DNF Round up #5

Hi Friends! Welcome to the 14 people who signed up last week. It’s been super busy on my end as I am moving places and wrapping up a pretty exciting project.

Regardless, I’m super thrilled to share this week’s “Designing Near Future” Newsletter with you.

🚀

But before that, we are hosting 2 design meetups later this month. First in Boston and second in New York. If you would like to come hangout with creatives in these cities, RSVP here.

🚀

Alright back to it.

This is a roundup of all the design resources I shared with you in the last 5 newsletters. You will find below:

⭐ 5 Shifts

⚡ 5 Tips

💊 15 Resources

⭐ Shifts

1. Why Robots are the Next Big Design Opportunity
   

2. What Do Gen Z’s Unique Habits Mean for Design?
   

3. How Retro Modern Design is Becoming the New Cool
   

4. The UX Designer of Today and Tomorrow
   

5. The Quest To Disrupt The Smartphone Industry

⚡ Tips

1. Object-Oriented Ontology

Sometimes I feel like I’m missing a crucial perspective in my design work. And it’s so hard to tell what it is. Like most of us, I too over-index on humans and designing around their needs.

You see, traditional design approaches have been heavily human-centric, focusing solely on user experiences and needs. But what if I told you there's a whole other world out there, one where objects have agency and autonomy of their own? I am talking about Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO).

As OOO theorist Graham Harman puts it, "OOO puts things at the center of being. We humans are entangled with things, but things don't derive their reality from their relation to humans." Wait, what? This means your designs shouldn't just be tools for human use - they need to have an inherent value and meaning of their own.

Think about it - how often have you designed something purely for function, without considering the hidden qualities and vivid, autonomous reality of the object itself? As Timothy Morton says, "OOO insists that objects are not just passive tools that humans use, but have a vivid, autonomous reality"

Here is my understanding of OOO for designers : bring out the hidden qualities of the objects you create and allow their autonomous reality to be expressed.

The hack is to start seeing the world through the eyes of your creations.

How does object A look at the word? How does Object X feel about humanity, culture and more? Instead of putting yourself in your users’ shoes, put yourself in your objects’ shoes.

Weird but cool.

2. The Medium is the Message

Marshall McLuhan's idea that "the medium is the message" is a pretty valid principle for design if you think about it. It means that the way you choose to show your message—like through a poster, a website, a physical product or an app—plays a big role in how people understand and feel about it. Here’s my spin on breaking this down, especially for design:

1. Medium Shapes Perception: Just like wearing goggles can change how you see underwater, the medium you choose changes how people see your message.

2. Interaction Changes Impact: The way people interact with different mediums changes the impact. Scrolling through an app isn't the same as flipping through a magazine.

3. Context Adds Meaning: Where and how a message is delivered adds layers of meaning. An ad on a bus stop might speak to us differently than the same ad on social media.

4. Innovation Attracts Attention: Using a new or unexpected medium can make your message stand out. Imagine getting a message in a bottle instead of an email.

5. Simplicity Speaks Volumes: Sometimes, choosing a simple medium can make a stronger statement than something more complex. A hand-written letter can feel more personal and powerful in today’s digital age.

6. Emotion Tied to Medium: Different mediums evoke different emotions. Watching a story unfold in a video can pull at our heartstrings in a way that reading the same story might not.

7. Access and Reach: Choosing the right medium also means considering who can access it. A message on a website reaches a global audience, while a local mural has a more localized, but possibly deeper, community impact.

Checkout this video for more on “the medium is the message”.

3. 6 Basic Design Principles That are Easily Forgotten

In design, there are six special rules that help make things easy to use and nice to look at, whether it's on a computer, a toy, or anything else. The fact that these can apply to any domain of design means that sometimes they can be taken for granted.

I personally find these as a great reminder in my practice as an Industrial Designer. Here we go:

1. Visual Hierarchy: This principle is about organizing and prioritizing the elements on a page, product or system in a way that clearly indicates their importance. It guides the user's attention to where it's most needed, ensuring they can find what they're looking for quickly and easily. Techniques to establish visual hierarchy include using size, color, contrast, and placement. For example, larger elements are seen as more important than smaller ones, and bold colors can draw attention faster than muted ones.

2. Contrast: Contrast helps to differentiate elements on the page, product or object, making the content, instructions or elements more readable and the interfaces more navigable. It's not limited to colors; contrast can also apply to sizes, shapes, and textures. High contrast between elements can make them stand out, while low contrast might be used for less important or background information.

3. Balance: Balance involves arranging elements so that the visual weight is distributed evenly across the layout or a product digital or physical;. This can be achieved through symmetrical or asymmetrical designs. Symmetrical balance is where elements are mirrored on either side of a central line, creating a formal and organized appearance. Asymmetrical balance uses different elements of varying visual weight to create an interesting and dynamic composition. Balance is crucial for creating a stable and harmonious design that is pleasing to the eye.

4. Consistency: Consistency across a user interface ensures that users don't get confused as they navigate through different parts of the application, website or physical product. It involves using the same styles or visual language for similar elements, such as buttons, textures and fonts, and following the same design patterns throughout the user experience. Consistency helps in building user trust and reduces the learning curve, making the interface more intuitive.

5. Simplicity: Simplicity is about eliminating unnecessary elements and focusing on what's essential. A simple design can make a user interface, product or visual graphic more understandable and easier to use. It involves minimizing the number of colors, fonts, shapes, and textures to only what is necessary. Simplicity aids in highlighting the most critical information and actions, leading to a cleaner and more efficient user experience.

6. Interaction Feedback: Interaction feedback is the response given by the interface or a product when a user performs an action. Feedback can include visual cues, animations, or sounds that acknowledge user actions, such as clicking a button or completing a form. Feedback is crucial for communication with the user, letting them know that their actions have been recognized and processed by the system. Good interaction feedback can significantly enhance the user's sense of control and predictability when using a digital or physical product.

As you can guess, these design principles, when applied thoughtfully, can greatly improve the functionality, usability, and aesthetic appeal of a user interface, product or in some cases visual graphics.

4. Getting promoted as a designer at work

This design tip comes from Lily Konings, who is a Senior Design Manager at DoorDash with previous roles at Meta, AngelList, and IBM Watson. In this video podcast, she shares her strategy for standing out and getting oneself noticed at work. Here are 5 actionable ideas that stood out from the conversation.

1. Build a Strong Personal Brand: Establish a recognizable personal brand within your company. Make sure people know who you are, what you work on, and what you excel at. Lily emphasizes, "When your name comes up, people should know who you are, what you work on, and what you're really good at."

2. Network and Build Relationships: Focus on building relationships rather than traditional networking. Whether you're introverted or extroverted, make connections through one-on-ones and understand the importance of networking within your company.

3. Seek Mentorship and Offer Mentorship: Engage in mentorship both as a mentee and a mentor. This helps in building your brand and understanding different perspectives within the industry. Lily shares, "Continue to build relationships and even collect points of view that differ from yours to kind of make yourself just a better leader."

4. Communicate Your Aspirations: Don't wait for leadership to notice you. Be proactive in communicating aspirations for promotion. Lily suggests, "Be very proactive and tell them what your goals are."

5. Demonstrate Your Value: Beyond just doing your job well, show how you add value to the team and the company. Lily highlights, "Be someone that people look up to and you want to be pretty obvious about what you're good at."
   

5. What networking can teach you about designing social platforms

While networking, the goal isn't to collect contacts like trading cards. Dunbar's number, a theory by anthropologist Robin Dunbar, suggests our brains cap at managing 150 meaningful relationships. This idea stems from the observation that our cognitive capacity limits the number of individuals with whom we can have genuine social relationships.

When designing social platforms or community spaces, whether online or physical, today’s tip is to leverage Dunbar's number to enhance user experience. Instead of pushing for larger, more impersonal groups, create smaller, more intimate communities within your platform. This approach encourages meaningful interactions and stronger bonds among members, leading to a more engaged and loyal community. Think of it as designing a series of small dinner parties rather than a massive banquet hall. By doing so, you cater to the natural limit of social connections, making each interaction more valuable and fulfilling. We did this by introducing local chapters for Young Designers India as well as limiting our in-person meetups to ~50 people. Reddit does this by having sub groups and so do most webinars with breakout rooms.