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alex.tm

@croyle Here’s a quote from one of the Senior UI designers at the time:
“iCal’s leather-stitching was literally based on a texture in his Gulfstream jet” (cultofmac.com/189707/steve-job).

Another idea from Jobs that I’ve always really liked is “strong ideas held loosely”. Meaning that while yes, he really loved skeuomorphism, he was also open to new ideas and changing his mind. Maybe Forstall or Ive will have a biography one day and we’ll learn more details!

21 Dec 2023 at 18:27 | Wall-to-wall | Open on mstdn.ca
8 comments
David Croyle

@alextm I find it an endlessly fascinating subject. I was heavily involved with web design/UI/UCD when I was at IBM and worked with several brilliant UI designers (and PhDs) that I learned a lot from... UI design and problem solving was always very gratifying work.

21 Dec 2023 at 18:41 | Open on wandering.shop
alex.tm

@croyle It definitely is!

Sounds like you had an interesting job at IBM. I’ve been fortunate to work with some very talented designers too, but mostly doing physical product design. For a while I had the opportunity to work with a really great external UX team on one of my projects, but the majority of my UI/UX/web work has been self taught. There’s so much to learn!

21 Dec 2023 at 18:50 | Open on mstdn.ca
David Croyle replied to alex.tm

@alextm Very true, it seems almost endless, which is a very mixed blessing. :) I loved learning new things about design and UI from those guys though... I got to experience just a little of physical product design, which had very interesting aspects to it. I'm a little jealous that you got to experience more of it.

21 Dec 2023 at 18:55 | Open on wandering.shop
alex.tm replied to David

@croyle Agreed on the blessing/curse. There’s always so much to learn (which I love), but never enough time to learn it all!

I’m very grateful for that phase of my career. I was working at Braun/Oral-B in Germany and got to chat with Dieter Rams a few times about various design topics. The rest of the team was ridiculously talented as well. I’ve been trying to find something like that but more focussed on UI/UX since I left, but it feels so rare to find that type of thing!

21 Dec 2023 at 19:11 | Open on mstdn.ca
David Croyle replied to alex.tm

@alextm Indeed. the guy I replaced as webmaster for our big sites at IBM moved on to a really fun job he lucked into, working with a team that envisioned and built a demo of a fully connected/integrated living area and garage. This was 20 years ago. I know they had a blast working on that project. I just got to see the work in progress.

21 Dec 2023 at 19:16 | Open on wandering.shop
alex.tm replied to David

@croyle That sounds like a really fun project. One of the things I loved doing at Braun was creating consistent design across a range of mediums, everything from our websites to packaging to the UX and hardware design of the product itself. Working on a large system like connected home would be right up my alley. And I bet it would have been especially interesting at that point in time when most of it hadn’t been imagined at all yet!

21 Dec 2023 at 19:22 | Open on mstdn.ca
David Croyle replied to alex.tm

@alextm Yes, I appreciate the consistency across products and even mediums! That's something I often had to battle with. :) The connected space guys were having a blast on the project and I was a bit jealous. They were envisioning things like connected kitchens and refrigerators before those things really existed, and monitoring/alerts/etc. for all of the many systems on a connected car, etc. I couldn't help but ponder many aspects of it, even though it wasn't my project...

21 Dec 2023 at 19:27 | Open on wandering.shop
alex.tm replied to David

@croyle Striving for consistency feels like a never ending battle, but I love it!

That project sounds like so much fun :)

21 Dec 2023 at 19:35 | Open on mstdn.ca
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