FEATURE
Inside Apple Park: the design team shaping future tech
Opening the doors to their studio at Apple Park in Cupertino for the first time, the Apple Design team offered Wallpaper* a deep dive into the working processes behind their latest creations.
wallpaper.com
Tanner Christensen on design themes and resources
This year, Tanner Christensen consulted with more than 250 designers and design founders, and in this post identifies the themes that came up and recommends resources for each theme.
linkedin.com
UX
Putting the Public First: Improving Customer Experience and Service Delivery for the American People
President Biden's Executive Order directs Federal agencies to put people at the center of everything the Government does. Specifically, the Executive Order includes 36 customer experience (CX) improvement commitments across 17 Federal agencies, all of which aim to improve people’s lives and the delivery of Government services.
Look for upcoming enhancements, including USA.gov being redesigned as a centralized and streamlined “digital Federal front door” so the public can get access to all Government benefits, services, and programs in just 1 to 3 clicks, taps, or commands from the USA.gov homepage, without navigating duplicate and outdated Federal websites.
whitehouse.gov
INCLUSIVE
How inclusive design drives innovation
Making the investment in inclusive design pay off is a design challenge, and largely depends on how well organizations integrate accessibility into the design process, rather than running through a checklist after the fact. Inclusive design means building in these constraints, along with more familiar constraints of cost, feasibility, and performance. But as any competent designer will tell you, constraints drive creativity. Increasingly, they drive innovation too.
mckinsey.com
Book Sponsor
Habits of Success
Look for my chapter about the Habits of Success from the world of Design (curiosity, empathy, and iteration) in this WSJ & USA Today Bestseller!
amazon.com
TOPICAL
BeingDesignerly's Top 5 Read Articles of 2021
As we wrap up 2021, here's a look back at the top 5 articles that were most read by subscribers of this newsletter. In case you missed any, here's an easy way to catch up before we say goodbye to 2021!
#1 NNG's 2021 Intranet Design Annual Winners
The most clicked article this year. I know I love peeking at Intranet best practices since they are usually locked behind company single sign-ons...
If you design intranets, NNG's Intranet Design Annual 2021 report is a must read. Until you get approval to buy the detailed research report, make sure you read their summary.
" The pandemic raised intranets’ level of importance and influence. As more work, collaboration, sales, meetings, and coaching needed to happen online, the best intranets rose to meet the challenge.
3 lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to apply in the future:
1. Be prepared: if the intranet was a mess before the challenge, adapting will likely be harder than when working with a well-designed and well-structured system
2. Pivot: recognize that the previous way of doing certain things (or even most things) may not be the best, and be willing to sacrifice some sacred cows and quickly adopt new ideas
3. Centralize resources: usability may increase if information and tools that relate to the challenge are pulled together and made accessible from a single location "
nngroup.com
#2 Create More Than You Consume
A few issues ago, BeingDesignerly featured Bezos' stepping-down-as-CEO-announcement and his signoff line: ‘Let Curiosity Be Your Compass’ - good designerly advice for everyone.
A few days ago, his last letter as CEO, featured storytelling, customer focus, and ended with: "be kind, be original, create more than you consume, and never, never, never let the universe smooth you into your surroundings." - maybe my kids will finally listen now that B-man said it!
While this could be filed under news or inspiration, I felt it was most appropriate as a featured item.
aboutamazon.com
#3 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.
gizmodo.com
#4 Infographic: 50 Cognitive Biases in the Modern World
As humans we have biases, which often make us less inclusive.
Here's a chart of 50 cognitive biases - awareness is the first step to addressing them!
visualcapitalist.com
#5 Mia's Design Roasts on TikTok
A UX researcher uses her TikTok channel, heymiadotco, to deliver design roasts. The bulk of it is aimed at well-known apps and services, like Spotify, Alexa and HBO Max.
core77.com
UNTIL NEXT TIME
I hope you enjoyed this last issue of 2021 with articles about Apple's design team, design themes and resources, inclusive design and the 5 most read articles in Being Designerly this year.
Happy New Year 2022 - thank you for subscribing!
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!