I’m the person my friends and family come to for computer-related help. (Maybe you, gentle reader, can relate.) This experience has taught me which computing tasks are frustrating for normal people. Normal people often struggle with converting video. They will need to watch, upload, or otherwise do stuff with a video, but the format will be weird. (Weird, broadly defined, is anything that won’t pl

Code forces humans to be precise. That’s good. Computers need precision. But it also forces humans to think like machines. For decades we tried to fix this by making programming more human-friendly. Higher-level languages. Visual interfaces. Each step helped, but we were still translating human thoughts into computer instructions. AI was supposed to change everything. Finally, plain English could

When you hear “atomic design,” you probably think of Brad Frost. Interestingly, he was not the first person to develop that method of delivering design as components, or even the terminology. Brad published his atomic design article in 2013. While digging through the archives at frog , I’ve learned that Mark Rolston developed and applied an atomic framework as early as 1998. The description found

Grids are the best thing to ever happen to graphic design. They form a rational basis for organizing information. They support the harmonious distribution of elements and visual weight. We don’t design things with grids because it’s easy, or because everyone else is doing it. It’s not a trend. We design with grids because they help the brain process information. The text of this article is left-al

Fellow members of The International Cabal to Destroy Design, I write you today because we stand atop a precipice, faced with the threat of annihilation. The rogue Eli Schiff has been systematically exposing our wicked deeds in an attempt to derail the Modern Minimalist plot. I’m sure you remember this piece from last year : This move towards the design engineer has excited designers like Cap Watki

Clicking “Unsubscribe” should have a straightforward outcome. In the wild it’s rarely that simple. Here’s an example from Ugmonk , a fantastic clothing brand run by a passionate designer. I’d never unsubscribe from their newsletter in real life, but let’s pretend: Sorry, this video didn’t work. Notice that clicking “Unsubscribe” doesn’t unsubscribe. It brings us to a screen with the action “Update

The best designs often look wrong. They appear unexceptional. They don’t show off. They don’t push our technical skills to the limit. They leave out things we expect. They don’t reflect the latest trends. “It just doesn’t look right.” “It almost looks unfinished.” “Nobody does this anymore.” Great designs achieve their goals and nothing else. They’re not flashy for the sake of being flashy, and th

Human beings need space to express themselves. Eyes have a broad field of view, heads turn, and arms reach several feet in many directions. Unlike us, our screens are small. They constrain our movement to small twitches of the fingers and a few degrees of eye movement. They’re easy to carry around, but they’re also restrictive. The invention of the touch screen removed a barrier between people and

It’s a standard function of all browsers, it’s everywhere, and it’s time to retire it. Here’s an example from JIRA . Trying to “Cancel” a comment brings up the confirm dialog : Even if we assume confirmation is necessary, the standard confirm dialog is a bad way to get it: Most of what’s shown is junk . The browser logo, the URL of the page, the paragraph that nobody reads—none of it helps me canc

I’ve noticed a worrying number of professional designers mixing up basic form elements lately. Checkboxes and radio buttons, particularly. This is the Jobs page on Designer News : Sorry, this video didn’t work. See that “Remote Friendly” control? It’s a trick control . It looks like a radio button, but it behaves like a checkbox. It’s deceptive. It leads us to expect one kind of behavior, a standa