This is currently my favorite thought narrative:
The number of individuals who know how to make a can of Coke is zero. The number of individual nations that could produce a can of Coke is zero. This famously American product is not American at all. Invention and creation is something we are all in together. Modern tool chains are so long and complex that they bind us into one people and one planet. They are not only chains of tools, they are also chains of minds: local and foreign, ancient and modern, living and dead — the result of disparate invention and intelligence distributed over time and space.
A condensed description of Quora’s design approach.
For Quora, [design] means designing for whys (the product) and taking the most straightforward route possible for the hows (the interactions).
The hows are then driven by the answers to the whys—after all, why a user must enter a flow dictates how they progress through it.
The Kano model is a theory of product development that has a great way to describe user’s reaction to product features as well as help prioritize feature development. Of course, it is neatly flattened and visualized with two axes. I’ll take the upper right quadrant, thanks.
I have been leaning towards more textured interfaces. Although I’ve never really liked inner shadows, the examples here suggest a quick experiment with some CSS wouldn’t hurt.
