I came across this really interesting article on mobile typography at the Ministry of Type blog. It spells out the difference between the iPhone and the average mobile phone.

It’s also the only phone that’s been advertised purely on its UI, because that’s what the whole thing is about. The adverts for the Samsung D840 showed you the hardware buttons and how the glossy front of the phone is so reflective it can be used as a mirror, but with no showing off of the UI. The Motorola RAZR had a similar set of ads - you’re invited to gawp at the thin, sleek hardware, but you’re not shown the UI. Same for most of the Nokia ads in fact. That’s because the default UI is at best workable, at worst, hideous.

Why is most mobile UI design unusable, unresponsive, and ugly? Here’s one theory: “If the UI of these other phones was usable, responsive and beautiful, there’d be little need for themes and a big source of revenue (from advertising on the theme sites alone) would disappear.”

I’m not sure if this is a serious theory, but there might be some truth in it. Desperate to upgrade their poor interface experiences to a superior one, users purchase a new theme, hoping it’ll solve their problems. Unfortunately, themes are superficial solutions to mobile interface problems. Anyway, I don’t think this theory works, though it does highlight a problematic approach to interface design.

Manufacturers need to address the deeper problems with interface design on the mobile phone. They must focus on making software and hardware more powerful in order to accommodate users’ needs, as the mobile phone becomes a web-browsing device as well as a phone. Manufacturers will, and are, shifting from seeing a mobile phone as a mobile phone, to seeing it as a mobile internet device as well. Nokia admitted in May that they’re now competing with Apple, Microsoft and Google.

Mobile’s restrictions are frustrating both for users and for designers. One of the most frustrating things for me right now, to use one example, is working with antialiased outlines on mobile phone graphics. For those unfamiliar with the term, antialias means, in plain English, the smoothing process between the object and the background, whether font or graphic element. (Here’s a simple illustration.)

Mobile interfaces, composed of typography and graphic elements, suffer because of this lack of support for alpha antialiasing across devices. When I say mobile interfaces “suffer”, I really mean users. Lack of wide support for alpha antialiasing is just one example of the inadequacies of mobile interfaces. However, inadequacies present new, interesting challenges, both for designers working with the imposed restrictions, as well as companies spotting opportunities for improvement.

I’ve just started reading Adaptive Path’s book, Subject to Change: Creating Great Products and Services for an Uncertain World. Here are some thoughts it’s provoked so far.

People / consumers / users / fool-proof
Ugh, the problem with words! This sentence stood out:

“Once you stop thinking of your customers as consumers and begin approaching them as people, you’ll find a whole new world of opportunities to meet their needs and desires.”

As I interpret the sentence above, the word “consumer” risks rendering an anaemic, flat, or mono-faceted view of a person, who should be considered as not just a consumer, but – well – a whole person. So if products should be considered in a wider context, so should people.

Still, you could argue that this is all silly pedantry – holding little to no value for designing a product or a service – and that the word “consumer” doesn’t imply a limit, per se, but usefully demarcates a single activity.

Inconclusive, and possibly over-analysed.

That said, words matter.

Don Norman wrote that we shouldn’t use the phrase “fool-proof” when talking about making a product simple. Why would you want to insult your users by calling them fools? He also wrote that if the product is difficult to use, you can only blame the product.

Empathy with users (user is my preferred term) is necessary for creating a good product experience.

Brand strategy versus experience design
Peter Merholz draws attention to an article on experience design by the UK’s Design Council, which confuses brand strategy with experience design. According to the Design Council, “experience design concentrates on moments of engagement between people and brands, and the memories these moments create”.

Merholz wrote a succinct and clear response to Ardill’s article. Merholz’s view is that brands work “inside-out”: brand is how the company projects how it wants to be perceived. Experience design works the other way, or “outside-in”: an “appreciation of customers’ motivations, behaviours, and context leads to the development of a product, service, or system that can satisfy them”.

In Merholz’s definition, brand strategy and experience design are totally different things.

I really like the clear definition of brand strategy and experience design as Adaptive Path explains it. The confusion is there because experience design is still formative, and there is no universal, solid framework established, and perhaps there shouldn’t ever be a universal, solid framework. After all, everything is subject to change.

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It’s a very thought-provoking read so far. I’ll write up other ideas and thoughts I deem worthy of sharing…

In the last few decades, thousands of products have entered our lives with the intention to make them simpler. So, why does so much modern technology confuse and trap us?

“Technology changes rapidly; people change slowly”, writes Donald Norman, in ‘The Design of Everyday Things’. Interaction with things is governed by our biology, psychology, society, and culture. Human biology and psychology do not change much with time, and society and culture change slowly. The rate of new product creation is so high that some features aren’t tested thoroughly, or aren’t tested at all.

Bad design affects the super-complex to the dead simple: for instance, bad design is a door with a raised bar across it. The door only opens if you apply pressure on the right side of the bar, but there is no visual indication of this.

And what about a phone interface with a mysterious button ‘R’? Nobody knows what the button does, but the button remains for as long as a designer can provide a reason for its existence. Likewise, bad design is a door that has a handle which suggests twisting and pulling, but slides open.

I have been toying with the idea of modern (in)conveniences for a while before I read Norman’s book. The supermarket and the washing machine were subjects of a brief post.

Bad design, I’ve since learned, is used to confuse users intentionally. Why would a designer want to do this?

The Supermarket Maze

Supermarkets are complex, distracting, confusing. They are also exotic, amorphous and evolving ecosystems of products. The products displayed in the supermarket largely sell themselves with their packaging. Graphic design is key here – how can one peanut butter stand out from another peanut butter?

To do our shopping in the twenty-first century, we no longer need to visit individual shops. Products are gathered together within a single building. We enter a shop, pick up a basket of pre-determined size, and working from a mental or physical list, walk around the shop selecting items to put in a basket, before taking the basket to the check-out. The products are checked out by a human or a machine, or perhaps both. We exit the shop.

How can we design a supermarket to make it easy to find a desired item? Thinking in terms of pure design, I would use a clear supermarket layout, with low shelves so you can see over them, and make use of clear signposting. A shopper could, with clear layout and signposting, be sent from A to B.

A businessperson, however, would think in terms of both design and profit. It’s good business to send your shopper on a longer route from A before they reach B, so they pick up more things to take to check-out. Most shoppers are sent into a maze of distraction and advertising. In other words, supermarkets are deliberately confusing.

The Space-age Washing Machine

It shouldn’t be more complicated than putting your dirty clothes in the machine, putting in the washing powder, and pressing a button. But washing machines have become needlessly complicated, with some interfaces looking like spaceship dashboards. Norman suggests this is because ‘complicated’ looking products actually hold consumer appeal. Apparent complexity, at least in Korea, suggests status. More features, Norman argues, defies simplicity. More features sell products. A more complex washing machine is more attractive than one that appears simple. How many people try to understand how products work before they buy them?

A wonderful experience should be able to overrule these poor business tactics. Driving sales via confusion and advertising exposure is far from ideal, but it seems to work – at least in some places. Apparent complexity may always sell. The iPhone and iPod Touch, though, are examples of wonderful apparent simplicity when the device itself is complex: the good design masks the complexity of the functions.

Supermarkets rely on products selling themselves off the shelf. That’s interesting, if you combine this with the fact that product packaging is on its way out. Sainsbury’s in the UK is trying out the milk bag, which may eventually replace the plastic bottle. The milk bag is already popular in Canada (according to the article, 60% of fresh milk in Canada is sold in bags). Supermarkets are bending to the pressure of environmental awareness, but as the Times article points out, it’s down to whether consumers will want it.

It’s worth bearing in mind a scenario where packaging is severely limited, or where we simply no longer can afford to spend our resources on disposable packaging. Without products selling themselves with their packaging, will the current supermarket model work? If products can no longer sell themselves individually with their packaging, the model for advertising products in stock will have to change.

What makes design so compelling is how it emerges from seemingly conflicting motives: in these cases, the aims of the designer are at odds with the aims of business. Business itself is at odds with environmental pressure, availability of resources, the ideal of how they would advertise their product, and ultimately, what consumers want.

In this post, I’ve attempted to share the tips and advice I was looking for in the final year of my degree. There’s a lot more I could add to this; I don’t think I could put comprehensive advice into one post. It’s relevant to students doing their degree now, to new graduates, and to graphic designers early in their career.

When I graduated in July, I found that the advice on the web for job-seekers in graphic design didn’t come close to fulfilling what I was looking for. That’s because graphic design, as a discipline, is changing a lot. I don’t believe it’s just about web and print design anymore. Technology is changing things fast, and it looks like it’s only going to accelerate. In addition to graphic design being a changing discipline, the infrastructure of jobs and employment is changing. So I found it particularly difficult to find some really useful and relevant advice meant especially for new graphic designers.

While you are doing your degree, it’s helpful to see it for what it is: a means to an end. The end is getting a job (this includes further academic research, which also leads, I hope, to some kind of employment, in a university or elsewhere). Getting a job is just the beginning. It’s easy to lose track of this when you’re working for your degree; three or four years go by extremely fast, and before you know it, you’re plunged unceremoniously into the cold water of the real world.

The real world is tough, and sometimes cold, perhaps especially tough for graphic design graduates because the market is saturated, competitive, and hard. There are more qualified graphic designers than there are vacant jobs. There are things you can do in preparation to make the transition less painful.

Here are some things I wish I’d known:

1. Despite what everyone says, your attitude is the most important thing (more important than your portfolio)
OK, a good portfolio is important. Make sure you pick your best pieces, and display your best pieces professionally. However…

… cultivating a good attitude is more important than a good portfolio. Mentally prepare yourself for hardship. In job interviews, expect rejection, and be humble and persistent. If you’re humble and persistent, you can work through most rejection and small failures; with hubris and pride, you will find the process dispiriting and get discouraged faster. Only the lucky few get jobs soon after graduation, and it doesn’t have much to do with talent. A good portfolio helps get a job, but having a great attitude will see you through rejection, and help you through other stages in your career as well.

While you’re still studying for your degree, try not to care too much about your grades. Use the time to explore your interests within graphic design to the end of the web and beyond. Aim to learn.

2. Pay attention to the industry outside your graphic design department
I found that my university department had a very strong and specific graphic design philosophy. This is one of the things that makes Reading a great place to study graphic design. But I think this has pros and cons.

It’s important not to forget the big picture: the creative industry as a whole. Think really carefully about what you’re interested in most. If you’re more interested in images, photography, and illustration than typographic book design, then find a way to learn about this interest outside of the studio. Learn what you can on your course, but remember that your university department is preparing you to join a large, multi-faceted, changing industry.

Finally, realise that feedback is largely opinion: someone marking your work is one individual, someone else may respond differently.

3. Be proactive in learning during and after your degree
You are doing a degree to learn. When you are doing a project, if something in particular interests you, for example, coding the HTML of a website, explore this interest further. Read as much as you can about coding a website in CSS and HTML. Take your interest as far as you can. Find out what the recent developments in website design are and follow them closely; aim to be an expert.

4. Treat project briefs like exams
Read the project brief ten times. Make sure you really understand what your examiners want from you. Scribble all over them and underline words and phrases. If it’s a vague brief, as briefs in your final year will be, try to narrow your ideas down to about three or four. Save every good idea you generate to put into your work-file.

As you work through project briefs, ask for feedback from as many people as possible. Extensively research all of the explicit and implicit questions in each practical project, and learn as much as you can from each one.

5. Try not to get too focused on what your classmates are doing
It’s important to answer a brief in your own voice. At the same time, get feedback from as many people as you can. Try to identify your specific skills and strengths and work to them.

If your classmates get jobs faster than you, don’t let that get you down; just keep trying.

6. Don’t pigeonhole your interests too quickly
Think about what you enjoy doing most, but don’t try to limit yourself. For example, don’t apply exclusively for editorial/magazine design jobs. It might not be until after you graduate that you work out what you’re really interested in doing.

Aim to try everything and find out what you like the most.

7. Relax and be yourself in job interviews
I’ve found that employers have sharper sight than you do when it comes to knowing what you want. So in an interview, relax and be yourself as much as possible. Try to work out if you would genuinely like to work for them. Interview your employer as much as you are interviewing them.

8. Academia and graphic design
Graphic design is finally gaining credence in the academic world. There are some great MA degrees at Reading in history and theory of graphic design, and some other MAs that meld the academic with the practical (for example, a MA in Typeface Design also requires a long dissertation). The RCA has an interesting research unit called Design Interactions.

That said, a lot of interesting research is done outside universities. But I think that typeface design, for example, requires supervision and support from experts.

9. Inform yourself with smart magazines, books, and of course, blogs
A basic staple for design culture is:

Eye Magazine, the International Review of Graphic Design. Founded by Rick Poynor, this magazine is the strongest argument for print available. The sentences are as well-crafted as the pages. The articles are generally smart, well-written, and thought-provoking commentary on graphic-design related issues.

Design Observer, similar to Eye Magazine, but without the delicious smell of ink and the smooth feel of coated paper.

Typography Papers The publication is beautiful, inside and out. I’d recommend this to any smart, thinking, curious person. “This occasional, book-length work is edited and produced at the Department of Typography, University of Reading, and is now published by Hyphen Press. It publishes extended articles on its subject, exploring topics to the length to which they want to go. Its scope is broad and international, its treatment – serious and lively.”

In addition, I’d recommend TechCrunch for technology news, ReadWriteWeb for tech and web trends and occasional very interesting articles, and Publishing 2, a very smart blog written on the theme of technology’s impact on media.