Persona permutations, name signs, iPhone and Hick’s law, typography tips

Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers.

“This book is incredibly popular, so I guess this article won’t be. But let me tell you why, after reading this book, not once, but twice, I’m shocked it’s still appearing in (almost) every designer’s reading list. Here’s the story of a book that didn’t age well.”

Why designers should remove Hooked from their reading list →
By Rubens Cantuni

The UX Collective is an independent ad-free design publication that elevates unheard design voices, reaching over 400k+ designers every week. Curated by Fabricio Teixeira and Caio Braga.

Editors’ picks

• Persona permutations →
  Your one-size-fits-all persona doesn’t work and what to do about it.
  By Sophie Shrimpton
• PM collaboration →
  Why the Product Manager is secretly annoyed by you.
  By Jonathan Lee
• What’s in a name (sign)? →
  Why workplace name pronunciation should consider Deaf people.
  By Sheri Byrne-Haber, CPACC

The New Normal: how the Covid-19 pandemic is shaping our shopping searches.

Make me think

• Stop brainstorming →
  “Brainstorming is bad. At its best, a brainstorming group comes up with the same ideas as the group’s members would when working alone; at its worst, it perpetuates negative cultural habits, reinforces hierarchies, stunts productivity, and severely limits creativity.”
• The last design you’ll ever make →
  “Designers were brought up to design from cradle to grave. Our new challenge is to postpone that grave as long as we can. How can we design the last product our customers will ever need buy?”
• Why don’t developers take accessibility seriously? →
  “It feels bad to find out that not only are you not good at the thing you thought you were really good at doing, but you’ve also been saying, “Screw you, who cares about you anyway,” to a whole bunch of people who can’t use the websites you’ve helped build because you (accidentally or otherwise) ignored that they even existed.”

Little gems this week

How returning to the craft taught me to be a better leader →
By Aly Blenkin

Emerging design patterns: How digital interactions define social ones →
By Vivek Menon

iPhone’s focus features and Hick’s law: a context-first approach →
By Michael Kritsch

Tools and resources

• MenubarX →
  A powerful Mac OS menu bar browser.
• Shapefest →
  A massive library of free 3D shapes.
• Typography tips →
  7 powerful tips to improve your typography skills.

We believe designers are thinkers as much as they are makers. So we created the design newsletter we have always wanted to receive. Feel free to forward this to your friends.