Leave Your Fingerprints on the Product
When you go on vacation or take a trip, do you bring back a certain thing? Like some people do shot glasses or coffee mugs.
Ceramics are my thing.
My favorite pieces are the ones where I can literally see where the artist’s hands have been. I can’t exactly explain it, but I think most of us appreciate some kind of connection in the things we buy, like beyond their aesthetics or utility. It feels like someone is speaking to us through the work, a reminder that a person was here. A person made this.
I fundamentally believe that building an app is a creative act. While UX principles and research and all of that are important, it’s equally important to bend the rules and do things the weird way you want to do them.
The Ghosts In Our Machines
A thing that has a personality is more interesting than a thing so “perfect” that it becomes sterile. This idea isn’t new. The Japanese call it “wabi-sabi.” In rug weaving, cultures from the Persians to the Navajo leave deliberate imperfections.
I also think of older cities like New Orleans or London or Lisbon which are overflowing with old-world details. Wrought iron balconies, horse-hitching posts, street names tiled into the sidewalk — all of these tiny choices and intricacies add up to a powerful holistic aesthetic. A personality, if you will.
It’s much more interesting, memorable, and enjoyable than the sort of corporate minimalism that’s been creeping into, well, a lot of places.
When designing for usability, there are some things you don’t want to mess with. For instance, you wouldn’t put the “back” button in a place a user would never think to look. You want to work within the common language of behavior. But that still leaves a ton of room for creativity.
Here are a few of my favorites:
Dropbox’s sample text
Dropbox’s design is sparse by nature. There’s so much open space, and I love that. It’s my go-to place to think-out-loud and brain dump ideas. The UX succeeds by inviting that.
Even in this minimal sort of aesthetic, there is space for sentiment and sou. Every time you create a new document, the preview text say something like “Give me a name, Now write something brilliant,” or “Let’s give those fingers a workout.
In one sense, these notes to the user add nothing. In another, they add so much.
Google Chrome’s disconnected page
Google’s “No Connection” page has this fun dinosaur game that you can play while you wait for your WiFi to crank back up. This game, which you can now play online, was put here by the Chrome UX team in 2014 as a joke that not having the internet is like living in the prehistoric age.
It’s pointless, useless, but so fun, and everyone recognizes it.
Asana’s celebration animations
Even though we use ClickUp over here at WLCM, I do like Asana’s completion animations, which dash across the screen every time you complete a task. They feel like someone, somewhere, wanted to make the work day a little more fun.
And that’s what the best apps are. They create some surprising element of fun or delight.
The Cycle of What’s Standard
You can go beyond fun doodles and zippy animations. In your project, you can choose to perform a function in an entirely new way.
Best practices aren’t carved in stone, or even in snow.
I watched a great documentary on snowboarder Sean White, and he says that you can’t just get good at snowboarding and get more and more perfect. The sport is always evolving. You have to create new tricks and learn new tricks. You have to show up and innovate.
That’s really true of UX design, and something I love about it.
Inventing, say, a cool new onboarding flow is like inventing a new snowboarding trick. People are wowed by it. They share it. They love it. Then everyone copies it. Next thing you know, it’s the new standard.
Then it’s ready to be reinvented again. And that’s a good thing.
So here it is.
I’m giving you permission — practically begging you! — to follow your quirks. To believe in the value of doing things in the weird way you want to do them. To leave your fingerprints on the brave work you’re doing.
