Upstanding Robot a web nerd's notebook

Designers are usually the most aware of the problems in their work, and I can imagine a bunch of them in Cupertino reading Twitter during the keynote saying, “I told you we had to fix that before we shipped!” Every time I assume a talented person isn’t painfully aware of the flaws in their work, I am wrong.

A lot of people talk about sketching in code these days. For me, this is a terrible idea for the same reasons as the above. If I am writing CSS, my brain is split between the design issues and the syntax. I want to start by focusing exclusively on what and why.

It’s that same confidence and economy that makes a great tutorial for a great game. There are no wrong choices during the tutorial, and each step forward introduces a core mechanic that you’ll hopefully spend the rest of the game using. Is this fun? Do I want to get to know these characters? Do I want to spend time in this world? By the end of a good tutorial or a good pilot episode, you should have your answers.

When we design digital products, for the most part, we’re still building tacked on tutorial modes. Step by step introductions, a few popups to show you where the important buttons are. Did you get all that? Good, because now you’re on your own.

There is a difference between UI design and UX design. There is a lot of overlap though, so I’ll try to bundle them together. Here it is, in ten simple steps.