Design Details

By Brian Lovin, Marshall BockTechnology Arts Design

Design Details episodes

November 27, 2019324: Interface Design and the Physical World
In this week's episode, we riff on a listener question about the influence of the physical world on digital interfaces, and we end up covering everything from video game controllers to sliders and shiny buttons. And as always, we share a couple cool things like a fun dramedy and another sci-fi novel.
Golden Ratio Patrons:
Sisu is looking for a thoughtful and data-savvy designer to help build the next generation of analytics software. You can find out more at sisu.ai. (You might recognize Sisu from our interview with Michie Cao)
Flywheel is a delightfully designed managed WordPress hosting platform, thoughtfully built for busy creatives. Streamline your workflow with their slick platform and sweet set of workflow tools perfectly made for designers! Get started at getflywheel.com/designdetails
Latest VIP Patrons:
Huge shoutouts to our latest members!
William Goi
Tobias Treppmann
Richard
Ed Johnson-Williams
Jacqueline Nguyen
Charlie Van Meter
Shaun Whitworth
Ali Salem
Follow-up:
Matt wondered about user-controlled counts on social sites
Hide Likes Everywhere lets you "hide likes and other vanity metrics for a more authentic online experience"
Michael Knepprath agrees that games have more battle-tested onboarding
Tiffany Tseng took notes on our social proof discussion (!)
Bradley L. Hurlburt replied with a Stanford paper on “How Community Feedback Shapes User Behavior”
A warm welcome to new listener Grant Howarth!
Patrick Marx enjoyed the episode on Onboarding Design
Kevin Bennett got "stuck" in that episode, too (in a good way)
Aaron Miller liked hearing from Meg and Ryan on illustration
News:
The stuff we were excited about this week was decidedly design-tangential, so we'll talk about the following topics in the next episode of Bonusland:
Tesla Cybertruck
16" MacBook Pro
iPhone Battery Case
Join us on Patreon to get access to all episodes of Bonusland!
Listener Question:
nosam7 asks, "What, if any, design choices have you been able to incorporate into a digital platform, that you learned from interacting with something IRL?"
Hollow Knight is an "adventure through a forgotten kingdom of insects and heroes"
Video: "The Director AI of Left 4 Dead | AI and Games"
Episode 322: Designing App Onboarding Experiences
Video: "What Games Are Like For Someone Who Doesn't Play Games"
Article: "History of the Video Game Controller"
Video: "What Breath Of The Wild Is Like For Someone Who Doesn't Play Games"
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild presents the player with button prompts that show the relative position to other buttons
Image: "Press X" is a sad but true thing
Material's Floating Action Button "represents the primary action of a screen"
A skeuomorph is "an ornament or design on an object copied from a form of the object when made from another material or by other techniques"
According to Wikipedia, radio buttons "were named after the physical buttons used on older radios to select preset stations"
Video: "Photoshop Tutorial: Create a Glossy Button"
Material's Motion Principles "help orient users by showing how elements are related to one another"
Image: Maps in early versions of iOS employed a page flip and grey linen background for the in-app settings
Video: "Expanding the Sensory Experience with Core Haptics"
Instagram Threads is "a new camera-first messaging app that helps you stay connected to your close friends"
Cue is "your social calendar"
One Cool Thing:
Brian shared Peanut Butter Falcon, a dramedy starring Shia Leboeuf about an unlikely duo on an adventure
Image: I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE
Video: "Shia LaBeouf Sheds a Tear While Eating Spicy Wings | Hot Ones"
Even Stevens
Holes
Marshall shared Expeditionary Force: Columbus Day, an irreverent sci-fi novel about humans getting caught up in an interstellar war between alien hamsters and alien lizards
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the quintessential irreverent sci-fi novel
The Bobiverse Trilogy is a great series and a recurring reference on the show
Design Details on the Web:
📻 We are @designdetailsfm
🎙 Brian is @brian_lovin and [email protected]
🎙 Marshall is @marshallbock and [email protected]
🎚@Sarahberus and @Luperdev make us sound smarter than we are
🙌 Support us on Patreon - your support literally makes this show possible. Thank you ❤️
❓ Got a question? Ask it on our Listener Questions Hub, and we'll do our best to answer it on the show :)
⭐️ Enjoying the show? Leave us a review on iTunes
GOBBLE GOBBLEEEEE!
57 min
November 20, 2019323: Designing Social Proof
In this week's episode we dive into the murky waters of designing social proof in social networks. From upvotes to view counts, reputation to badges, there are a wide array of tools and patterns at a designer's disposal to communicate quality and popularity. But these patterns each have their own drawbacks, tradeoffs, and vectors for abuse. We dig into these, and more. Plus, as always, we share our cool finds for the week, this time featuring a Figma plugin and a beautiful indie video game.
Golden Ratio Patrons:
Sisu is looking for a thoughtful and data-savvy designer to help build the next generation of analytics software. You can find out more at sisu.ai. (You might recognize Sisu from our interview with Michie Cao)
Flywheel is a delightfully designed managed WordPress hosting platform, thoughtfully built for busy creatives. Streamline your workflow with their slick platform and sweet set of workflow tools perfectly made for designers! Get started at getflywheel.com/designdetails
Follow-up:
New supporters! Thank you to everyone who has joined our Patreon this week:
Timothy Pui-Fai Li
明勳李
Meena Balasubramaniam
Darren Soulsby
Sahil Chaturvedi
Will
Ronald Huynh
Kryston Schwarze
Coard Miller
Michael Goliver
Kevin Bennett
Ya'll also tweeted sweet nothings at us:
Paweł Szymankiewicz says "This type of @designdetailsfm episode is my favorite one" about episode 322.
Nathan Lindahl says "Definitely recommend @designdetailsfm. More focused on product/career than brand/creativity… but for sure insightful conversations."
Manny says "Thank you guys for answering my question again. And Jesus Christ, there are so much I need to take note for!!! It's like dark mode episode all over again. In a very good way 😍" after we dug into onboarding design in episode 322.
Adam Carroll says "Really enjoyed this episode" - thanks Adam!
Sahil Chaturvedi says "@designdetailsfm FINALLY I'm a Patreon supporter! Thanks for all the great content and genuinely useful information! Always just feels like I'm chatting with a couple buddies about design" - and we say: Thank you so much for your support!
Friend of the pod, Michael Knepprath says "@designdetailsfm
the tier change feels very good imo - simple and welcoming" - super glad to hear!
And last but not least, Mingshun Li says "Just become a patron of @designdetailsfm! The show was my mentor when I was the only designer at my first two jobs. Great to contribute a little bit to the show!" - thank you for supporting the show, it means a lot!
Additionally, last week Brian was able to share what he's been working on for the past few months: GitHub for mobile! Rafa and Kevin over at Layout also discussed the app on their most recent episode.
Industry talk:
This week we dive into the murky waters of designing for social proof: the inputs, signifiers, and patterns that help people determine what is "popular" online.
Instagram is experimenting with hiding like counts which may have implications for influencer marketing.
Facebook tried to capture more emotional nuance when they added reactions to the like button.
In 2015, Twitter killed favorites in favor of likes.
On our episode with Pablo Stanley, we discussed the potentially harmful impact of having a handful of things you create go viral.
Stack Overflow has a robust reputation system that aims to provide an accurate representation of any given's persons contributions to the community.
Quora uses Credentials to communicate the experiences and achievements of any given writer on the platform.
Basecamp uses a feature called Boosts to help people provide higher fidelity feedback than a like button can offer. Brian misspoke and called this feature "kudos."
One Cool Thing:
Brian shared the Vectary Figma Plugin which helps you apply your designs to 3-dimensional product mockups. Its very cool.
Marshall shared Hollow Knight, a beautiful and outstanding indie game that everyone should play. It's very challenging, but offers a simple onboarding experience which helps people ramp up as they go.
Brian and Marshall got a kick out of watching a reaction to a Hollow Knight speed run world record.
Design Details on the Web:
📻 We are @designdetailsfm
🎙 Brian is @brian_lovin and [email protected]
🎙 Marshall is @marshallbock and [email protected]
🎚@Sarahberus and @Luperdev make us sound smarter than we are
🙌 Support us on Patreon - your support literally makes this show possible. Thank you ❤️
❓ Got a question? Ask it on our Listener Questions Hub, and we'll do our best to answer it on the show :)
⭐️ Enjoying the show? Leave us a review on iTunes
Aloha!
47 min
November 13, 2019322: Designing App Onboarding Experiences
This week, we dive deep into the perils and triumphs of designing an onboarding experience for mobile. Strap in for a big brain dump as we discuss everything from App Store screenshots to sign-in methods to device permissions to user education. And as always, we share a couple cool things like a privacy-minded daily read and a post-post-apocalyptic streaming series.
Sponsor:
Flatiron School: Learn UX/UI design in 24 weeks and discover our global community on campus or online and go back to school with Flatiron School!
Change careers with confidence with 1:1 support from our dedicated Career Coaches and a money back guarantee. Complete details at flatironschool.com/terms.
See you in class!
Golden Microphone Patrons:
Sisu is looking for a thoughtful and data-savvy designer to help build the next generation of analytics software. You can find out more at sisu.ai. (You might recognize Sisu from our interview with Michie Cao)
Flywheel is a delightfully designed managed WordPress hosting platform, thoughtfully built for busy creatives. Streamline your workflow with their slick platform and sweet set of workflow tools perfectly made for designers! Get started at getflywheel.com/designdetails
Follow-up:
Shoutouts and much appreciation to our newest patrons!
Roy Stanfield
Eden Wulf
Joan Disho
Damian Bilski
We released the first episode of Bonusland, our extra content just for subscribers!
For the inaugural Bonusland, we review Airpods Pro, Apple's latest new-fangled ear speakers
And we're simplifying our Patreon tiers; basically, you get access to all of our perks for just a buck (or more) a month!
We got some nice replies about our last two episodes on illustration with Pablo and with Meg and Ryan
Alisa Bacon documented a rite of passage for all(?) designers
Joshua Taylor appreciated gaining some perspective and empathy for illustrators
Joan Disho enjoys the podcast, even though he's not a designer
Justin Rands found our last episode to be a goldmine for those interested in illustration in product teams
Brian plans to go through all of our past episodes that have crazy titles and rename them to be a bit more obvious and searchable. For you :)
Listener Question:
Q: Mannnny asks, "What's the best onboarding experience?"
A: "Before you even get to onboarding, you should think about your marketing site and your App/Play Store video and screenshots, because that's how a lot of users will first learn about your app. For the video, pack the first few seconds with a good hook, and make sure it works without sound, since these videos are muted by default. Once the user is in your app, consider the barrier to entry that any sign-in flow will present; using Oauth or a phone number is a great way to streamline sign-in, but you may want to allow users to play around in a signed-out state until they try to do something that actually requires signing in. Please don't ask for device permissions without priming the user for which permissions you'll need to access, why you need to access them, and what the user needs to do to enable them. Once you're ready to do some real user education, the easy (and probably wrong) thing to do is to have a paginated series of feature explanations, but you should never expect anyone to read those. No one reads. Instead, we prefer onboarding experiences that either 1) abstract the interface in a way that allows users to learn without the risk of experimenting on their own data, or 2) use their own interface to teach you how to use the interface. So meta. The most important thing to remember is that you only get one shot at a first impression, so make sure you're putting in the work to make that first run experience as grokkable as possible."
Here are some examples:
Todoist utilizes app previews that that span multiple screenshots
Reddit prompts you for permissions immediately, but you can still use the app signed out
Clear Todos (despite having a paginated onboarding flow) starts users with a sample list full of tasks that describe all the gestures in the app
Mailbox used abstraction and task-completion to educate users without the risk of experimenting on their own data
Notion provides users with a pre-populated document that itself shows user how to start documenting
Descript includes a sample podcast project that, using a podcast format and its own interface, walks users through how to navigate and edit the sample project
Superhuman has a white glove service where a human on the phone personally walks you through how to use the app
User Onboard is an outstanding resource for thoroughly detailed analyses of onboarding flows in many different apps and services
One Cool Thing:
Brian shared Tonic, an article-reading app that provides "a selection of personalized reads every day" without grabbing all of your personal info
Note: Apparently, "non-US and Android support is coming"
Friend-of-the-pod Gabriel Valdivia is Head of Design at Canopy, the company that makes Tonic
Marshall shared See, a post-post-apocalyptic series on AppleTV+ starring Jason Momoa, who is "the father of sighted twins born centuries after a virus decimated mankind and the only survivors emerged blind"
The Morning Show and The Elephant Queen also look pretty good
Tactile Paving features heavily in 265: Travel Edition
Design Details on the Web:
📻 We are @designdetailsfm
🎙 Brian is @brian_lovin and [email protected]
🎙 Marshall is @marshallbock and [email protected]
🎚@Sarahberus and @Luperdev make us sound smarter than we are
🙌 Support us on Patreon - your support literally makes this show possible. Thank you ❤️
❓ Got a question? Ask it on our Listener Questions Hub, and we'll do our best to answer it on the show :)
⭐️ Enjoying the show? Leave us a review on iTunes
CATCH YA ON THE FLIPPITY-FLOP!
1 hr 2 min
November 06, 2019321: Illustrations and the Side Effects of Free Resources (feat. Meg Robichaud & Ryan Putnam)
This week, we're joined by Meg Robichaud and Ryan Putnam—incredible illustrators working at Lyft and Messenger, respectively—to follow up on a topic from last week's episode. Meg and Ryan share some of their experiences working as illustrators on product teams, and they shed a little light on how free resources can sometimes have a negative impact on illustration as a valued discipline. And as always, we share some cool things like a collection of essays, some creepy VHS tapes, a couple radio plays, a new Netflix series, and another design podcast.
Sponsor:
Flatiron School: Learn UX/UI design in 24 weeks and discover our global community on campus or online and go back to school with Flatiron School!
Change careers with confidence with 1:1 support from our dedicated Career Coaches and a money back guarantee. Complete details at flatironschool.com/terms.
See you in class!
Golden Microphone Patron:
Sisu is looking for a thoughtful and data-savvy designer to help build the next generation of analytics software. You can find out more at sisu.ai.
(You might recognize Sisu from our interview with Michie Cao)
Follow-up:
Michael Knepprath pointed out that Don Norman has updated his views on the role of aesthetics in design
Interview:
Meg Robichaud is an illustrator at Lyft, and Ryan Putnam is Art Director on the Brand team at Messenger
Incidentally, they are not in fact Meg Ryan
Pablo Stanley announced Open Doodles and got Design Twitter talking
Bootstrap is "an open source toolkit for developing with HTML, CSS, and JS"
Stripe is "the best software platform for running an internet business"
One Cool Thing:
Meg shared Trick Mirror: Reflections, an "enlightening, unforgettable trip through the river of self-delusion that surges just beneath the surface of our lives"
Ryan shared scary VHS covers like Ghoulies and House
Marshall shared two radio play podcasts:
The Edge of Sleep is about "a night watchman [who] is terrified to discover that everyone in the world who went to sleep the previous night has died"
Blackout is about "a small-town New Hampshire radio DJ who fights to protect his family and community after the power grid goes down nationwide, upending modern civilization" (and it reminds Marshall a bit of The Mist)
Brian shared two halvsies:
Living with Yourself is about a guy "burned out on life who undergoes a strange procedure at a strip mall spa -- and wakes to find he's been replaced by a better version of himself"
Design Life is "a podcast about design and side projects for motivated creators"
"170: Jumping from junior to senior designer"
Design Details on the Web:
📻 We are @designdetailsfm
🎙 Brian is @brian_lovin and [email protected]
🎙 Marshall is @marshallbock and [email protected]
🎚@Sarahberus and @Luperdev make us sound smarter than we are
🙌 Support us on Patreon - your support literally makes this show possible. Thank you ❤️
❓ Got a question? Ask it on our Listener Questions Hub, and we'll do our best to answer it on the show :)
⭐️ Enjoying the show? Leave us a review on iTunes
AU REVOIR!
1 hr 10 min
October 30, 2019320: The Path of a Generalist (feat. Pablo Stanley)
This week, the prolific Pablo Stanley joins us to talk about his path following a wide range of interests (including but not limited to architecture, music, fashion, comics, illustration, and design), and he shares his thoughts about the controversy surrounding his Open Doodles project and Design Twitter's reaction to it. And as always, we share some cool things, like a new video game, a creative portfolio site, and a tearjerking doctor show.
Sponsor:
Flatiron School: Learn UX/UI design in 24 weeks and discover our global community on campus or online and go back to school with Flatiron School!
Change careers with confidence with 1:1 support from our dedicated Career Coaches and a money back guarantee. Complete details at flatironschool.com/terms.
See you in class!
Golden Microphone Patron:
Sisu is looking for a thoughtful and data-savvy designer to help build the next generation of analytics software. You can find out more at sisu.ai.
(You might recognize Sisu from our interview with Michie Cao)
Follow-up:
Shoutout to our newest patrons!
Stephen Hathaway
Oscar Lozano
Struan Robertson
On Brian's recommendation, Marshall saw Parasite, a "pitch-black modern fairytale"
Writer/director Joon-ho Bong also wrote and directed Snowpiercer,
Interview:
Pablo Stanley is a designer at Invision working on Studio, "the world’s most powerful screen design tool"
Carbon Health is "a modern, tech-enabled healthcare company transforming the primary care and urgent care experience"
Diseño Cha Cha Chá is a Spanish-language podcast of "conversations with Latinos who work in the technology industry"
Stanley Colors is Pablo's collection of "comics and stuff"
Buttsss is "a collection of beautiful, round butt illustrations"
Video: "How-To: Throw Clay"
Map: Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico
The Kaoss Pad KP3+ is "a real-time effects processor/sampler with instant control over cutting-edge effects"
The Design Team is "a comic series that follows the story of Petunia, a Junior Designer that just moved to SF to join a startup. The comic pokes fun at the tech world, and the quirky design culture in the middle of it."
Tobias Von Schneider is "an award-winning designer born in Germany, raised in Austria and currently living in New York"
Imposter Syndrome is "a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a 'fraud.'"
"Life and Donuts" is a short comic about death and living
Article: "Teen suicide rates spiked after debut of Netflix show '13 Reasons Why,' study says"
Open Doodles is "a set of free illustrations that embraces the idea of Open Design. You can copy, edit, remix, share, or redraw these images for any purpose without restriction under copyright or database law."
9-slice scaling (aka 9-slicing) is "a 2D image resizing technique to proportionally scale an image by splitting it in a grid of nine parts"
Pablo announced Open Doodles and got Design Twitter talking
One Cool Thing:
Brian shared Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, the latest installment from Infinity Ward in the first-person military shooter series
Video: "No Russian" (WARNING: Violent and Disturbing and Definitely NSFW)
Press F to Pay Respects is "an action prompt featured in a quick time event from Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. Many players mocked the funeral cutscene for its forced element of interactivity that seemed out-of-place at a memorial service."
Pablo shared Bruno Simon's Portfolio, the result of "months of hard but fun work"
Marshall shared The Good Doctor, a TV show about "a young surgeon with autism and savant syndrome [who] uses his extraordinary gifts to save lives and challenge skepticism"
Video: "Real Doctor Reacts to THE GOOD DOCTOR"
Design Details on the Web:
📻 We are @designdetailsfm
🎙 Brian is @brian_lovin and [email protected]
🎙 Marshall is @marshallbock and [email protected]
🎚@Sarahberus and @Luperdev make us sound smarter than we are
🙌 Support us on Patreon - your support literally makes this show possible. Thank you ❤️
❓ Got a question? Ask it on our Listener Questions Hub, and we'll do our best to answer it on the show :)
⭐️ Enjoying the show? Leave us a review on iTunes
¡ADIOSSSSSS! (Marshall's two years of high school Spanish have paid off)
1 hr 38 min
October 23, 2019319: Content Strategy and Designing with Language (feat. Jonathon Colman)
In today's episode we sat down with Jonathon Colman, a Senior Design Manager at Intercom, to talk about all things content. We dig into Jonathon's background and path into design, the role of content in user experience design, how content strategy and product design should work together, the future of AI and machine learning in content strategy, and so much more. That, plus our cool things of the week, as always!
Sponsor:
Flatiron School: Learn UX/UI design in 24 weeks and discover our global community on campus or online and go back to school with Flatiron School!
Change careers with confidence with 1:1 support from our dedicated Career Coaches and a money back guarantee. Complete details at flatironschool.com/terms.
See you in class!
Golden Microphone Patron:
Sisu is looking for a thoughtful and data-savvy designer to help build the next generation of analytics software. You can find out more at sisu.ai.
(You might recognize Sisu from our interview with Michie Cao)
Follow-up:
Shoutout to our newest patrons!
Valentine Ubaldo
Michael Knepprath
webOS is the mobile operating system developed by Palm.
Hobo Johnson is all about that authentically, low-budget production.
Interview:
Today we caught up with Jonathon Colman, a Senior Design Manager at Intercom.
If you were designing in the 90's, you too may be familiar with Kai's Power Tools.
Dances with Wolves, the summer blockbuster of 1990 featuring Kevin Costner.
Jonathon gave a keynote presentation at Webstock 2017 titled "Wicked Ambiguity and User Experience" in which he dives deep into the topic of wicked problems.
Jared Spool is a writer, researcher, speaker, and expert on usability.
Samantha Starmer is an experience design and strategy executive leading teams at companies like Capital One, Ralph Lauren, and more.
Double Diamond product development explains a process of divergent and convergent thinking.
Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows offers insights for solving problems at scale.
John Saito shares thoughts about the role of writing in experience design with the Intercom blog.
Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think is a foundational user experience design book.
One Cool Thing:
Marshall shared Cue, a social calendar app designed by Michael Boswell.
Brian shared Parasite, a new film directed by Bong Joon Ho. Recommendation: go see it before seeing the trailer or reading any details - it's worth it!
Jonathon shared Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez, who also appeared on an episode of 99% Invisible to discuss the same topic.
Design Details on the Web:
📻 We are @designdetailsfm
🎙 Brian is @brian_lovin and [email protected]
🎙 Marshall is @marshallbock and [email protected]
🎚@Sarahberus and @Luperdev make us sound smarter than we are
🙌 Support us on Patreon - your support literally makes this show possible. Thank you ❤️
❓ Got a question? Ask it on our Listener Questions Hub, and we'll do our best to answer it on the show :)
⭐️ Enjoying the show? Leave us a review on iTunes
In the immortal words of Johnny Utah: ¡Vaya con dios!
1 hr 34 min
October 16, 2019318: Death of the Designer Unicorn
In this week's episode, we answer a listener question about why product teams aren't comprised of more "unicorns," and we discuss a Twitter thread that questions whether being a hands-off design leader makes you less of a designer. And as always, we share a couple cool things, including a strangely amazing band and an ultimate guide.
Golden Microphone Patron:
Sisu is looking for a thoughtful and data-savvy designer to help build the next generation of analytics software. You can find out more at sisu.ai.
(You might recognize Sisu from our interview with Michie Cao)
Follow-up:
Shoutout to our newest patrons!
Bob Weisbecker
Bradford Ulrich
Danny Haagen
James Lyons
Jing Zhang
Melinda Yang
Paul Dippold
Ryan Parag
Mike Hickman
Listener Uhl Albert shared this video of PalmOS doing most of the gesture stuff iOS does now
This reminded Marshall of the "General Magic" documentary
Instagram launched their Dark Mode just to embarrass us
Listener Questions:
Brandon Weiss asks, "Why are product teams comprised of people who have to work cross-functionally but aren't cross-functional themselves?"
A: The quick answer is "unicorns" like that are pretty rare, hence the moniker. The structure and size of a company might determine what roles are needed when that company hires, so while cross-functional employees are super valuable in startups, they aren't necessarily preferable in larger organizations. Ultimately, you'll probably get the best return on your time investment by learning enough about each of your cross-functional partners' duties that you can speak their language, even if you can't do their job.
In a Twitter thread unrelated to this podcast, Lily Dart asks design leaders, "Do you get given a hard time for not being 'hands-on' anymore? Does it make you less of a designer?"
A: First off, no one should give you a hard time for being hands-off. That's just mean and unprofessional. Secondly, Being a Head or Chief or Manager doesn't make you less of a designer, it just makes you something different than the traditional definition of "designer." But that's okay! Your background as a designer helps you do your new role better, and while you should keep your finger on the pulse of the wider design world, no one expects you to sweat about pixels, and actually, that probably wouldn't be the most valuable use of your time. So ultimately, designers whose careers evolve to a leadership position are better off for having been a designer, for sure, but once the role changes, so too should the label.
One Cool Thing:
Marshall shared Hobo Johnson's new album, "The Fall of Hobo Johnson"
We recommend you get acquainted via this video: "Hobo Johnson and The Lovemakers: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert", a gig they got after submitting a viral audition video to NPR
If you're still in, Marshall likes these songs off the new album: Uglykid, Subaru CrossTrek XV, You & The Cockroach, Happiness
Brian shared "iOS Shortcuts: The Ultimate Guide for Resources, Examples, Libraries, Triggers, and More"
Design Details on the Web:
📻 We are @designdetailsfm
🎙 Brian is @brian_lovin and [email protected]
🎙 Marshall is @marshallbock and [email protected]
🎚@Sarahberus and @Luperdev make us sound smarter than we are
🙌 Support us on Patreon - your support literally makes this show possible. Thank you ❤️
❓ Got a question? Ask it on our Listener Questions Hub, and we'll do our best to answer it on the show :)
⭐️ Enjoying the show? Leave us a review on iTunes
Peace out, nerdssssss! (brought to you by patron Karl Koch)
58 min
October 09, 2019317: Designing for Dark Mode
In this week's episode, we dive deep into the murky depths of Dark Mode, discussing everything from OLED smearing and halation to tinting and elevation. Plus we read the results of the Twitter poll in which we asked you about your preferred dark background color. And as always, we share a some cool things like a crazy creative talk, a painting app for iPad, and a ridiculous illustrator.
Golden Microphone Patron:
Sisu is looking for a thoughtful and data-savvy designer to help build the next generation of analytics software. You can find out more at sisu.ai.
Follow-up:
You might recognize Sisu from our interview with Michie Cao
Shoutout to our newest patrons!
Alec Sukoski
Derek Graham
John Wood (Day One Patron!)
Justin Allen
Lisa Pesok
Manuel Solera
Sam Bernhardt
Brian updated designdetails.fm, and it's very nice. You should check it out :)
Thanks to listener and patron Derek Graham for the kind and helpful email :)
Keaton Taylor was also born too early for Pokemon and Spongebob
Sahil loves the move to being listener-supported
Listener Question:
Brandon Moore asks, "How do you feel guys feel about using a true black color (#000) for dark mode?"
Article: "Designing a Dark Theme for OLED iPhones"
Note: Since recording, Instagram has updated their app with a dark mode!
We asked what you thought in a poll on Twitter, and you let us know :)
One Cool Thing:
Brian shared "Choosing Idea Vessels for Your Creations," a talk by Alex Cornell at the awwwards conference
Alex was featured back on episode 181: 5,000 Tickets Gets The Gum
Marshall cheated and shared three things:
Vexx, a ridiculous illustrator on YouTube who mostly uses markers and colored pencils but occasionally does large murals
Inktober, a drawing challenge in which "artists all over the world do one ink drawing a day the entire month"
Procreate for iPad, which "gives you the power to create beautiful sketches, inspiring paintings, and stunning illustrations wherever you are"
Paper, whose "perfectly-tuned tools make it easy to sketch, type, paint, draw — wherever your thoughts take you"
Design Details on the Web:
📻 We are @designdetailsfm
🎙 Brian is @brian_lovin and [email protected]
🎙 Marshall is @marshallbock and [email protected]
🎚@Sarahberus and @Luperdev make us sound smarter than we are
🙌 Support us on Patreon - your support literally makes this show possible. Thank you ❤️
❓ Got a question? Ask it on our Listener Questions Hub, and we'll do our best to answer it on the show :)
⭐️ Enjoying the show? Leave us a review on iTunes
BYEEEEE!
50 min
October 02, 2019316: The Convergence of iOS and Android
In this week's episode, we dive deep on Android 10's new gestural navigation and how it compares to iOS, finally get around to talking a bit about the September Apple Event, and answer a listener question about what it means to be more proactive. And as always, we share a couple cool things like a new reality TV and some ever-comfy t-shirts.
Follow-up:
FoR LeSs tHaN ThE pRiCe oF aN ArTiSaNaL pOuR-OvEr aT sAiNt fRaNk'S, you can support us on Patreon!
Shoutouts to our Day One Patrons:
Abhishek Warokar
Adam Carroll
Andrew Crandall
Aurora Pleguezuelo
Brandon Weiss
Claudio Vallejo
Cameron Campbell
Christian Ruiz
Karl Koch
Doris Saturday
Effy Zhang
Essa Saulat
Jeff Parsons
Joseph Brueggen
Kris Puckett
Kyle Mitchell
MannnnnnyX
Max Stoiber
Sam Mason
We made our very first patron-only post
Brian finally got his Logitech MX Keys keyboard, and it's not perfect, but it's not bad
"Sixty percent of the time, it works every time" (clip)
Listener Questions:
Anonymous asks, "What does it mean to be more proactive?"
Apple Event Review:
The Apple Watch Series 5 has a variable display refresh rate, which raises interesting questions for designers
Apple is still listing features using the big word cloud, but they're also using a nicely illustrated feature grid now, too
Apple TV+ is coming (for just $4.99/mo!), and See looks kinda interesting
Apple's new iPhone naming scheme reminds Marshall of the logic of the old professional/consumer matrix
Android 10 Gestures:
Uhl Albert asked why we hadn't talked about Android 10 yet
Android's new gesture navigation is very similar to iOS (video)
"There are dozens of us. Dozens!" (clip)
One Cool Thing:
Marshall shared Season 39 of Survivor, the latest edition of the long-running reality series
Brian shared Ugmonk, especially their super comfortable Essential Tees
We're working to get you 10% OFF your orders at Ugmonk by becoming a patron at the 8-Point Grid level or higher!
Design Details on the Web:
📻 We are @designdetailsfm
🎙 Brian is @brian_lovin and [email protected]
🎙 Marshall is @marshallbock and [email protected]
🎚@Sarahberus and @Luperdev make us sound smarter than we are
💰 Support us on Patreon - your support literally makes this show possible. Thank you ❤️
❓ Got a question? Ask it on our Listener Questions Hub, and we'll do our best to answer it on the show :)
⭐️ Enjoying the show? Leave us a review on iTunes
BYEEEEE!
1 hr 7 min
September 25, 2019315: Building a Listener-Supported Podcast
In this week's episode, we discuss the next evolution of Design Details towards becoming a fully listener-supported podcast. We share some background on the decision, our goals, and what's in it for you dear listener, if you are able to support this podcast. All this, plus follow up, a bit of news, and our weekly cool things as always.
Follow-up:
We'll be digging into the Apple event + Android 10 later - we extra promise.
News:
Brian found a buck-wild product launch video for a product called Descript.
The video reminded Marshall of Adam Lisagor from Sandwich Video. Adam replied in the comments.
The video appears to have been made by Claude Zeins and Benjamin Lebeau.
Overdub reminded us of Ctrl Shift Face, a crazy YouTube channel that deep fakes videos.
Listener Question Followup:
From our conversation in episode 313 about effective ways of finding a job, we received a follow-up comment about the value of cold applications.
Nikita Voloboev followed up on their question from the same episode about design process automation with a repo for their macOS setup: it is very, very thorough.
Becoming a listener-supported podcast:
We've been lucky to be able to work with so many amazing sponsors on Design Details in the past five years.
Sarah Marie and Drew Luper produce and edit our show - they make us sound infinitely better every week.
Design Details is a part of the Spec Network, a podcast network for designers and developers.
We're moving to a lister-supported model, powered by Patreon. If you've enjoyed this show, found value, or entertainment, we would be eternally grateful for your support.
You can check out the available tiers and rewards of support on our Patreon.
I'm Bane, yes, that's my name.
After our costs are covered, 10% of everything you pledge will be passed through to charities which help underrepresented minorities to learn about design (like Girls Who Code).
One Cool Thing:
Brian shared Allegory, a beta note taking app recommended by Ryan Nystrom. The app has some neat interactions, visuals, and gestures that designers might enjoy poking at.
Marshall hyped the upcoming Overwatch League Grand Finals.
Marshall mains Lucio, for anyone curious.
Design Details on the Web:
We are @designdetailsfm
Brian is @brian_lovin
Marshall is @marshallbock
@Sarahberus and @Luperdev make us sound smarter than we are
Support us on Patreon - your support literally makes this show possible. Thank you ❤️
Got a question? Ask it on our Listener Questions Hub, and we'll do our best to answer it on the show :)
Join the conversation on Spectrum or leave us a review on iTunes
BYEEEEE!
35 min