I have this friend that is a designer in an architectural school. We used to sit and discuss things, trying to find some way that we could put this thought process and that expertise together. There was always something there, we thought, but we never could quite grasp it. Probably because the rest of us all think design is one of those things that is easy, and the folks who do that just generally graceful enough to not laugh at us in person.
What do the rest of us know, anyway? Just because we’re binge-watching E.R. right now, after all, doesn’t mean I’m ready to run a trauma code.
“Give me CBC, Chem-20, lights and dip the urine!”
See what I mean?
I, of course, know absolutely nothing about design. But I do love all of those pictures you see online about design versus user experience. They are an insufferable way to point out that we see, in retrospect, what someone else couldn’t get right beforehand. “Haha, we are nerdier than you nerds, but we are casual about it, and only making jokes about it online, using someone else’s designed interface that may, or may not, be a well designed user interface. But believe me, I’m getting to that, just as soon as I find where I stored all my really cool gifs.”
Really, what those photographs always suggest to me is that we are a path of least resistance species. And right angles, while aesthetically pleasing, are inherently asking a lot more than a lazy person is willing to give.
I thought of that this evening, when we were walking out to the car and I saw:
When there isn’t snow on the ground there is a slightly worn path there. I’d have to really check, but the user experience path might be even longer in the snow. Because it is cold, I suppose.
Hey, Spencer Elliott of The Tennessean joined me on the show today. We talked about Uber and Lyft and how you work and communicate with your peers when you don’t have bosses or colleagues and what it all means for the future and there is some really interesting stuff here:
This is another good argument for driverless cars, I think. But I’m not sure how I’d feel about my Nissan logging on and then getting bummed out by something it saw on thepeopleyouferryaround.com/forums
And because my Nissan is a car, and not a person, it would never crave Chinese, never get the pork noodle thing I ordered tonight and never read the fortune that came inside the cookie that the guy dashed into the bag at the last possible second:
Why, yes, I am already lucky boy. More lucky than I deserve, I am sure.
I actually recording another little thing today, just because I love this story and it will be dated before the weekend is up. It is only five minutes of my soothingly smooth monotone:
