The Willpower Paradox: Scientific American -
Quite an interesting article! Below is the conclusion which will hopefully entice you to read the entire thing. ;)
“This last finding is crucial. It indicates that those with questioning minds were more intrinsically motivated to change. They were looking for a positive inspiration from within, rather than attempting to hold themselves to a rigid standard. Those asserting will lacked this internal inspiration, which explains in part their weak commitment to future change. Put in terms of addiction recovery and self-improvement in general, those who were asserting their willpower were in effect closing their minds and narrowing their view of their future. Those who were questioning and wondering were open-minded—and therefore willing to see new possibilities for the days ahead.”
“Almost 90% of the US pays with a plastic card. Only 2% of the US can accept payments off of them.” —
Jack Dorsey, founder of twitter talking about the new app Square
via a presentation at Behance’s 99% conferance (video)
I am trying something this week.
I want to eliminate as many “work” distractions as possible. So today, I killed my desktop twitter client at the beginning of the day. The day is barely half over and I have noticed I have this scary habit of trying to open it all. the. time. When a file is loading, i tried to open it. When thinking through an email draft, I tried to open it. In almost every miniscul down moment i have tried to open it.
I don’t think that is the best habit.
First off, let me premise this by saying that there are some instances where this request is not out of line. And that each project is unique. However, I think it is important that we, as designers educate our clients about the methods and reasoning we put into a design. Doing it to do it is not enough. You have to be able to effectively answer the question “why?” You need to know what objective it serves.
What do you do when the client simply asks, “Can you please make the logo bigger, it doesn’t seem prominent enough to me?”
This normally sends me into some kind of designer-induced melt-down. Papers get thrown, notebooks burned. It really does blow me away. It seems such an unintelligent request. When you think about the whole experience of going to a website, the logo actually plays a much more secondary role than most people realize. Think about it from this perspective: The use experience of navigation to a website, starts way before the design ever even comes in to play. The very act of navigating to a given website the name of the business is reinforced. You either type the exact name in the URL or you search through google or some other engine for the name and click on it. So bam, either scenario, whether someone navigations to the site organically or intentionally you reinforce the brand through the NAME and URL. The crazy thing about it is that the logo isn’t even in the picture yet at this point.
So automatically people who come to the site will already have this business at the forefront of their mind. So now, you actually get to the physical site and its design. This is where the prominence of the brand does potentially come in to play. Is the brand executed well in the design? Is it clear thematically? Are there ways to reinforce the brand outside of the logo? Obviously the logo needs to be there, but if the brand is not executed well, automatically making it bigger is not always the answer. In fact, just because it is often the “easiest” answer (and most uncreative in my opinion) does not make it the right solution. There are other options out there. More intelligent and thought through options, ones with reasoning higher than a fifth grader.
Having the logo take the top, left position (this boils down to hierarchy)— which culturally, when visually consuming something (like a book) is normally the most prominent position to be in, our eyes naturally start at the top left— automatically gives it dominance over the rest of the layout. Simply making it bigger does not reinforce its prominence, or its importance. In fact, it can often do the exact opposite. Having negative space around an item is another option, and is one of the most effective ways to draw someones attention to it. Also, not giving it too much weight in a design (which can cause an unpleasant viewing experience) is just as important. Users will stay on a site longer and utilize a site more that is pleasant and appealing to their eyes not disproportioned and out of balance.
Conclusion
When soliciting feedback you have to be able to provide a framework for them to work in. Simply leaving an open blanket “what do you think?” is not a good option. I have done this time and time again (and I still do sometimes) and it has cost me some very strong concepts and solutions. As designers we must learn how to not only design with excellence but also provide strong design solutions when our clients are not happy. The roles are simple: they point out the issues, we come up with the solutions. And everyone wins in the end.
I have been thinking about what goes into making a good entrepreneur. By definition, and entrepreneur is someone who has possession of a new “enterprise, venture or idea.” But is that where it stops? Is simply all that it takes to carry the title? Does the identity simply stop at being able to posses such things, or is their more to it?
There are plenty of unknown and incredibly talented creative people in the world. There is certainly no shortage of “good ideas” out there. But what does it take to make that good idea more than just that? What does it take to bring it beyond concept, through birth and into a living breathing success story? Execution.
The achilles heal for every self acclaimed entrepreneur lies in their ability to execute. Having a good idea is worthless in the mind of someone who has no understanding of how to make it real. There are millions of idea men in the world. A good idea’s only hope for survival lies in the ability of someone to execute. There are plenty of good ideas out their, and plenty of people who can birth them. What there are not, however, are plenty of people who have the acute awareness and vision to make those “good ideas” reality. Thats where the entrepreneur comes in.
“Lower price doesn’t mean lower commitment. Customers always feel entitled, no matter the amount spent.” — Frank Chimero
Andy Polaine recently emailed, noting a work habit I wasn’t familiar with:
Some of my Swiss colleagues even take the train somewhere for a couple of hours just to use it as an office. They have lunch in their destination city and then come back again, work done. There’s an interesting aspect to this — they all have a General Abonnement, which is like a season ticket.More on this on his site:
In Switzerland you can buy a season ticket called a General Abonnement. It seems that almost everyone who lives in Switzerland has one. The 2nd class adult one is CHF 3,100 per year (about £1,850 or US$3,050). So it’s not cheap, but it’s a one-off outlay. When you talk to people about their train usage, one if the things they say is that love taking the train because because it’s free (that and the trains in Switzerland are punctual and pleasant). This sense of it being ‘free’ means people are much more spontaneous with their train travel because they no longer think about the cost or hassle of buying tickets. Even if you don’t think of it as free, the effect is like an all-you-can-eat buffet — people have spent the money, so they try and get the most out of it, which encourages the use of public transport.I certainly get more work done on public transport. A friend and I theorize it’s not only because there are fewer distractions, but because the physical workspace itself is moving forward. Making progress on two dimensions. Constraints are also of value. All my essays, for instance, are written on the train between home and the office. When my stop comes, it must be done. With the cost perception removed (and a bit of Swiss scenery), I might choose an office in motion more often.
Apparently… My tumblr blog just turned 2!
So in honor of this momentus occasion i will do as email sent by the tumblr bots told me to do and post this nice picture of a cupcake.
dbox:
Tumblr users: Please do this. Looks like we finally get comments, at least in the dashboard. While I often agree with Madrid’s quote, there are times it’s quite handy.
Ditto.
“When I used to get RFPs during our web development days, I would always refer to them as Requests For Pain.” — Jason Fried (via clientsfromhell)