In it he says: "I belong to a group of people that really cares about words. I think they're precious and incredibly powerful things. I think that web behavior is driven by words. Get your words exactly right and you will be much more successful on the Web."

Further: "Stripping away all extra words and buttons is the path to simplicity. It requires a deep understanding of the fundamental nature of the customer's task."

Read the full article at usabilitynews.com to find out why.

Source: "Why does the OK Button say OK?" by Gerry McGovern. usabilitynews.com. 03 July 2008.

Designing is a complex and intricate task. It is integration of technological, social and economic requirements, biological necessities, and the psychophysical effects of materials, shape, color, volume, and space: thinking in relationships. The designer must see the periphery as well as the core, the immediate and the ultimate, at least in the biological sense. He must anchor his special job in the complex whole. The designer must be trained not only in the use of materials and various skills, but also in appreciation of organic functions and planning. He must know that design is indivisible, that the internal and external characteristics of a dish, a chair, a table, a machine, painting, sculpture are not to be separated. The idea of design and the profession of the designer has to be transformed from the notion of a specialist function into a generally valid attitude of resourcefulness and inventiveness which allows projects to be seen not in isolation but in relationship with the need of the individual and the community. One cannot simply lift out any subject matter from the complexity of life and try to handle it as an independent unit.

There is design in organization of emotional experiences, in family life, in labor relations, in city planning, in working together as civilized human beings. Ultimately all problems of design merge into one great problem: 'design for life'. In a healthy society this design for life will encourage every profession and vocation to play its part since the degree of relatedness in all their work gives to any civilization its quality. This implies that it is desirable that everyone should solve his special task with the wide scope of a true "designer" with the new urge to integrated relationships. It further implies that there is no hierarchy of the arts, painting photography, music, poetry, sculpture, architecture, nor of any other fields such as industrial design. They are equally valid departures toward the fusion of function and content in 'design.'

The late British designer Alan Fletcher would agree.

You receive the question via SMS at 10 o'clock at night: "HOW CAN I PUT A HMEPAGE LINK ON EVRY PAGE?"

First of all, you understand that he's trying to sound helpful because his message implies that if you tell him how to do it, he will do it.  You also know that he thinks putting a link on every page is easy regardless of whether it might or might not be because, after all, you've made it seem easy thus far.  But you know what he's really saying: "Hurry the fuck up.  This is taking you so damn long that I am willing to try programming myself." -- hence the conniption fit.

So after getting out of bed at 2:30 in the morning because you're tired of trying to fall asleep, you calmly think to yourself: Good fucking question. How can he?

Once you comes to grips with the risk of your client dabbling open source code--which would never happen--the response looks like this:

1. Clearly define what it is you're trying to do.  In this case, add a homepage link to every page (forget about the persistent link you already have attached to the logo)
   
2. Understand how the CMS works (CMS stands for content management system, but you already knew that). Hint: the pages are dynamically generated so you only have to write the code once.
3. Figure out where said code should live
4. Figure out which page to put it in
   
5. Log in
   
6. Go to "Design" >> "Templates" >> "Template Modules" >> "Page Design"
7. Read the code (good luck)
8. Realize your code doesn't belong there :)
   
   
9. Think again about which page to modify
10. (you should already be logged in)
11. Go to "Design" >> "Widget Sets" >> "3-Column Layout Primary Sidebar" >> "Edit" Page Listing
12. Read the code
    
13. Write the new code (revert to your n years of experience and write from memory): <li class="widget-list-item"><a href="./" title="Home">Home</a></li>
    
14. Copy and paste it into to the existing code
    
15. Save it
16. Publish it
17. Test it
18. No luck, the website was going haywire
    
19. Rethink your solution and reread the code
    
20. Move it one line up in the code
    
21. Resave it
    
22. Republish it
    
23. Test it
    
24. Presto! it works!  You have a link to the homepage on every page.
    

See, he was right, it wasn't so hard after all.

Disclaimer: No clients were hurt while writing this article.

The problem is that "brand" will always be about the impression companies want to make, and are by their nature an ‘inside-out’ proposition — a company figures out its brand and what it means, and does what it can to communicate or otherwise impart that message to people. Brand always starts with the company. Experience, though, needs to be about the people. What do they want to accomplish, achieve, do? For experience to succeed, it must start with the person, and from there, impress upon the company. “Experience” is outside-in.

1. Make it easier for readers to navigate the Journal. 2. Create a hierarchy of stories, so readers know the relative importance of news. 3. Maintain the best visual traditions of the Journal. 4. Remember that Journal readers come to read, not to look. 5. Innovate graphically where improvements can be made. 6. Don't skimp on good journalism. 7. Balance long-form stories with secondary readings and quick story summaries. 8. Guide readers to the Online Journal--but don't overdo it.

* Slow to load pages * Confusing / difficult to navigate layouts * Excessive pop-ups * Unnecessary advertising * Site unavailability

1. The Hero Can Immediately Use Any UI 2. Time Travelers Can Use Current Designs 3. The 3D UI - it's very tiring to keep your arms in the air while using a computer 4. Integration is Easy, Data Interoperates - users have no trouble connecting to different computer systems 5. Access Denied / Access Granted 6. Big Fonts - most computer screens in the movies feature big, easily readable text 7. Star Trek's Talking Computer 8. Remote Manipulators (Waldo Controls) e.g. driving from your cell phone in the back seat of the car 9. You've Got Mail is Always Good News 10. "This is Unix, It's Easy"

"When you circle consecutive days for a trip they are always adjacent instead of resetting a month on the next line. I also added more white space around the whole thing for the notes. I played with the months and the year placement and settled on centering it all for the visual consistency in contrast to the days which start and end seemingly without reason."