I'm a designer, my name's Rob V.

"The center of gravity for an organization should be as close to what they make as possible,”..."

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 13:59:20 -0800

““The center of gravity for an organization should be as close to what they make as possible,” Mullenweg said. “If you make cars, you need people in the factory. If you breed horses, be in the stable. If you make the Internet, live on the Internet, and use all the freedom and power it gives you.””

- Working From Home: The End Of Productivity Or The Future Of Work? : All Tech Considered : NPR

60 Minutes interview with David Kelley of IDEO

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 13:09:42 -0800

60 Minutes interview with David Kelley of IDEO

Fuck You, Startup Yoda

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 18:23:02 -0800

Fuck You, Startup Yoda:

And until you realize that, that the only value you bring is the complete lack of value, you can go fuck yourself.

Ironic, but still a good read.

"Programmers face a job market that’s unusually meritocratic when changing jobs. Within companies,..."

Sun, 11 Nov 2012 23:39:57 -0800

“

Programmers face a job market that’s unusually meritocratic when changing jobs. Within companies, the promotion process is just as political and bizarre as it is for any other profession, but when looking for a new job, programmers are evaluated not on their past job titles and corporate associations, but on what they actually know. This is quite a good thing overall, because it means we can get promotions and raises (often having to change corporate allegiance in order to do so, but that’s a minor cost) just by learning things, but it also makes for an environment that doesn’t allow for intellectual stagnation. Yet most of the work that software engineers have to do is not very educational and, if done for too long, that sort of work leads in the wrong direction.

When programmers say about their jobs, “I’m not learning”, what they often mean is, “The work I am getting hurts my career.” Most employees in most jobs are trained to start asking for career advancement at 18 months, and to speak softly over the first 36. Most people can afford one to three years of dues paying. Programmers can’t. Programmers, if they see a project that can help their career and that is useful to the firm, expect the right to work on it right away. That rubs a lot of managers the wrong way, but it shouldn’t, because it’s a natural reaction to a career environment that requires actual skill and knowledge. In most companies, there really isn’t a required competence for leadership positions, so seniority is the deciding factor. Engineering couldn’t be more different, and the lifetime cost of two years’ dues-paying can be several hundred thousand dollars.

”

- What Programmers Want « Michael O.Church (via timoni)

Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview

Wed, 04 Jul 2012 17:36:00 -0700

Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview:

I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, and poets, and artists, and zooligists, and historians… who also happened to be the greatest computer scientists in the world. But if it hadn’t been for computer science, these people would all have been doing amazing things in life in other fields. They brought with them, we all brought to this effort, a very liberal arts air… we wanted to pull the best that we saw in these other fields, into this field, and I don’t think you get that if you’re very narrow.

I don’t think that most of the best people that I’ve worked with, have worked with computers for the sake of working with computers, they’ve worked with computers because they are the medium that is best capable of transmitting some feeling that you have, that you want to share with other people… Before they invented these things, these people would have done other things, but computers were invented and they did come along and all of these people did get interested, in school or before school and said, “hey this is the medium that I think I can say something in”.

If you have a chance, rent this interview on iTunes, it’s a rare glimpse into the mind of Steve Jobs that’s worth watching.

Yammer Sells To Microsoft For $1.2 Billion

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 21:44:52 -0700

Yammer Sells To Microsoft For $1.2 Billion:

Business-software company Yammer Inc. agreed to sell itself to Microsoft Corp. for $1.2 billion, according a person familiar with the matter, in a sign Microsoft may be trying to plug holes in its ubiquitous Office software.

If this deal was just about “plugging holes” in Office, the price tag wouldn’t make any sense. This is about catching up, this is about competing with SalesForce. At most it’s a step in the right direction, but it’s also an admittance that the company that found success in understanding the enterprise, is now losing touch with it.

The Power of Small Wins

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 21:48:04 -0700

The Power of Small Wins:

Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work. And the more frequently people experience that sense of progress, the more likely they are to be creatively productive in the long run.

I’ve rarely met individuals that are capable of finding day to day wins on their own. In the software world, we solve this by focusing on shipping code. If you’re not shipping daily, you will lose focus, you will lose the drive to move your product forward.

"When you’re dealing with a complicated dynamic layout system like this, you must make decisions..."

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:12:00 -0700

“When you’re dealing with a complicated dynamic layout system like this, you must make decisions based on real data.”

- Prismatic Blog

Great design needs context. Designers cannot create great work in a sandbox, too often designs are handed off to developers and the story ends.

Claire Coullon’s portfolio give’s amazing insight...

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 10:49:48 -0700

Claire Coullon’s portfolio give’s amazing insight into the lettering process. It has quickly become a source of inspiration for me and if it fails to strike a chord with you, well… you must also be a fan of Comic Sans.

The Portfolio of Claire Coullon

Jakob Nielsen vs Responsive Design

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 21:21:00 -0700

Jakob Nielsen vs Responsive Design:

Jakob Nielsen is not infallible, but to disregard his view so quickly is idiotic. Listen, I get it, responsive design is all the rage, and suddenly some old timer comes out and says it’s not the end game. Well he must just be getting old, he must not really understand what responsive design is all about. Are you kidding me?

As user experience designers, designer, engineers, fuck… as people who are building shit that other people use, we should be striving to give our users the best experience possible. Responsive design is a great step forward and will undoubtedly make the web a better place, but sometimes mobile users just need a mobile experience.

Beautiful collection of railroad company logo design.

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 14:40:23 -0700

Beautiful collection of railroad company logo design.

“Sign Up” Isn't Good Enough Anymore

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 21:01:00 -0700

“Sign Up” Isn't Good Enough Anymore:

UX Movement does a fair job of giving an overview of the downsides to many Sign Up / Log In combinations. I’ve long tried to avoid this conundrum by simply making the “sign up” action more descriptive.

The bottom line: don’t be lazy. Focus on an action, “Start Sharing”, “Open A Store”, or at worst, as UX Movement suggests, “Create Account”. “Sign Up” just isn’t good enough anymore, we can do better.

"Web designers want more options, they want more fonts. sIFR, Cufón, and numerous other replacement..."

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:33:09 -0700

“Web designers want more options, they want more fonts. sIFR, Cufón, and numerous other replacement techniques permit web designers to go beyond the so-called web-safe palette of fonts. However, all those techniques are, fundamentally, hacks. Moreover, their practical use is limited to headlines, or short bursts of text.”

- Web fonts. Where are we? Will web fonts ever be a reality? | i love typography, the typography and fonts blog

gary: Sometimes you just need to be in the trenches I agree,...

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:22:29 -0700

gary:

Sometimes you just need to be in the trenches

I agree, working hard is underrated.

"There’s nothing wrong with guessing, dreaming, or predicting, but it’s not planning. Planning’s too..."

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:19:05 -0700

“There’s nothing wrong with guessing, dreaming, or predicting, but it’s not planning. Planning’s too definite a term for most things. We often use planning when we really mean guessing. And what we call it has a lot to do with how we think about it, do about it, and devote to it. I think companies often over think, over do, and over devote to planning.”

- Let’s just call plans what they are: guesses - (37signals)

"It seems so obvious: if you want to develop software that’s useful to people, you’ve got to talk..."

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:12:38 -0700

“It seems so obvious: if you want to develop software that’s useful to people, you’ve got to talk with them. But too many developers take the anti-social approach and consider customer support to be beneath their status. Besides, talking with customers would distract them from important code-slinging. Look, I can understand that viewpoint, especially if you’re working on something that’s very popular. You can’t create anything if you spend all your time doing support. But avoiding support completely is a big mistake. If you’ve never supported your own software, spending just one day doing tech support will be an eye-opening – not to mention humbling - experience. You’ll have to keep your ego in check, because most people who contact tech support do so because they’re having problems with your software, some of whom will use colorful language to describe the annoyances they’re running into. But that’s the stuff you need to hear. You need to hear it because you’re the one who can solve those annoyances. You’re the one who can get rid of all the things that prevent your software from being that kick-ass program that people recommend to their friends and co-workers.”

- Nick Bradbury: If You Want to Write Useful Software, You Have to Do Tech Support

"Point five: What the fuck is going on inside Google? How much more out of control and undisciplined..."

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:06:45 -0700

“Point five: What the fuck is going on inside Google? How much more out of control and undisciplined can this place get? How many new goddamn operating systems are they going to create? They’ve already got Android, and nobody wants it. Now they’re going to make yet another operating system, this time out of a browser that nobody wants. What’s next? A Gmail-based operating system? A YouTube-based operating system? Honestly, Google, is there anyone in charge over there? Is there anyone who knows how to criticize anything in that fucked up little Montessori preschool of yours? I mean I guess it’s nice that you all get to spend 20 percent of your time dreaming up useless shit, and I guess you have to use the Montessori method and tell everyone that whatever little piece of shit they’ve created is just so wonderful and perfect and beautiful — but really, as I’ve told Eric before, that doesn’t mean you have to release everything these bozos dream up. There’s a word for this. It’s called “no.” Have you heard of it? I mean, fine, let them fuck around with stuff. Engineers like to tinker. So let them tinker. Then when they bring you whatever it is they’ve made, first you say you’re too busy to meet with them. Then you say you’ve changed your mind and you will meet with them after all. Then you wait until they’re all in the conference room with everything set up, and you send Katie down to tell them that you’re going to be a little bit late. You make them wait an hour. Then two hours. Then, at six in the afternoon, you send Katie down to tell them that you’ve changed your mind again and now you can’t make it. Then, finally, you set up another appointment and this time you do meet with them — but before they can even speak you just look at whatever it is they’ve made and you say, I’m sorry, that’s a piece of shit, and you walk out. Trust me, engineers love this. They’re all masochists. That’s why they became engineers in the first place.”

- Fake Steve on Google Chrome OS (via tmblg)

George Washington’s Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:10:30 -0700

George Washington’s Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation :

I need to work on a couple of these…

lukees: jacob: Wow. (via madeulook, twothirty, haleigh)

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:39:21 -0700

lukees:

jacob:

Wow. (via madeulook, twothirty, haleigh)

"I believe the designer (or more often, the business employing them) is trying too hard—too hard to..."

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:14:14 -0700

“I believe the designer (or more often, the business employing them) is trying too hard—too hard to be everything, too hard to have too many options, too hard to up-sell, too hard to be original or innovative, too hard to be too simple—and has failed.”

- northtemple - The mistake of over-designing