shane guymon archives
“Decision fatigue helps explain why ordinarily sensible people get angry at colleagues and families, splurge on clothes, buy junk food at the supermarket and can’t resist the dealer’s offer to rustproof their new car. No matter how rational and high-minded you try to be, you can’t make decision after decision without paying a biological price. It’s different from ordinary physical fatigue — you’re not consciously aware of being tired — but you’re low on mental energy. The more choices you make throughout the day, the harder each one becomes for your brain, and eventually it looks for shortcuts, usually in either of two very different ways. One shortcut is to become reckless: to act impulsively instead of expending the energy to first think through the consequences. (Sure, tweet that photo! What could go wrong?) The other shortcut is the ultimate energy saver: do nothing. Instead of agonizing over decisions, avoid any choice. Ducking a decision often creates bigger problems in the long run, but for the moment, it eases the mental strain.”
I read this article on “The New York Times” back in May. Since reading it I’ve found myself continuously thinking about it and I’ve referred to it in several conversations since. It’s one of those things that I’ve always subconsciously known was happening, but when once I read about it, it brought a certain type of life to it that it has fascinated me. Enjoy™

Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue?” By John Tierney and Published: August 17, 2011

posted by shane 3 days ago

“The user doesn’t come out of nowhere. We don’t land on your page and then head happily to those social networks to promote you, just because you have a button on your site. We find content through Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest etc., not the other way around.

If you provide excellent content, social media users will take the time to read and talk about it in their networks. That’s what you really want. You don’t want a cheap thumbs up, you want your readers to talk about your content with their own voice.”
Saw this article through an email newsletter sent to me from the Twitter. I am one of those people who LOVE those social buttons, but since reading this post it has really got me rethinking it all, and paying more attention to my own personal behaviors as well as other humans. Enjoy™

Sweep the Sleaze” by Oliver Reichenstein

posted by shane 3 days ago

“When you are designing, how much time do you spend in your own head, applying your own perspective, and how much time do you spend in someone else’s mindset? Next time you’re designing, try to spend more of the time outside of your own perspective. Make this into a practice.”
Jeff Moyes shared this post with the UX group at FamilySearch today and what Indie Young wrote at the end really helped refresh how we should approach user experience in our work. Enjoy™

Mental Models: How to Wield Empathy Posted by Indi Young on Rosenfeld.

posted by shane 3 days ago

I love these new commercials for the 2012 Kia Optima with Blake Griffen. I can’t remember the last time I saw an NBA player do so well in a commercial. Somehow Blake Griffen is able to give a performance that fits the overall mood of the commercial perfectly. So if Fantasticnous is tied up in someone’s basement I’m pretty sure Kia came and kidnapped it from that basement and has unleashed it in this fantasticly brilliant campaign. Enjoy™

SOURCE: 2012 Kia Optima Blake Griffin Commercial “Easy to Fold” (by KiaMotorsAmerica)

posted by shane on Wednesday, Feb 01, 2012

“A king brings six men into a dark building. They cannot see anything. The king says to them, “I have bought this animal from the wild lands to the East. It is called an elephant.” “What is an elephant?” the men ask. The king says, “Feel the elephant and describe it to me.” The man who feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar, the one who feels the tail says the elephant is like a rope, the one who feels the trunk says the elephant is like a tree branch, the one who feels the ear says the elephant is like a hand fan, the one who feels the belly says the elephant is like a wall, and the one who feels the tusk says the elephant is like a solid pipe. “You are all correct”, says the king, “You are each feeling just a part of the elephant.”
“The story of the elephant reminds me of the different view of design that people of different backgrounds, education, and experience have. A visual designer approaches UX design from one point of view, the interaction designer from another, and the programmer from yet another. It can be helpful to understand and even experience the part of the elephant that others are experiencing.” Enjoy™

The Psychologist’s View of UX Design by Susan Weinschenk on UX Magazine.

posted by shane on Tuesday, Jan 31, 2012

“Usability problems usually fall into two categories; either it’s not clear how to do something, or something is too cumbersome to do. The latter is fixed by a better understanding of what the key tasks are, and the former is usually resolved by adding clarity. Often the best way to do this is through the writing of the interface.”
Des Traynor: “Writing an Interface” a post about a presentation he gave at Content Strategy in London (Sep. 5, 2011). If you have 25 minutes I highly recommend watching the presentation. Enjoy™

posted by shane on Monday, Jan 30, 2012

A designer above all should be a problem solver. I love Matthew Smith’s thoughts on the subject that he contributed to “The Pastry Box Project.” Enjoy™

posted by shane on Wednesday, Jan 25, 2012

“Any reference to constraints that limit creativity is just another way of equating creativity with self-expression, an erroneous and irresponsible idea. Except for personal projects, self-expression has no place in design, but constraint is vital to design. No component fuels creativity more than constraint. Indeed, without constraint, creativity (and design) is irrelevant. The discovery process is mostly about finding constraints, which is why we must do such a thorough job of it.

Constraints are a designer’s best friend. They’re signposts, not shackles. In a sense, constraints amount to the solution half-built. It is merely up to us to then realize the other half according to what these signposts indicate is appropriate. Nowhere in this concept does self-expression find any valid foothold.”
Taken from an article written by Andy Rutledge on March 4, 2008 titled, “On Creativity” on A List Apart. As I read this article I didn’t realize that it was written almost 4 years ago, yet I found it completely relevant to today. Enjoy™

posted by shane on Wednesday, Jan 18, 2012

“Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption. And the most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted, according to studies by the psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Gregory Feist.”
An opinion article titled, The Rise of the New Groupthink by Susan Cain on NYTimes.com Enjoy™

posted by shane on Tuesday, Jan 17, 2012