WELCOME

This issue of Being Designerly features articles on designerly skills of synthesis, and tricks to read, remember, and learn.

Read about an interesting experiment as an Instagram UX influencer, test your UX and UI skills, learn about UX design vs. service design, and a few reads about accessibility.

Wrap up with visualizations of the 2020 Olympics medals, and enjoy seeing how paper cut-outs can transform famous landmarks.

FEATURE

Why I Am Still A Designer

A quick read by Chris Butler about how we as designers may change our tools but need to focus on four skills that must become the substance of our craft.

Synthesis is one of them, and to do that you need to be widely and well-read.

The following featured reads have a way for you to do just that!

How to augment your intellectual capacity when your brain is on overload

The author of Creative Doing says it’s simple once you figure it out. Then your brain will finally start to feel available again. The trick?

Write it down, and organize.

Tweet Thread by Jeff Greene on a system to read and learn

While this tweet thread is about reading and learning from academic literature, this can be used for learning anything...

AlwaysLearning

UX

UX vs. Service Design

I often get asked how User Experience is different from Service Design - this Nielsen Norman Group article addresses it well....

The Design Quiz: test your UX, UI and graphic design knowledge

38 questions
1 answer each
10 sec per question
How'd you do?
Don't sweat the leaderboard

I disguised as an Instagram UX influencer for 4 months; this is what I learned about our community

The author wondered: "What if I really study this and go beyond what I’d do? What if I act as a digital researcher to try to understand why and how designers share their work this way?"

Assumption: Most designers post UX related work on Instagram only to increase their audience, digital presence and potential leads.

An interesting read about an interesting experiment.

INCLUSIVE

Making A Strong Case For Accessibility

Accessibility is often overlooked or bolted on to the end of a project from the experiences in Todd’s career in web development and design. The case for accessibility is something we as people who create and build things for the web should be implementing and advocating for from the inception of a project to the release or handoff and beyond.

Giving a damn about accessibility

A candid and practical handbook for designers by Sheri Byrne-Haber, CPACC. Available in PDF and audio versions.

"Accessible technology and standards have existed for over two decades. It takes 4 hours to learn enough to start developing things in an accessible manner. In a week, you would probably be competent in several areas."

Not too difficult, is it?

What design for aging populations gets wrong

The opportunity to apply great design to products and services for older adults is massive, but doing it successfully will require looking beyond our entrenched narratives about this demographic and involving them in the design process. Most importantly, it should force us to think about how we can design for richer, more connected, and more purposeful lives—not just longer ones. So, how do we shed our traditional views of design for the colossal aging market and elevate our expectations?

Twitter Changes Design After Users Said They Got Headaches

A few days after it released some new design changes meant to make it more accessible, Twitter is going back to the drawing board, and for a very good reason. The design choices were literally hurting some users’ eyes and giving them headaches.

Book Sponsor

Habits of Success

Look for my chapter about the Habits of Success from the world of Design in this WSJ & USA Today Bestseller!

VISUAL

Olympic Medal Count: How Did Each Country Fare at Tokyo 2020

Medal visualizations: medals by country in the recently concluded Olympics.

Since countries with larger populations have an inherent advantage, so it’s also interesting to look at the top countries by population per medal. There's also a view of the top 15 countries by population per Olympic medal... San Marino topped the list with a population of 11,310 per medal.

INSPIRATION

Artist uses paper cut-outs to transform famous landmarks

UNTIL NEXT TIME

I hope you enjoyed this issue of Being Designerly, featuring articles on designerly skills of synthesis, and tricks to read, remember, and learn.

What was your favorite link - the experiment as an Instagram UX influencer, the UX and UI test, or the accessibility articles? As for me, I won't be able to look at landmarks the same way again!

If you think someone would benefit from Being Designerly, please forward it to them.

I'm looking for feedback, of the brutally honest kind, so this can improve over time. You can reach me at lycerejo (at) gmail.com - thank you!