhaps a good place to get started is here.

Minor update: Dave Johnson brought up the appropriate concern of how something like this could especially challenge people with disabilities. There probably are few places more likely to have people with motor/motion ailments than a hospital. A solution such as the one I write about would either need to find ways to work within their limitations or there would need to be well-designed alternatives to support them. It just goes to show how tricky this subject is.

This post was originally posted on the Adaptive Path blog.

The permeation of software in society has given everyone the opportunity to do what only professionals were capable of in years past. The web has only accelerated its progression. There are whole new segments of the population who are now frequently publishing their writing, editing video, and processing photos, among other things. The problem, however, is that to meet the needs of this new untrained audience, the methods of interaction have been over-simplified in the process. Instead of bringing everyone up to a higher proficiency, this is dragging everyone down, including professionals, to a lower state. Superficially designed products create superficial understandings of the subject matter. Expect more of your audience, give them a good reason why it is worth their time, and you will have a better audience as well as a better product.

But dealing with Stiff wasn’t easy. He wanted endnotes so he could give his sources, which were critical to his argument. Even though we didn’t usually publish notes — Eye is a magazine, after all, not a journal — I agreed because I could see their necessity in this case, though I suggested we drop the page numbers. Stiff wasn’t happy with this, maintaining that it would ill serve readers; he was consistent to a fault. I thought that was overstating it. When the essay, slightly revised, was reprinted in Looking Closer 2 (1997) under a perhaps too emphatic new title, “Look at Me! Look at Me! (What Designers Want),” he put the numbers back in.

Looking back, so much of the “Golden Age of Design” revolved around clear, ordered and unhindered communication. Without the jargon and buzzwords, designers were practicing user-centered design in their particular craft. I do not think it is coincidence that once the design community lost the focus of the viewer/reader that design began to go off the rails and became far too introspective and, debatably, self-serving. I believe in large part that movement has began to atrophy or at least is becoming more accurately defined as art. It is always beneficial to be reminded of what design of all flavors (including typographic design) should, and should not, be focused on.