process

Your faithful correspondent fell under the browbeating eye of authority on a few recent and essentially trivial occasions, making me think a bit about the effects of control, rule enforcement and tone in my own work.

Tons of cool historical design in the Paris subway is getting gutted.

When behind-the-scenes systems replace common sense and customer expectations. A parable at the coffee stand.

A coffee tasting leaves a caffeine buzz and a lesson that applies to design, too: In matters of taste, subtlety is everything.

A park bench becomes a subversive design element. Every project needs one.

A neighborhood landmark gets a garish transformation, and thoughts wander to designer responsibility and online communities.

User communities own and define technologies as much or more than the inventors. A piano from 1817 is the perfect example.

An Acropolis visit is an object lesson in the value of quiet design decisions amid colossal projects.

I kicked Microsoft Word to the curb seven years ago, and my plain-text world has been more productive ever since.

Currency may well be the most important travel interface. In that match-up, Europe wins the coin toss against the US, whose coins border on the unintelligible.

I expected nostalgic photos, but instead got insight into how technology works to spark design innovation.

Audio-obsessed museum visitors prefer to listen to their audio guides rather than look at the art, revealing a lesson in interface design.

An “empathy suit” helps designers discover how well their creations work for aging customers. Are there clues here for software and web developers, too?

An architecture exhibit offers some useful usability lessons for web and software designers.

Don Norman despairs that simple doesn’t sell, and the blogosphere reacts. What makes simplicity so difficult?

Gift ideas, eye candy and brain food for the design-obsessed

When designer’s block strikes, hit up Mother Nature. You’ll be surprised what you might learn.