If you are looking to find me on the web, here are a few quick links:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Flickr
• LinkedIn

My run as the Desktop columnist for Print Magazine ended in 2010. It was great while it lasted. You can always find my past articles at Print’s website or better yet, go buy the magazine since it’s one of the few design publications that’s worth paying a subscription for in my humble opinion.

My most recent articles:

• PowerPoint is Not an Excuse (Feb 2010)
• Can Typekit Bring Fonts to the Web? (Oct 2009)
• A Tale of Two Valleys (Aug 2009)
• Internet Advertising and Innovation (Apr 2009)
• Upward Mobility (Feb 2009)
• Coming Interactions (Dec 2008)
• Click to Run (Oct 2008)
• Open Range (Aug 2008)

While I’m proud of the final results, I can’t take all of of the credit. I loved having editors and can’t sing the praise enough of mine, Caitlin Dover and James Gaddy. They took my words and thoughts and made me sound a thousand times smarter than I actually am.

Outside of that, here’s a quick list of what I think is still worth reading here at Design by Fire.

• Keeping up with the Joneses
• The unfortunate death of Helvetica
• Convenient Lessons from An Inconvenient Truth
• The Culture of Fugly
• Please make me think! Are high-tech usability priorities backwards?
• Rebranding the World Wide Web Consortium
• Design Eye for the Usability Guy
• Santorini in black and white

I have a lot of material I’d like to add to this sitting on my hard drive, but building a design company took more effort and free time than I ever imagined. Involution Studios is still going strong.

I also get a lot of questions about design education material, books and recommendations via private email. I figure I’d at least post my book recommendation to let folks see it.

This list represents what I consider the most useful and inspirational books on all manner of things Design. It covers a large gamut, from photography to illustration to art direction to type to color to fashion to fiction and back to interface design. There’s philosophical books on big “D” design here alongside with pragmatic books for every day work. I can guarantee that everything on this list is useful in the design of technology products in some way. If you grab anything off this list, you can’t go wrong.

There are a few books missing from my shelves these days that are not pictured. They are appended at the bottom. There are plenty more of course. Books marked with asterisks (*) are especially important in my opinion.

I hope you find these books as useful as I have.

My Bookshelf:

A.
Lightbulb.
A simple reminder to always look for innovative, bright ideas.

B.
Random artifacts for various design inspiration. Old maps, advertisements, brochures.

C.
Type Selector by Michael Wörgötter

D.
Secret Sense of Japanese Magazine Design
Art Director Confesses: I Sold Sex! Drugs & Rock ‘N’ Roll by Mike Salisbury

E.
Process: A Tomato Project

F.
Area 2: 100 Graphic Designers, 10 Curators, 10 Design Classics

G.
Illusive 2: Contemporary Illustration and Its Context

H.
PRINT Magazine, Desktop Columns by Andrei Herasimchuk. See the links at top.

I.
Helvetica, Homage to a Typeface, by Lars Müller
Pictoplasma, Characters in Motion

J.
Designer’s Guide to Color

K.
Thoughts on Interaction Design, by Jon Kolko

L.
Chip Kidd, Book One
The Cheese Monkeys, by Chip Kidd

M.
The Elements of Friendly Software Design, by Paul Heckel *
The New Typography, by Jan Tschichold *
Interaction of Color, by Josef Albers *
The Laws of Simplicity, by John Maeda *
Discovering Design, by Richard Buchanan and Victor Margolin

N.
Paul Rand, Modernist Design, edited by Franc Nunoo-Quarcoo
The Elements of Typographic Style, by Robert Bringhurst *

O.
Making the Web Work, by Bob Baxley
Designing Visual Interfaces, by Kevin Mullet and Darrell Sano
The Essential Guide to User Interface Design, by Wilbert Galitz

P.
The Idea of Design, by Richard Buchanan and Victor Margolin
Presentation Zen, by Garr Reynolds

Q.
Chip Kidd, by Véronique Vienne
Designing for People, by Henry Dreyfuss *

R.
The Sandman, Endless Nights, by Neil Gaiman
Alphabets, Wim Crouwel

S.
MTIV: Process, Inspriation and Practice for the New Media Designer, by Hillman Curtis
Basic Typography: Design with Letters, by Ruedi Rüegg

T.
Dick Bruna, Boekomslagen, by Bert Jansen

U.
Collage with Photoshop, by Russell Sparkman

V.
Designed by Peter Saville, by Peter Saville

W.
A Designer’s Art, by Paul Rand *
Thoughts on Design, by Paul Rand *

X.
Word and Image: Posters from the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art, Edited By Mildred Constantine *

Y.
The Graphic Language of Neville Brody, by Jon Wozencroft

Z.
Paul Rand, by Steven Heller

1.
Profile: Pentagram Design

2.
Envisioning Information, by Edward Tufte *
Letterpress, The Allure of the Handmade, by David Jury
Tanaka Ikko, Graphic Master, by Gian Carlo Calza

3.
Milton Glaser, Graphic Design, by Milton Glaser

4.
D-Zone, Tztom Toda Editorial Design 1975-1999

5.
Anything from Rosenfeld Media

6.
Phred. The original sculpture used in the packaging design for Specular Collage from 1993, the first product I did the full interface design and product definition for on my own. Obviously, a sentimental artifact for me. This sculpture was created by Stephen Mockensturm, now of Madhouse in Toledo, OH. One of the best creative agencies out there.

7.
Libretto, by Paolo Roversi
JAM: Tokyo-London
kaoshsawrinsespin, by Tolleson Design

8.
Uelsmann: Process and Perception, by Jerry Uelsmann
Hong Kong Yesterday, by Fang Ho
Seeing Fashion by Melvin Sokolsky
En Passant, by Dennis Manarchy
The Apparitions, by RJ Muna
Japan, by Michael Kenna

9.
Golden Gate, by Richard Misrach
California One, The Pacific Coast Highway, by Stephen Wilkes
Searchings, by Barbara Bordnick
Acid Bloom, by Ninagawa Mika
Gifts of the Street, by Sam Smidt

Not shown in photo:
Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design, by Jennifer Tidwell *
From Lascaux to Brooklyn, by Paul Rand *
Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Type, by Kimberly Elam *

Since then, I’ve spoken to a few folks and found out a little bit more of how the CS3 interface overhaul came to be. While I won’t go into details, it turns out that indeed my Joneses concept sketches were an inspiration and a starting point for the CS3 design and engineering team. They took the ideas in Joneses, researched them heavily with customers, iterated on the ideas extensively and prototyped many different approaches before arriving at what you see inside CS3. I should also note that Flash picked up the approach, a mistake I’ve corrected in the article. I want to make sure I acknowledge those that made happen what I could not. I know exactly how hard their task was to make it a reality and what they went through in doing so.

So, I’d like to give a great big round of applause to: Chris Smith, Michael Ninness, Frederick Aliaga, Michael Coleman, Wilson Chan, Marianne Berkovich, Ken Moore, Elizabeth Smith, Eric Berdahl, Jesper Bache, John Fritzpatrick, Tim Beauchamp and Bill Bachman, with whom I go way back.

You guys deserve immense credit for pulling off a massive overhaul of the Adobe interface. I salute you!

- – - – -

Interface designers are limited by the constraints of technology even more so than other design disciplines at this point in time. That is to say, what is possible to design in today’s software is not nearly as far advanced as what other designers achieve in other design disciplines. Architecture and print have had hundreds of years to evolve their core design principles and the technology used to produce their work. Automobile designers are now enjoying a level of technological progress in their field that enables them to achieve amazing feats at a lower cost that still yields great design these days. That kind of progress is still evolving for those of us working in the technology sector.

Given how often I feel limited by what I’m able to do in my line of work, it was refreshing for me to install Adobe Creative Suite 3 and see that the Adobe design team finally implemented the kind of interface approach I had been wanting to do for almost ten years now. While I’m not privy to the intimate details that went into CS3, having left Adobe back in 2004 to start Involution Studios, I can give you some insight into CS3′s approach from my point of view since the interface concept is based off some early concept work I did.

Back in 1999, once InDesign 1.0 finally shipped, the first batch of the Creative Suite was considered complete by my measuring stick. I had begun the process of creating the Adobe common interface back in 1995, when I first joined the company. It was five years of the most stressful work I have ever done as an interface designer, even to this day, tapping me of pretty much everything I had. After five years and with InDesign on the market, I finally saw my work in a complete state. I had at least accomplished the main goal I set out to do.

During the months previous to that moment, I had begun exploring what could be done next. After all, at that point in time, the common interface approach I had been implementing with my design team at Adobe was already five year old thinking. Ancient in software terms. Archaic by today’s standards. I was ready to begin the next stage of the evolution of the Adobe common interface.

I had found the work that Microsoft had done in Microsoft Office 97 to be intriguing at the time. As with most work done at Microsoft, I found they had good ideas at the surface level, but had missed a lot of the small details diving deeper that really turn the corner when it comes to designing software applications. In this case, their configurable toolbars were used mostly as a means for action shortcuts, which led them to cram as many buttons on their default toolbar configurations as they could in an effort to expose more of the actions their products could perform. Further, while they had access to tear off a palette from the toolbars, they missed an opportunity to make the palettes work more dynamically from the toolbar itself without having to tear them off. More on that in a bit.

I found the concept of configurable toolbars to be a compelling interface device. Being able to shuffle controls and buttons around to allow users to create their own workspace was something we had wanted to do for a while at Adobe. Considering the enormous diversity of the user types we had for our products, configurability was always seen as a means to keep as many people as happy with the interface as possible. And configurability was always at the heart of what Kevin Johnston created when he introduced tabbed palettes in the first place to Photoshop way back in the early 1990s.

Another goal at the time for me was to go back to address something Joe Holt, one of the original Illustrator engineers, use to complain about in the work I did on the common interface strategy. He always felt there was far too much line noise and three dimensional effects, muddying the display of the products. At the time I came up with the original common interface strategy — remember, that was 1995, and I had just gotten started at Adobe — I was following the visual trends from Apple and Microsoft and was basically following what everyone else was doing. Everything needed to look beveled and chiseled. But after having gone through the common interface design process up to that point and looking back on it, I knew Joe had been right.

So given the configurability of the Microsoft Office approach and a desire to reduce interface noise, I set about creating a few concept sketches for the next stage of the common interface. One that I wanted to convince the product teams at Adobe to adopt.

Thus, the Joneses was born. (That was my personal codename for the work.)

Figure 1. A general overview of the idea behind a configurable interface for Photoshop with less line noise.

Figure 2. Palette’s would be able to be accessed from any icon placed anywhere on any toolbar by the user. This would allow people to place icons wherever they chose in order to create a unique workspace.

Figure 3. Palettes would also be allowed to be combined to give people a means to collapse similar functions to be accessed by a single icon.

Figure 4. With this new interface structure in place, a user could even configure Photoshop to have a much different layout, accessing palettes only when they needed to.

Figure 5. A quick screenshot of Photoshop in Creative Suite 3 to use as a comparison.

The first thing you’ll note is how dated the screenshots look. It was always a thorn in my side that the interface for Photoshop back in the 1990s was always limited to pixelated 1980s design aesthetics given the Photoshop engine itself could do all this amazing pixel level compositing and painting operations. But that’s part of the constraint of being an interface designer. Technology at the systems level always lags behind technology at the application level for a variety of reasons that are not worth diving into in this article. Suffice it to say that the Photoshop team had no desire to recreate the core graphics engine to work for the operating system, so we were largely at the mercy of whatever Apple and Microsoft could do at the time.

Back in 1999, while sketching out this concept, palettes had no means to “stick” temporarily on screen while being used. They were either there or not. The kind of interaction needed to make Joneses viable had not been programmed to my knowledge. In order for that to happen, you had to have what I termed a semi-modal state; something that was modal and self-contained like a dialog box, but did not lock out the user from the rest of the interface or require an explicit click of an OK or CANCEL button to dismiss. With this approach, the user clicks an icon, the palette pops open and sticks, the user interacts with it while keeping the palette on the screen. As long as the user clicks and tabs inside the palette itself, the palette would remain on the screen. Only when the user clicks off the palette or hits the RETURN or ESC keys would the palette disappear.

When I pressed the Photoshop team back in 1999 to add this new type of interaction behavior, they balked. Part of the reason why is simple: most Adobe products have very heavy and intricate keyboard interactions. Learning how to use Photoshop is a lot like learning how to play the guitar. How people use their hands with the keyboard and mouse creates a certain feel, and they learn to use it in ways where their behavioral patterns become unique to their means of interacting with it. To introduce this new semi-modal state would require going into the code to rework all of application’s core interface pieces, something that was very risky. If not done properly, the whole approach could break one of the core foundations the product gained it’s reputation on.

In the end, I couldn’t convince enough people at the time to take the risk or invest in the kind of resources that would be needed for a Joneses type of interface overhaul for Photoshop, which I was hoping to use to push the rest of the Creative Suite as well. As such, I decided to leave Adobe back in 1999 with the core pieces of the common interface completed and implemented. I took some time trying my hand at Internet companies during the late stages of the dot.com boom, only to get convinced to come back to Adobe by Mark Hamburg to get Adobe Lightroom off the ground in 2002. (Who am I kidding? I didn’t need a whole heckuva of a lot of arm twisting. Getting a chance to work with an engineer as smart as Hamburg on any project is a no brainer.)

But I did enough pushing to convince the team to let one of Photoshop’s long time über-engineers, Seetha Narayanan, create the code to allow this new semi-modal interaction method to work. To try out the new behavior and see how it felt in real usage, the Photoshop team isolated the semi-modal concept into what became the Palette Well and the pop-up slider controls in version 6.0. While it appears the Creative Suite 3 approach uses an entirely different code base from what existed only in Photoshop to execute on the new interface approach, the end result appears to be what I was looking for back with the Joneses.

The concept of the Joneses and what you see in Creative Suite 3 is basically the same: create the ability for people to configure their interface in a way they prefer to work, while giving them quick access to other features at an iconic level if so desired. Although I have to say I’m disappointed that Creative Suite 3 falls short of letting me arrange icons for palette access horizontally as shown in my Joneses concept sketches, but that’s a minor nit. As far as I can tell, that’s the only thing missing functionally between what I was aiming for back then and what finally shipped this year.

What I most loved about the approach back then is something that I can now finally experience in CS3. The maximized screen state where the palettes exist on the screen and force the canvas to never go behind or cover up the palettes. Yet, the palette wells can be resized while adjusting the palettes themselves to one’s liking, forcing the canvas to never intrude on the palette screen real estate. I find this method of working alone to be worth the entire upgrade to CS3.

So, some things take time I guess. It’s just part of the life being an interface designer so early in the field’s technical evolution. But in the end, it warms my heart to see the concepts from the Joneses implemented in Creative Suite 3. I’m especially happy to be able to use it since I’m now on the other side of the wall.

Now I guess someone over at Adobe needs to get the Dreamweaver and Fireworks teams on the ball and do the same thing.

But that’s all done now. I can now announce the latest project myself and other folks at Involution Studios have been working on recently.

What is Spivot? Simply put, its an RSS reader at its core. But don’t let that part fool you. It’s also much more. My hope is that with the design and implementation we chose, Spivot will actually wind up being a lot more for a lot more people than what you see in the current RSS offerings today.

Spivot has hints of being a Bloglines like tool, one where you can sign up for a free account and then enter your own feeds so you can keep up with your favorite web sites. You’ll also notice a few buttons across the top of the page, like “Most Read” and “Highest Rated.” These buttons switch the sorting of the currently selected content to reflect the reading behaviors of the Spivot community and thus can provide some Digg like approach to browsing media content. Further, given that the default set of feeds in Spivot is from a wide array of mainstream media sources, you’ll also find a little of Google or Yahoo! news in the experience.

There’s more. Spivot also scans YouTube to find videos that could be related to whatever set of stories you are currently viewing. It finds related stories and shows you articles by the same source or author. It allows you to discuss stories, email them to friends, tag them as well as rate them to help in the scoring process to find better matches in the future.

And signing up for an account is free.

There are many things to cover with Spivot and how it came to be. I’ll attempt to document this in the upcoming months on this blog. But for right now, it’s best to just simply announce its existence to the world and see what happens from here.

You will probably find an issue or two when using the product, or maybe want to see a feature not yet in it. As with any web related endeavor, its an ever evolving process. We gladly welcome any all feedback on what you like or dislike about Spivot.

Simply drop us a line at feedback@spivot.com.

That finally came this past weekend.

John Warnock and Chuck Geschke were spotlighted and interviewed by the San Jose Mercury News. In the interview, which you can read online (account required), Ryan Blitstein asked Warnock directly about my open source font request.

Q: Last summer, Andrei Herasimchuk, who spent eight years at Adobe, generated buzz among designers and programmers with an open letter asking Adobe to open-source several of its typefaces online so the Internet would look less boring. What do you think of the idea?

Warnock: It’d be very easy to do that. Adobe can do it with just its own typefaces, but it wouldn’t fix the problem. HTML does not have a good way to specify and download typefaces the way PDF does. There are fundamental changes in the Web infrastructure needed to fix this problem.

It’s unfortunate that this is the response. Of course the technology needs to be fixed to truly solve the problem. I stated that explicitly in my original letter. And note that Warnock acknowledges that it would “easy” to release a few core fonts, something I know a lot of naysayers out in the blogosphere thought was some large impediment to the issue.

However, it’s clear by this response we can expect little to nothing from Adobe on this matter. That’s a real shame.

I guess we can now officially grieve for the death of Helvetica, as it is lost to Arial.

Why do I say that? Just look around on the web. Sure, you’ll find design blogs and type geeks like myself spec’ing their CSS using Helvetica as the primary font of choice. But 99.9% of the rest of the web uses Arial or Verdana, both incredibly poor substitutes for a classic like Helvetica.

Walk into major businesses these days and check out what font their everyday, normal written communication is now set in. It sure as hell ain’t Helvetica. People use Arial simply because it’s loaded onto their machines and they know it’ll be there 99% of the time when viewed in a browser or another computer. Within five to ten years, we’ll probably have a whole new crop of designers coming out of school who have the web so ingrained into their DNA that few of them will probably even know that Helvetica existed.

And guys like me only have myself to blame.

Recently I attended a workshop conference in Half Moon Bay sponsored by Microsoft. The workshop was called Spark UX. The purpose of the workshop was to discuss how software architects can define their role and what is needed by companies of all shapes and sizes to support design in the architecture role for creating software products. Obviously, Microsoft is keen on the next wave of technology as it hits the business world. That is to say, technology is flattening to the degree that everyone will be able to architect software solutions to drive various business needs both large and small. Microsoft wants to find out ways to help people build those solutions, and they are actually interested in how good design will fit into the process.

Bravo to them. I know little of anyone at Apple doing the same thing, which says a lot about where Microsoft and Apple are positioning themselves for the next decade.

During the lunches and breakout sessions, I started grumbling about typography with some of the folks from Microsoft, as I am wont to do whenever given the chance. It’s a sad sight to behold, I must admit. A type and graphic design geek like myself who had an active role in solidifying desktop publishing while at Adobe lamenting about the fact that type sucks on the web. At Adobe, I was in a spot to possibly help change this and I blew it, thinking the whole thing would work itself out.

In this conversation, I brought up my letter to Warnock, along with Jeff Croft’s similar rant about the same issue. In the discussion, I made the case for better type as it relates to web sites and enterprise software, pointing out that while it was nice to see Microsoft actually spend money on better screen typography, it does little to help the overall problem since Microsoft seemingly has no intention of releasing the fonts with an open license. It’s like Croft states: If the fonts only exist on Windows, designers are back to square one as we have to worry about all systems, not just Windows. No matter how dominant Windows is in the world.

The further I got into this conversation, the more I found myself making the case that Croft’s approach might be better than mine. To that end, I asked point blank for the folks from Microsoft to go back to Seattle and make the case to the Windows team there to release the five Vista C fonts, known as the ClearType Font Collection, into the public domain.

Why?

Well obviously, it solves the platform problem. Designers creating web sites need fonts they know will exist on the client machine. And if the client machine does not have the font, then they could at least get the font for free without violating any license.

The next thing is bigger for Microsoft though. They have already paid for the design and production of the fonts. That investment is a fixed cost and is complete. By releasing the fonts into the public domain, they’ll do a lot to win the hearts and minds fight with designers that Apple and Adobe have assumed they have already won. Of all the business sectors Microsoft has historically had a difficult time with, it’s the creative community they have the hardest time reaching. This one act would go a long ways toward getting their foot in the door with that sector.

Further, if Microsoft were to do this, in irony of all ironies, they will have done a large part in boosting legitimate type and design on the web. It would not come from Apple nor Adobe. In the history books on design, Microsoft would be remembered for this simple act of planting a few trees in the commons, not their competition.

What negative effects could come from releasing the fonts? None that I can see. There’s no way Apple or other major competitors will bother using the fonts in their marketing or branding, so Microsoft need not fear the fonts being used by their competition to brand themselves or their interfaces like Vista. Fear of Linux? That train left the station long ago, and giving Linux users something better to look at on screen isn’t going to end the world for Microsoft. And while at the heart of my request was to release a few core fonts that have passed the test of time for functionality, readability and utility, even I can recognize that the new Vista C Fonts are much easier on the eyes on the screen. They are very well designed. Could the Vista C Fonts become classics? Releasing them will give them a shot to pass or fail that test on their own merits. It’s looking like Georgia will serve it’s purpose year over year in this regard.

Whether anyone at Microsoft can be convinced of this is not something I can predict. But consider this post my official request for them to do so.

I can already see the all the free publicity Microsoft would get from the entire creative community over such an act. It would be a sight to behold for sure.

So to Helvetica, I ask for forgiveness and pity, even though I deserve neither. I hope that if I make it to the ripe old age of 80 or so, that I can pick up my brand new digital ink WiFi device, surf over to the latest issue of the Mercury News online, and read the headlines set in such a timeless classic like Helvetica. I doubt that will happen. It feels already like Helvetica has faded too quickly.

Some call that progress I guess. I call it a tragedy.

John,

I am writing this to you because of all the people on the planet, you are quite literally the only person I know of who could make what I am about to ask for a reality. But before I get to my request, let me please start with a few words of thanks.

I hope I speak for all designers when I say that without question, your contributions to the world of design through the technology of PostScript and the subsequent business you built in Adobe Systems, has quite simply changed the face of design. You’ve made the life of designers everywhere on the planet more fulfilling and have given us the tools and technology to progress our craft. Through Adobe, you’ve given us the gift of Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign, and countless many other creative applications that have become the core tools for our profession.

On a personal note, I’ve been privileged to have had the dream job early in my career at the company you built. That opportunity provided me the room to grow in my craft in ways that I never could have imagined before going in. Adobe is in my blood.

I will never forget the processes and methods in which we worked to create software, the care we took to provide the best tools we knew how to make, the collaboration amongst some of the smartest engineers, product managers, business executives and designers around. All of that creative energy ultimately is a direct result of the culture and company you built.

I was given the opportunity of a lifetime to work on the creative products that have shaped a generation of designers. I would never have had that opportunity without you. I never had the chance to thank you personally for it and never quite understood just how important it was to me until recently. I’d like to thank you now.

Given everything that you have done, everything that you have contributed to the world of design at large, I’m hoping there’s still one more thing you’ll be willing to do. I’m hoping you’ll be willing to help the design community fix the world of typography on the Internet.

As all designers are taught by their mentors, Design is communication.

In that vein, I’m hoping you’ll agree with me that since typography plays a critical role in the designer’s ability to communicate, it is of the upmost importance that communication on the Internet not be relegated to the likes of Arial for future generations to come.

I know there are many issues involved to solve the typography problem on the web. Having been involved in the conversations at Adobe about these issues, I know this more intimately than I care to. And while there are difficult technology and political hurdles, I don’t think that means there isn’t one small gesture that could go a long way towards to helping to solve the problem.

So let me finally make my request:

Please consider releasing eight to twelve core fonts into the public domain. The amount of revenue lost from a small core set of fonts surely can’t have a significant impact on Adobe’s bottom line. And the gesture of releasing such a set into the public domain would have many positive ripple effects for years to come.

I’m sure many designers have a different list of what those eight might be. I know my list would include the likes of Adobe Caslon Pro, Adobe Jenson Pro, Franklin Gothic, Frutiger, Futura, Gill Sans, Helvetica Neue, Univers and your new namesake, Warnock Pro. I know other designers would have a slightly different list. I’m not sure what is the best way to determine a list of core fonts, but I know I’d be happy if you sat down with the typographers from Adobe and made the decision amongst yourselves which fonts would be deserving of becoming part of the core set for the next millennium. I’m sure I’d agree with whatever Robert Slimbach and the other typographers at Adobe would choose for such a set.

By releasing a few core fonts into the public domain, the next step would be get both Steve Jobs and Steve Ballmer to include these fonts in the Mac and Windows operating systems, including them into their next system updates. If the fonts are public, I don’t see how they could refuse to do so.

While creating a set of core public domain fonts does not solve the problem of digital rights management inherent in distributing font technology across the web, it goes a long way towards providing designers the tools they need to fulfill the promise of communication on the Internet.

Given the importance of the Internet in our everyday lives, this would have a significant impact. That impact cannot be underestimated.

I am asking every designer I know to send you a similar letter as the one I’m sending to you right now, whether they do so in printed form or with their own blog. I’m hoping they too will thank you first for what you have given them and then make the case for releasing a core set of fonts into the public domain. I’m hoping that they will ask their fellow designers to do the same and create a grassroots movement to get this core set of fonts released, for all to use, for all to cherish.

The Internet is indeed the modern day printing press. In that regard, the quality of our communication is now being restricted partly by the quality of the default set of fonts available on Mac OS and Windows operating systems. For someone like yourself who adores and appreciates the importance typography plays in our daily lives, I’m hoping you’ll find some way to make this small act of charity a reality so designers everywhere can have a better chance to deliver on the promise of the Internet as the modern communication medium.

I’m hoping you’ll make it happen because I think you’re the only person who could.

Sincerely,

Andrei Michael Herasimchuk

cc:
Attn: Mr. Bruce Chizen
Adobe Systems
345 Park Avenue
San Jose, CA 95110

Attn: Mr. Steve Jobs
Apple Computer
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014

Attn: Mr. Steve Ballmer
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-6399

As a designer, I found the presentation of the information in the movie thoroughly engaging. The slides that Mr. Gore used — designed by Duarte Design — were clean, clear and communicated complex sets of data in an accessible fashion. There was excellent use of movement to reveal the underlying story the data was telling us. There were moments of humor used to break up the relentless abuse the facts can have on one’s psyche. And there was near perfect use of contrast and scale to communicate the significance of the situation.

What could have been just yet another crappy cognitive style of PowerPoint cum Keynote presentation was instead an exemplary case study on how to do presentations right. It’s a useful lesson on exactly how good design requires a singular focus on what needs to be communicated in order to be effective.

Good design is not oversimplified

One of the more memorable images in the presentation was this:

It’s a slice from an infamous graph called The Keeling Curve, a chart that shows the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide and how it has increased since 1958. It shows clearly that carbon dioxide levels are increasing year over year. It also serves as a warning that we are living with dangerous levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.

(Note: This rendering of the Keeling Curve is not the same one used from the movie.)

When I hear people in the technology design field discuss “simplicity,” I’m always struck by how too many tend to misuse the term. In contrast, the presentation of the Keeling Curve in the movie is a clear example of what simplicity is, and how it should be applied in practice.

Gore first presents the chart as only a thick, jagged red line cutting across the wall sized black screen behind him on stage, which is dramatic in its own right. Then he frames it in it’s proper context combined with a simple animation that ties the spikes in the chart to the earth’s similar carbon dioxide breathing patterns. He lets the jagged line grow over time, rising as he talks about it’s importance. It’s the perfect example of how simple, uncomplicated visuals when coupled with a professional speaker can be used to communicate a powerful message.

The message as communicated doesn’t come from some attempt to simplify the chart’s data set or through some truncated method of describing what the line means via a bulleted list. The message comes from being communicated in its natural state as a jagged line that rises over time, with little added to garble the signal.

To translate this into every day work of interface designers, one should not pretend to make complex sets of data or involved interactions simple through means other than what they are. If something is complex by nature, the best way you can hope to make it simple is by not adding anything extraneous to it.

The way to make something simple is to let it be as complex as it is.

That means you should avoid using made up marketingspeak within instructional text, refuse to add visually complex icons if textual descriptions on buttons suffice, resist the urge to decorate when it only serves to add more flavor but doesn’t change the core communciation, and not attempt to second guess what a user might want to do on rare occasions at a specific step in a process.

Gore made no attempt to avoid using a chart based on carbon dioxide readings collected over fifty years. He describes why the jagged line is jagged by nature, only using a simple animation of the Earth “breathing” that reinforces the key concept of why the line is jagged. He states simply that levels above 300 parts per million are dangerous to our environment. Finally, he displays the chart with its dramatic jagged red line overlaid on simple axes of time and measurement.

The message is communicated loud and clear.

Good design is not about obviousness

Another design lesson to be garnered from the movie is that it’s acceptable — and often preferred — to take the appropriate amount of time to build a story.

Building a narrative in a movie is similar to building expectations in the design of technology products. Both are fulfilled only when the follow through satisfies the time invested by either the audience or the user. In the case of Gore’s presentation, he does an excellent job of using the information he discusses just minutes prior in order to make clear the next set of data points. He doesn’t attempt to say everything at once, but lets himself build upon each data point he communicates through the progression of his talk. In short, he fulfills on the promise of providing us with more knowledge for the time we spend sitting in the movie theater after paying our price of admission.

A clear example of this in practical design terms can be found in the iPod. Just step back to the moment in time to when the iPod first came out. If you recall, many people who had never encountered a digital music device weren’t sure what to make of it. If you handed the iPod to someone who had never seen it, they were often dumbfounded.

In fact, how to use the ever present and important scroll wheel clearly wasn’t obvious. More often than not, you had to explain to an iPod neophyte exactly how to use it.

The designers got the iPod right in terms making the device feel comfortable in one’s hand and keeping it’s industrial design sleek and sexy through minimalist use of form and color. Where they ultimately succeeded though was in the follow through on the use of the scroll wheel. Once a user took the time to understand what the iPod did or had the scroll wheel’s interaction explained to them, the investment on their part opened up access to thousands of songs, which is the core expectation of using the iPod in the first place. That fulfilled expectation for their investment is what makes the design work, even though on the surface it’s not entirely obvious. Once the user has experienced the scroll wheel’s interaction, they can never look at an iPod again and not know how to use it. At that point, it becomes forever obvious.

The way to make something obvious is to follow through on expectations built up from the time invested on the product.

The best approach one can take as a designer is to always ask what kind of investment you are requesting of your customers, because all products require some time investment. Then, be brutally honest with yourself that you are holding up your end of the bargain with them. If you are going to ask someone to spend any amount of time attempting to learn or otherwise grok a product as expressed though its design, you have to hold up your end of the deal by providing them something that is both useful and satisfying.

Gore spent a reasonable amount of time building his case in the movie. His narrative works because by the end of it, even if one may not agree with the underlying intentions of Gore himself or have issues with the man for some partisan reason, Gore fulfilled the promise of telling the common person the story that many scientists have been trying to over the past few decades.

Good design is not about style

My favorite aspect of the movie’s presentation is the timelessness of its visuals. Gore’s slides use nothing but core graphic design fundamentals to do the job and become an important lesson on how the design aesthetic works.

There is a distinct lack of gradients, shading, fanciful fonts, cool transitions or any other spoils of modern presentation software. The motion graphics when used were judicious and focused. There was no specific template from one slide to the next. Thankfully, there was also a complete lack of bulleted lists.

The general design aesthetic clearly focused on the fundamentals.

One way to make anything you design easier to use is to first make sure it adheres to the fundamentals of color, type and composition. Given that the principles and rules around the basics of graphic design are well known at this stage of the game, there is simply no excuse to ignore them or claim ignorance of them. From there, you can then focus on other core aspects of a product’s interface, like keeping labels direct, avoiding unnecessary modal interactions or providing clear feedback to a user’s interaction.

As any professional jazz musician will tell you, in order to break the rules you must first gain mastery of them. You can’t play great jazz if you don’t understand the basics of scales or key concepts in music theory, nor if you lack mastery of the physical instrument itself. This is as true in the design of technology products as it is in music.

The way to make something stylish is to lay the proper groundwork using design fundamentals first, then judiciously apply one’s own touch as required.

The reason why the visuals work in An Inconvenient Truth is because they focus squarely on the fundamentals in order to communicate first, with small touches sprinkled throughout to enhance the aesthetic. That focus in design combined with its professional execution creates its style. In the end, that style plays a key role in the emotional impact of the presentation and the movie.

Good design always comes from good designers

The last thing to notice about the movie is quite simple. Al Gore does a great job of being an engaging speaker. The movie works simply because Al Gore is the passionate environmentalist in it, not the wooden presidential candidate that many of us were exposed to during the 2000 election cycle.

One of the reasons Edward Tufte has been so successful is not because his books are beautiful creations, which they are, or that they neccessarily inform core design principles on their own, which they do. In fact, much of what Edward Tufte writes is a bit arcane and overly academic for most people. What makes Tufte successful is that he knows how to give a dynamic, engaging presentation that supports his book, often deepening the lessons that can be learned from them.

Similarly, the way to achieve good design for your product is to simply be a good designer.

That might sound simplistic on its surface, but when one is presented with good design, like that on display in An Inconvenient Truth, it’s always a useful to remember that part of being a good designer is to constantly seek out the lessons one can learn when presented with good design.

And to remember that part of the craft never ends.

At that inopportune moment a young boy probably no older than four or five years old began kicking the seat behind me. Not soft love taps either. I mean all out foot in the spine muscle spasms. After 30 seconds of this torture during the preliminary phases of an oncoming panic attack, I finally turned around and asked the child’s mother if she could please get her son to stop kicking my seat.

She looked at me and said simply, “What do you expect me to do about it?”

At that point, I replied in as clear a tone as I could muster given that my entire body was beginning to get sucked into the seat as the engines roared to life. “If you don’t discipline your son, I will. And I guarantee you that given the two choices in his short life thus far, your son would prefer to be disciplined by you than by me. Further, you’re supposed to be the adult in charge, not him.”

I admit, I made that last bit up. While I did indeed give the woman the evil eye, I said nothing. I politely turned back to face front and took many more deep breathes as the airplane roared down the runway and lifted into the air, waiting for the moment when the airplane’s starboard engine would promptly explode thus sending me to my fiery death. All the while with this damn kid kicking me in the back.

Why do I tell you this? And how does this relate to design, web sites or software?

If you’re a blogger or a business that runs a web site that allows people to post comments on it, then it is very likely that you are the parent in my story. That is to say, you’ve got a serious problem keeping the kids in line, and in most circumstances you’re probably just letting them run rampant, screwing up everyone else’s daily panic attacks.

Unlike ten years ago however, this time I’m not going to keep quiet about it.

One bad apple

These days, it’s hard to not find a web product that has some sort of social networking feature built into it. While I’m all for being more connected to those around me, I have to admit that I find the power of the masses fetish exhibited by the latest wave of high-tech web offerings to be quite useless on the whole.

Websites like Digg are created on the premise that I should somehow trust what other people think is relevant. Newsvine has a “seed” feature that allows stories like “Bush Caused France to Lose World Cup??” to hit the top seed on the cover page. Yahoo! Answers even goes so far as to try and let random strangers tell us what the best love song a girl can sing to a guy might be.

It’s not that these products or others like them don’t have the right intentions at heart. Reading people’s opinions or listening to other points of view is generally a good thing. But all it takes to ruin a movie is one asshole talking to his friend about how much the movie sucks in a voice louder than the Dolby sound system instead of simply getting up and leaving the theater so the rest of the audience can enjoy it.

If I’ve never spoken to or met you in person, I don’t presume you’re the next Einstein. Given that, why should I trust your opinion combined with a bunch other non-Einstein’s to help guide me in my never ending quest to avoid work while browsing the Internet?

One of the beauties of being in the technology field is that you can’t hide behind empty rhetoric. It’s one thing to say something and quite another to actually do it. Within the design blogosphere, this generally translates into a sort of natural Darwinian selection model. If a designer’s blog is also supposed to be an example of what the designer is capable of, then once you claim to be a designer your web site better be up to snuff in both design and content.

Generally speaking, that Darwinian selection model is lost in the blogosphere at large. Especially within the political blogosphere it seems. Without some way to control unfettered asshatism piling up on so many blogs and web sites these days, I fear that the blogosphere is on a collision course towards digital irrelevancy as the signal to noise ratio becomes a fever pitch. Unless of course I’m the only one who can’t withstand the onslaught of two hundred fifty plus comments at the end of a post while also staying coolheaded enough to tolerate the collective bile spewed into the Metaverse.

At some point, everyone will just stop caring if they haven’t already.

Presumed ignorant until proven intelligent

I realize that bloggers aren’t engineers, so ranting at them to keep their commentators in line when the tools they use currently lack the features to actually mitigate the problem is not going to solve the core issue. How comment systems are designed currently takes power away from the blogger to some degree.

Comments are generally posted and appended to the bottom of a blog entry. If the blogger deletes or removes the comment for whatever reason they deem appropriate, it’s usually seen as some act fascism. This then puts an undue burden on the blogger to allow any asshole to effectively add their opinion to the core blog entry, forever changing the article to something it wasn’t when the blogger posted it, unless the blogger is willing to take a credibility hit by deleting comments after the fact.

With that in mind, I’d like to a propose a feature design to change the way comments work on blogs. It goes like this:

First, I’d like to see a comment system that presumes the purpose of the blog is that people are interested in what the blogger has to say, not some anonymous idiot who thinks posting “First!” is ubercool. In that regard, comment systems should presume all comments are basically useless on their own without any feedback from the blogger. The default behavior then would be to move comments away entirely from the story putting them onto a “holding pen” page so they are accessible to anyone who wishes to wade through the sewage while not clogging up the blog itself.

Every blog would then have a holding pen for all new comments on every entry rolled up into a single page.

Comment tracking would be sent to the blogger by their method of choice to review comments. Email generally works well for this. If the blogger thinks the commentator has an interesting point that actually contributes to their post, they tag it by responding in the email “Yes” for blogworthy. Only when a comment has been deemed blogworthy does it then become attached to the bottom of the post and displayed like normal comments are in today’s blogosphere. For bonus points, the blogger should actually respond to the comment.

Finally, the blogger is given a timeframe to review comments to their liking. (Mine would probably be seven days.) If a comment has not been deemed blogworthy by the blogger within the specified timeframe, the comment is purged from the bloggers database forever as if it never existed, freeing up more disk space for more blogworthy commentary in the future and clearing Google’s cache of a lot of useless crap.

I realize the above proposal is only moderately different in behavior from simply turning on full comment moderation in blog software like WordPress. However, the key difference is a compromise in default behavior that also changes the focus of comments dramatically. That is to say, moderation completely hides comments by default while my proposed behavior relegates comments to a holding pen where the inmates are more than welcome to throw around insults at each other all they want for a small period of time before their useless blather is forever nuked from the blog. In doing so, only commentary that the blogger finds interesting is added to an article while not putting undue pressure on the blogger to look like a hater of free speech.

One last thought

Some may argue that the nature of blogging requires that comments move fast and furious in an unregulated, uncensored fashion; that the blogger can’t really keep up in enabling comments to be turned on quick enough to keep the conversation going. Others may argue that my feature suggestion goes against the principals of free speech or the big tent approach in a digital world. And finally, others may argue that my blogworthy comment system proposal completely neglects the fact that a large part of the success and rise of the blogs as a new media alternative is specifically that anyone and everyone feels like they can be a part of the conversation.

My only reaction to that line of debate is that I don’t care.

The current comment system as designed let’s the children — whether they be spammers, paper lions or the random “First!” asshat — effectively run rampant all over the classroom. There’s simply no accountability. And as much as I want to chide bloggers for not keeping their children in line, I also recognize that they need the proper tools to do so.

But be warned bloggers, if by some miracle you are finally given the proper tools to do the job, you better keep your kids from ruining my next perfectly timed panic attack.

The public is more familiar with bad design than good design. It is, in effect, conditioned to prefer bad design, because that is what it lives with. The new becomes threatening, the old reassuring.

In the context of web and high-technology product design, this observation from Mr. Rand takes on special import. For those that doubt this, please consider the evidence:

eBay. Garish colors, poor composition and a mixture of poorly rendered aliased type in an apparent attempt to make eBay feel homey, like a garage sale. One has to wonder though why you would copy K-Mart when it’s pretty clear people respond to the design mantra of Target.

Yahoo! One would think that Yahoo! would have learned by now that less is more. That is, less stuff vying for your attention, less line noise, fewer gradients. The new home page approach slated to be released soon is barely better.

Google. The poor typographic implementation of Google was designed by engineers, not designers. Now the company and most of its copycats seem to use the success of the engine behind the search results page as some excuse to make everything else equally difficult to read and parse.

Amazon. One of the worst offenders in neglecting to use an effective grid to anchor ones’ ability to scan and read a page. One would think that this is something that would be vital in a site that generally mimics the same sort of use as a sales catalog.

From time to time, crazy proclamations are made that bad design is actually good design when it comes to high-tech products or web sites. That somehow what people want is crap that’s cheap, like a $2 burrito from Taco Bell. It doesn’t matter what damage that kind of product does to a person over the long haul. Nor does it matter that this sort of thinking has been consistently disproven by the success of the likes of Target or Japanese automakers. Apparently, some people believe it’s what customers want so why not just give it to them?

Somehow, not only is it acceptable to produce work that most children wouldn’t be proud to display on the family refrigerator, it’s actually expected because some usability guru who seems to know little about the actual craft of good design — as evidenced by his own web site — wears the “Kiss me, I’m ugly” badge like it’s some sort of lottery prize at a Star Trek convention. (Hint: Those people are dressed in Klingon costumes. They don’t mean it literally.)

Further, the MySpace guys are gajillionaires. So who are we to tell them they’re wrong when it comes to how poorly MySpace is designed? MySpace is a success even though it has allowed common people to create the ugliest, most atrocious designs to have ever existed in all of human history.

So good design doesn’t matter, right?

Do I really need to answer that question?

To think that bad design is actually good design and that good design is not that important in every day life is the epitome of the worst kind of cynical thinking in the web and high-technology industry. Let’s put it this way: Do you think the MySpace guys rushed out and bought used Pontiac Aztecs with all that cash they made? Sure, and aggressive, unregulated fossil fuel consumption hasn’t created a looming environmental disaster that can be ignored.

I recognize that not everyone can play at the professional level. That there are some students who are A+ students on some subjects and others who are just Bs and Cs. That there are people like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods who seem to have some unexplainable God given talent to be… well… Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods of course.

But that’s not a good excuse, nor is it a reason to think anyone should be allowed to get away with crap design because in some alternate reality created by a focus group that’s what the people want. To be clear, if you have the word “designer” printed somewhere on your business card, then yes, I am talking directly to you.

I fully expect your average Jane or Joe Public to have not a lick of understanding about what it takes to make good design. I’m not so shallow as to expect everyone to be a professional designer. I say this in the same way I would hope that software engineers don’t expect me to be able to write elegant pixel processing algorithms that optimize the anti-aliasing of edges on an outline font while providing precise serif hinting in less than fifty lines of code.

However, I do expect more out the designers that have now flooded the tech industry and work on high profile products that actually make good money.

You guys can do better.

During the early days of the desktop publishing revolution, the world was carpet bombed by some of the most hideous examples of typographic and graphic design that could ever have been imagined. Make no mistake, yours truly contributed his fair share, and still does from time to time. But after the giddy high of being able to typeset your department’s newsletter using San Francisco wore off, things got back to brass tacks. The professionals came back and took over the tools from the technologists. Within a decade, magazines, newspapers and corporate marketing materials became arguably more refined and better designed than they were in quite some time. Possibly even better after the Dark Age of Graphic Design (1988 through 1998) ran its course, which some could legitimately argue was worse than Disco Fever.

So here we are in the web and high-tech product space. It’s been more than a good ten years since that fateful day Netscape arrived back in 1995. Have things gotten better?

Did I already mention MySpace?

Paul Rand stated the problem with regard to bad design in clear, simple language. We live in a culture of fugly. A result of modern day technology that has gotten much too far ahead of the design curve while making far too much money from feeding the masses those $2 burritos. If you doubt this point, take a drive down to your local mall and simply meander through it. There can be no question that the public has no choice but to tolerate bad design because if they couldn’t, they would probably have to commit suicide from the pain and anguish of just stepping outside of their home.

What Rand left out though, no matter how well implied, was an explicit warning that bad design begets more bad design. Especially when the decision is left to a public conditioned to prefer whatever it is that they are currently living with. The problem then exists when bad design becomes accepted by designers as business as usual.

The more things like eBay, Yahoo!, Google and Amazon succeed in spite of the fact that the design of their products and web sites contain the most basic of graphic and interaction design errors — errors, by the way, that would get a junior level programmer fired on the spot for writing the functional equivalent in code — the more we’ll see something like MySpace, which only ups the ante on just how horrific things can get. The more the guys at 37signals keep using excessively large type and garish color schemes to create the visual aesthetic of a successful product like Basecamp, the more other people will copycat them in a never ending competition to see who can make their product look and behave like the best damned Tonka toy ever made in the history of Tonka toys.

Watch out guys! Technorati sees your excessively large type with its blunt color palette and raises you an abusive use of rounded rectangles. Your move.

If you are a designer, accepting or ignoring bad design is as irresponsible as ignoring the mounting evidence that significant amounts of industrial pollution is radically changing the environment we live in.

At some point, the temperature outside reaches 114 degrees in April and your grandchildren’s children read in their classroom eBooks about all the accounts of how some people thought driving a Hummer was the cool thing to do. They express shock that some people actually thought mankind had little impact on the ecosystem of the planet. They’ll simply frown and not understand how it was possible for people to think like that in the first place.

I’ll admit it. When I read my history books back in high school, I often wondered how people in the time of Columbus could be so crazy as to think that the world was actually flat. I mean, to even begin to believe in such a crazy notion? Absurd!

Then I think back on how I felt when I woke up on November 3rd, 2004, realizing I was living in the same country where people actually voted for George W. Bush.

Twice.

That was a cheap shot. I’m sorry. My apologies to all those who voted for George Bush. I’m so sorry, in fact, that I invite all of you to head on over to MySpace and partake in a page dedicated to our current POTUS to make up for it.

Enjoy.

First, I got fed up wrestling with layouts and designs that looked or behaved differently across the various browsers. To put it bluntly, I have better things to do with my time than sit around and wonder why the fuck the Microsoft engineers left out “position: fixed;” while supporting “position: absolute;” Or wonder why the Firefox team decided to implement what easily constitutes the ugliest set of form controls to ever grace any graphical user interface in the history of computing, requiring a detail lover like myself to waste countless hours trying to make them look respectable.

Second, I grew weary of the blog format and blog content. I’ve always wanted to be more of an essayist, like a George Will on the back page of Newsweek or something, but my old approach to Design by Fire pigeonholed me into a blog mentality. Instead of writing about topics at length that I feel passionate about, I felt compelled to comment about each and every asinine thing in the blogosphere, regardless of how relevant it might be to the larger picture. Why? Because apparently that’s what you do with a blog.

Third, I’ve always been an avid gamer. I’ve found more joy in pummeling virtual monsters in World of Warcraft in my off time lately than sitting at my computer trying to design or say anything that I felt made a difference. (My third level 60 toon is well on his way to being epic’ed out. You can find me on Gurubashi if you’re ever in the neighborhood.)

The solution? You’re looking at it right now.

This design gets back to basics and returns to what I love most: typography, color and composition. I’d always been jealous of John Gruber’s Daring Fireball, Khoi Vinh’s Subtraction and Greg Storey’s Airbag. Their designs are clean and timeless, allowing you to focus on the content and communication, which is at the core of what the whole blog thing was really all about. Rather than constantly failing to measure up to my own personal critique on how I needed to find a way to design the latest, greatest blog thingamajig, I have finally given in to what I should have eons ago.

While I had a few hiccups getting Internet Explorer to work with this approach, out of all the attempts I have made over the past year, this has been the one that made me feel like I could jump back on the wagon again. The solution to my Internet Explorer woes, for those who may wish to know such things, was solved by using Dean Edward’s /IE7/ as a means to change a few core CSS properties on the divs for IE 6 or lower; this is the only solution I’m going to bother with before Microsoft finally fixes their damn browser. [Note: I am aware of some of the screen flicker issues in IE. I'm currently trying to resolve them via various Apache settings.]

In solving the aesthetic approach for the new Design by Fire, I also solved my blogging content problem. This format effectively turns my site into more of an essay site. I can now focus on what I want to say and be less concerned with how the entirety of my site operates or functions. What you see here is what you get; articles based on my unique experience in the design of high-technology products along with the occasional f-bomb rant.

As for Warcraft? Well, I’ll still play often. That problem will not be going away any time soon I imagine.

So here’s what you can expect with Design by Fire:

There will be no comments to articles from now on. I simply have no desire to find automated methods to block the mountain of spam that comes from comments. Nor do I want to look at a comment and dread the potential decision to ban the writer or delete the comment outright. In short, I’d rather not look at you and say, “You’re an idiot and I have no idea why you’d think I’d even want to discuss such an irrelevant point on my site.” So in order to escape that predicament, I’m practicing avoidance behavior. I encourage every blog author on the internet to do the same.

More focused content on just a few subjects. I’ll be mixing up the topics between design and politics with the occasional random article about nothing important. (Emphasis here on occasional.) For those of you who hate people who bring political banter to the dinner table, I’m going to suggest you remove me from your bookmarks right now. The only topic I find more important than why Google’s design is the epitome of rank amateurism is why people are willing to be so adamantly gung ho about a war but refuse to interrupt their lives to enlist and fight it themselves.

Longer times between essays. I have every intention of spending more time collecting my thoughts, therefore, times in between posts will be much longer.

So there you have it. I’ve converted the most popular articles over from the old Design by Fire. You can find them in the Design section. I’ve also redirected old article links to the new versions. I have removed everything I found not worthy of the effort of preserving.

Finally for Jason and Greg, please stop guilt tripping me about what a lazy ass I am with regard to DxF. I’m back and I can’t wait to start ripping — err, commenting civilly — about the truly horrendous faddish design aesthetic that is being passed off as the “Web 2.0″ thing these days, whatever the fuck “Web 2.0″ means.

Look! An Ajaxalope!

I think I might just have to call in a favor and have the damned rounded rectangle tool removed from Photoshop.

A few simple questions: Should designers be bound by some ethical mantra to make their work deeper, more thoughtful, and more complex rather than to aim for the lowest common denominator of a user base?

Should designers require users to think instead of allowing them to glide thoughtlessly through Web sites, software, or other electronic products ?

Should every control and widget be labeled explicitly?

Should every set of instructions be aimed at the most inexperienced user?

Should everything be so damned obvious all of the time?

To be even blunter: Is the push of professionals in the design and usability fields to make everything more obvious counterproductive to the world at large?

Before we explore that question, let’s take a step back and look at a larger issue that provides some context for this line of questioning.

A culture of quick ‘n’ easy

Many of us in the design field go out of our way to give people what they want, and what most people want from design these days is what they want from all the other things they consume: speed and convenience.

Consider grocery stores. Advancements in mass production and distribution of food have been so successful that most people have no idea what it means to slaughter their own animals or grow their own vegetables to eat. We dine blissfully unaware of the conditions surrounding our own means for survival, inherently trusting the beef we eat comes from cattle that were raised well.

Consider the automobile industry. Driving a car is even easier given how well crafted vehicles have become. Further, it’s a snap to pull into a gas station and simply fill up the tank, with nary a thought about the damage you are causing the planet and future generations of humans.

Consider our culture. Journalism? Movies? Books? They pander to our worst instincts. Television and print news sources favor sound bites over substance and critical analysis. Simplistic character arcs and blockbuster-formula plots favor exploitative sex and violence. One doubts the lasting value of media contributions in the past century.

We make things easy to use, do, digest and process, getting what we want regardless of the cost to ourselves or the planet. The question is when will it all come home to roost?

I am guilty of all I’m questioning; I fight being overweight but exercise rarely. I love to shop at the grocery store for meat, poultry, wine, veggies and snacks like everyone else. I think nothing of driving my car and consuming obscene amounts of gasoline every year. I love crappy reality television shows and read mindless fiction. I’m about as lazy as it gets in certain aspects of my life.

But should it be so easy to be lazy and pleased?

Wouldn’t we be better off if we had to work harder to get a steak? Or buy gasoline? Or to communicate important messages? To really be brutal about this little thought experiment, wouldn’t the gene pool be advanced if only those who think survived and those who fail to think fell behind?

Setting user priorities

Some of you may catch the pun in this article’s title, but I don’t want it to be misinterpreted. I’m not criticizing or attacking Steve Krug. I have a lot of respect for his contribution to the design and usability world. However, the title of his book, Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, suggests a major goal of usability that might be a dangerous approach to design in practice. Oversimplification might be diminishing users’ capabilities in attempting to make everything so obvious.

A more accurate portrayal of Krug’s thesis is also less glib: Designers need to use common sense. They need to resist a fascination with the arcane intricacies of their own work—intricacies that will foist unnecessary burdens on the people who will use a product Instead, such things as user interfaces and tools should offer straightforward utility.

However, the title of Krug’s book doesn’t say “use common sense and help users.” It explicitly says the goal of design is “don’t make users think”— an imperative that has been dispersed throughout the design and usability community at large.

When designing interfaces, my goals are to make a product work as efficiently as possible first for the repeat, more experienced user; then for the novice; and finally for inexperienced or infrequent users. That’s the order that makes the most sense when designing products that will pass the test of time.

Many times, though, I’m asked to reverse my approach – to make everything more obvious so inexperienced users are appeased first. I often find myself giving in to that request, even though I think it is the incorrect approach to designing sustainable products. Conducting my own informal inquiries in the design community yields that this now seems to be the common trend. If unchallenged, this trend in high-tech design could become be the equivalent of all the other spoils of modern advancements that, in many ways, largely hurt people over the long term.

How so? What if one equated the current trends in the usability field to the fast-food and junk-food industries which, in satiating people’s desire to eat large amounts of processed, cheap food made in minutes instead of sitting down to the dinner table to eat well-prepared meals slowly and with less stress, have contributed to the obesity crisis. In the case of software and the web, the goal of making everything so obvious and easy is contributing to their general lack of understanding of technology itself, which surfaces as a lack for how to use computers responsibly in everyday work.

How many times have entire companies been brought to a grinding halt because users don’t realize that clicking on applications inside email exposes them to harmful viruses? How many times have you seen someone click a link inside a fraudulent email aimed at getting users to enter sensitive personal information?

Using a computer shouldn’t be as hard as piloting a 747 jumbo jet airliner. And yet, if a computer truly becomes a primary appliance in our lives like the automobile has, a product that is relied on by large segments of our population to store and process mission critical and sensitive data, why shouldn’t we require people to learn how to use the machine appropriately, even to buy something as simple as a book?

The standard escapes – does that matter?

If Darwin came back with a vengeance to show us all a thing or two about how evolution really does work, a lot of us would more than likely be on the firing line. I know I would be. And yet, as a designer, I find myself buying into the mandate to design everything so it’s obvious—so people aren’t asked to take the time to learn or think about what it is they are using.

At times when doing this, I feel I’m pandering to the worst traits in people, promoting the uglier side of mass consumerism. Yet I still do it. I still aim for that low target. I still drink the “don’t make me think” Kool-Aid. These days, I find myself wondering: Is it the right thing to do?

The easy answer is that there’s obviously a balance.

But here’s the important thing to remember: Imagine sitting in your car. Now imagine signs printed with explicit instructions that explain every single control in your car – a sign explaining to you how to use the steering wheel to turn left and right, a sign reminding you to look in your rearview mirror, instructions pointing to the sun visor to protect your eyes during sunset, a bright LED sign that fed you reminders of all the things you had to do – so many signs that the windshield becomes a tiny porthole you peer through at a fraction of the road ahead.

At some point, designers have to recognize that making things too obvious, too explicit, or explained to the point of excess will invariably block out what’s most important for users: recognizing where they are, seeing what’s ahead and maybe anticipating what may be gaining on them.