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Smart Rings, Why Reading is Dead, and the Return of Buttons - This Week in Design

Design news from last week, 3 Creative Resources and 1 Tip

Hi Friends! I’m excited to share this week’s Designing Near Future. Here are the latest updates from the design industry, all in bite-sized, easy-to-digest pieces.

Breakdown of what’s in store today:

⭐ 5 Stories: The Newest Happenings in Design

💊 3 Resources: Secret Creative Resources That Pros Use

⚡ 1 Tip: Desire Paths

Reading time: 4 minutes

⭐ Stories

1. Casio’s New Digital Watch Ring

Casio's new smart ring takes wearable tech to a whole new level with a tiny six-segment LCD display that tells time, runs a stopwatch, and even flashes for alarms. This very obvious retro-inspired wearable celebrates Casio's 50th anniversary in digital watches and features a polished stainless steel case crafted through metal injection molding. I think it’s quirky, nostalgic, and a neat collectible for its p-tag. Let’s hope a calculator version is next! (Source)

2. A Better Bag for Everyone (Nike’s Take on Accessibility)

Nike’s EasyOn Backpack caught my attention after its announcement last week, for how brilliantly it merges accessibility with universal design. Born from feedback by adaptive athletes, it has magnetic closures for one-handed use and straps that adjust for wheelchair handles - or any shoulders. It’s a better backpack for everyone, period. (Source)

3. Hyundai Is Bringing Back Buttons Because Touchscreens Are ‘Annoying’

Hyundai’s design team is rethinking touchscreens after realizing American drivers hate fiddling with virtual buttons while on the move. They are now promising to bring back physical switches for key functions, starting with updated models like the Ioniq 5. (smart pivot : clean design is nice, but usability wins). Interestingly, Hyundai also believes touchscreens might find favor again as self-driving tech evolves and driving becomes less hands-on. (Source)

4. Goodbye X (Twitter), Hello Bluesky

Millions are flocking to Bluesky daily, drawn by its user-focused design and quirky charm - a stark contrast to the chaos at X, where Musk’s controversies continue to drive users away. (As for me, I am relatively new to both platforms).

Normally I’d skip news like this but it is especially important for designers and creators to know about X’s recent Terms of Service update, which grants the platform rights to use your posts for AI training (LLMs and GenAI). This does raise critical questions about content ownership and the platforms we choose to share our intellectual work. (Source) (Twitter AI Video)

5. The Death of Deep Reading

In this article I read last week, Nicholas Dames highlights a major cultural shift that’s hard to ignore: students, even at elite colleges, are arriving unprepared to read entire books. They are not unwilling, they simply don’t know how - all thanks to an education system that swaps deep reading for excerpts and test prep. (Archived Article)

I mean, If you’ve made it to this part of my newsletter, you’re already ahead of the curve. Keep reading, it might just be the last subversive act we have left.

Nike’s EasyOn Backpack

💊 Resources

3 links to boost your creativity.

⚡ Tip

Desire Paths

When you see a dirt path cutting across a pristine lawn, you're not just looking at a shortcut - you're witnessing what designers call a "desire path." These unofficial trails, carved by countless footsteps over time, reveal something incredible about design: the wisdom of collective human behavior often outsmarts our best-laid plans. Not to make a voting analogy this month, but it's like thousands of feet voting on the most natural way to move through a space.

Why I wanted to talk about desire paths is because it flips our usual approach on its head. Instead of imposing our vision of how people should behave, we can observe how they naturally want to behave and design around that. The most elegant example? Michigan State University didn't guess where to put their sidewalks - they waited a year to see where students naturally walked across the grass and paved those paths resulting in a campus layout that matches how people actually move.

I have been reading about desire paths the last couple of weeks. Here are some key principles that I have identified:

  1. Observe Before Building: Just like those university planners, start by observing how people naturally interact with spaces or products. The paths they create, the shortcuts they take, the ways they repurpose things - these are all valuable clues about what design really needs to solve. (Look up the re-design of Bryant park in NYC)

  2. Trust the Collective Wisdom: When thousands of footsteps wear a path through grass, they're telling us something important. Often, these organic patterns emerge because they solve problems we didn't even know existed. Look for these 'beaten paths' in your own design space.

  3. Design for Reality, Not Theory: A messy practical solution that works is better than the theoretical perfect solution that doesn't. Broadway in Manhattan follows an ancient Native American trail that naturally avoided swamps and hills. It survived centuries because it worked with the landscape's reality, not an idealized grid system.

  4. Let Behavior Lead: As urban planner Riccardo Marini noted on the topic -"Desire lines present evidence about movement." Good design should formalize the paths people are already choosing, rather than forcing them into new patterns.

Happy Designing!

That’s it! Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed it, don’t forget to share it with your friends. And if you really enjoyed it, send over a bunch of emojis when you reply to this email 🙂. I read everything.

Fin