Learn, Make, Learn
Learn, Make, Learn is two product geeks sharing qualitative & quantitative perspectives to help you make, better. Hosted by Ernest Kim and Joachim Groeger.
Learn, Make, Learn
Why is Design So Boring? with Nate Grubbs
We dive into our titular question with Nate Grubbs, who, unlike us, is a professional designer with strong views borne of decades of experience across UX, visual & product design.
MEET NATE – 01:18
THE AGE OF AVERAGE – 04:19
Alex Murrell: The age of average
The tyranny of the algorithm: why every coffee shop looks the same
How Khruangbin’s Sound Became the New Mood Music (paywall)
SOUL, FLASH & OLD MAN VIBES – 06:36
A Farewell to Adobe Flash—and the Messy, Glorious Web
Donnie Darko website
Félix Lapointe: Remembering Kai Power Tools
Artist at Play: An e-mail exchange with Kai Krause
A PERVASIVE FEAR OF FAILURE – 17:49
Please, Please Don’t A/B Test That
Study finds 268% higher failure rates for Agile software projects
SIGNS OF HOPE & BREAKING THROUGH – 23:27
Massimo Giunco: Nike, An Epic Saga of Value Destruction
The Father of Grunge Typography Calls Out Lazy Design
Paula Scher: Great design is serious (not solemn)
Kintsugi
CONSTRAINTS AS A CATALYST – 34:08
Why Constraints Are Good for Innovation
Daft Social
Start-Ups Surge in the Great Reset
Gnuhr
Physical music sales on course for first increase in 20 years
RECOMMENDATIONS – 45:45
Nate: Yoto
Ernest: A Different Man; related: The rise and rise of A24, a champion of storytelling on screen (paywall)
Joachim: I Saw the TV Glow; What You Are Looking for is in the Library
CLOSING – 56:57
NateGrubbs.com
****
Rant, rave or otherwise via email at LearnMakeLearn@gmail.com or on Threads @LearnMakeLearnShow.
CREDITS
Theme: Vendla / Today Is a Good Day / courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com
Drum hit: PREL / Musical Element 85 / courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com
Hello and welcome to learn, make, learn, where we share qualitative and quantitative perspectives on products to help you make better. My name is Ernest Kim and I'm joined by my friend and co host Joachim Groeger. Hey Joachim, how's going?
Joachim:I've already had a cocktail, so full, full disclosure, I forgot we were doing this tonight. And then I had a cocktail, I had a cocktail, I was kicking back. And then as I was sipping it, I was like, you know, something's happening at eight o'clock tonight. I'm so sure something's happening at eight o'clock. Anyway, I'm so sorry.
Ernest:Oh, no,
Joachim:I'm totally fine. But you know, I'm just. In the interest of full transparency of this podcast,
Ernest:It's going to be,
Joachim:thought I should share that.
Ernest:learn, make, learn after dark. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, well, this is episode 23 and today we're going to discuss design primarily interface design with our guest, Nate Grubbs. Now we've touched on the topic of design many times over the course of our past 22 episodes, but this will be our first opportunity to dig into the topic with an expert practitioner. So. Let's dive right in. And Joachim, given your relationship with Nate, I'll hand it over to you to get the conversation started.
Joachim:Sounds good. Well, we have Nate Grubbs here. We're very excited. This is our second guest on the podcast and we get to talk about design and specifically interaction design. so I think we should just start with the basics. Um, and also we should just be very, very clear that, the views expressed here are ours, ours alone, nothing to do with our employers. Uh, so Nate, you're here as a, as an individual, not as a representative of anything, as is Ernest and as am I.. So like, what's your story? How did you get into interaction design and, uh, Yeah, what's the journey?
Nate:Yeah, so my name is Nate Grubbs. I am a, let's see, product designer, interactive designer, UX designer. There's so many terms thrown around these days that it does get a little confusing, but, um, yeah, my background, you know, it was used to just be kind of graphic design, um, kind of. Did a lot of that with advertising agencies, uh, moved over to Amsterdam, found myself into doing product design, even some physical, digital, blended experiences, um, and now I'm back in Seattle, uh, working with a place called Teague, uh, which likes to say that they're the first design consultancy, born in a hundred years ago. I've lots of consultancy design consultancies backgrounds, if I were to simplify it to a lot of people, people ask me what I do, it's often, you know, digital design.
Joachim:I think we talked about interaction design being like the starting point for that. So is it, is it, is it fair to say that it is mostly like, The interfaces that we interact with a computer system, is it the design of a, of a surface that, that is connected to a computer or how should we be thinking about this?
Nate:Yeah, and I think maybe I'm probably speaking to the mood of the industry, which feels like it's they're in a bit of an existential crisis of who are we as designers, because there are people who came in from a strictly visual background. You know, I just want to make things look pretty. I make websites look pretty. I don't care about how to make them or how they operate. I just want to make. Nice pictures and text on screen. That can be sometimes one camp. There's another camp of people that just love, you know, getting the problem of a thousand pages on a website or a software application that's extremely complicated and they just like working with engineers and trying to figure out how to make this usable for people. How do we make this software easy to use? How do we make it so that it can work for a consumer or work for a professional? That's more in the interaction design is typically in that more kind of technical minded things. Um, I think. And then UX design was probably trying to blend a little bit of both the highly technical wiring, with that visual thinking, Hey, these things still should look pretty. And I think user experience kind of was born out of that. Let's make it look pretty and usable at the same time.
Joachim:Lots of little threads that we can pull on here for the conversation, but I want to start with kind of the first conversation that we had. In a coffee shop here in Seattle. And we were just whining to be blunt. Basically an episode of this podcast, you know, why is design kind of thoughtless where, where are the people that are trying to be innovative yet still serve a customer need. And then you brought up this blog post by Alex Morrell. the age of average, and it seemed to encapsulate a lot of themes that I feel like are bothering us all in this room, but also things that you have to contend with every single day. And just briefly, Alex Morrell's piece on the age of average is basically everything kind of looks beige. Now it's all merging into this. middle, inoffensive kind of space. And you had a phrase to summarize this as well, Nate, that I appreciate, which is like for the, for the coffee shop vibe, it's a Scandinavian style coffee shop, a little minimal playing Khruangbin on the soundtrack. it's not offensive. It's not terrible. It's just kind of there but how do you take this idea that everything has kind of merged into this common beige massive? Mediocrity. Let's be really inflammatory about it. Like, what's your take on all of that?
Nate:You know, you know, I can, this is just full of, uh, hot takes tonight, right? where's, where's my cocktail here? but like, you know, I don't mind Scandinavian design and, you know, Khruangbin, it's, yeah, they're, they've had that vibe that we all just need sometimes.
Joachim:Yeah,
Nate:And I, but I think it's just, um, yeah, is there anything underneath this? I think that's maybe one of the questions we want to ask about it, but I think there's something else going on there. None of those things are wrong, but it just feels like it's been taken too far. There was this authenticity or originality to it, but then it just gets Recycled and recycled and recycled and recycled because hey, that's what good things look like. I'm starting a coffee shop. It should look like this. And I think that's where it starts to feeling, feeling like a little bit too, too much or yeah. Where is the soul in all of this?
Joachim:yeah, where is the soul and all of this? And I guess that then is, that's the question that's top of my mind when I think about an interaction with a digital system or a computer, like, do you get the soul across? How do you avoid falling into the average way of thinking and trying to actually get that?
Nate:Well, I think it is. It is a wide open question. Um, I think that is a little bit of the soul searching that's happening, um, because, you know, again, maybe I'll bring out not only the hot takes, but the old man vibes where, uh, back in my day, uh, no, I think, cause when I started, it was, you know, fresh out of school. I was doing, you know, went to an advertising agency because that's where all the cool design was going to be. And, you know, people that valued this and, you know, And at the time, this was early 2000s, to age myself here, um, and it was a very experimental time, you know, uh, we were making Flash websites, which, you know, right before that, it was literally people were making rows and tables for their websites. And so it really was a, a mind bend to think of a new ways. And I think with advertising back then it was, you're creating an experience. You want to create an experience for a brand. What's the mood, what's the theme, what's the concept of our website that we're going to make. And that was, you know, we still thought of the content, but that was almost. at the forefront was like, Hey, what do we want people to come? What do we want them to leave with when they visited this thing? And it seems like it's just we've gone down this route where everything is a website, everything is an app, everything is, you know, there's so many more digital experiences now that I think it's, you know, we in time is limited. And we're Go back to function. And, you know, just let's just make this happen. Let's make this work. Let's ship this as fast as we can. And I think a lot of that, you know, there's a lot of that actually, at first, that was interesting to me, um, that sort of puzzling of, Oh, hey, this is like, you know, it's doing that design, but now it's got this puzzle of how do I make all of these things work together? How do I make this a seamless experience? And I think that's what first drew me into the interaction side of things was to, you know, it was a puzzle. It was like playing one of those, uh, games where, you know, you kind of, you're doing the action, and then all of a sudden you get to this puzzle that you have to figure out. And I'm like, oh, this is fun. I like this. Um, but I think it just got a little, maybe out of hand, you know, just this focusing so much on function that we kind of, because I think even interaction designers like, oh, visual design, they're not as, They're not doing anything real, we're doing the real work, they're just making things look pretty. And I think it got a little bit lost of the sort of polarity of design where one thought the other was better. And yeah, I think we kind of have lost a little bit of this holistic thinking about products and what people want to get out of that experience.
Joachim:It's interesting that you say something that I don't think happens very often, or we don't even think about because we're so surrounded by these digital experiences. You're talking about the flash sites and asking the question, what is the feeling that we want the person to leave and remember when they've closed the page? Which is a very different thing and mode that we're in right now, which is just keep them locked in, you know, binge, binge, binge. And it, you know, you never end that experience going like, wow, that was. Mind altering or something, you know, but thinking back to the Flash stuff, And I hadn't I checked this out after you'd mentioned this to me, but Donnie Darko, You had mentioned that this was like a good example of flash design that was experiential as opposed to functional. It still did something which helped advertise the movie.
Nate:actually hard to use even, I would say.
Joachim:yeah. But, Like, for those Flash websites, they still kind of haunt me for being so unusable, but in a good way. Does, is this even part of the conversation anymore or is it just get him to do the thing, transact and let's move on?
Nate:The short answer is no, it's not part of the conversation anymore. Um, um, and yeah, one of the things I was thinking about, you know, going back to that flash thing, you know, when I said it was hard to use. And that was actually some of the point when they made some of these things. They wanted you to click around. They wanted you to, to, you know, it was, they wanted it to be difficult to find out what the content was. It just made it even more intriguing. Um, and I even remember there was a website, you know, it, well, I was gonna say this stuff felt like art back then. And I think even for myself, I remember there was a time Again, that, you know, early in my career, you know, maybe I, I think I broke up with a girl or something and I just felt, you know, I need to do something different. And I was like, I know I'm going to quit my job. I'm going to make this best portfolio website ever, you know, making it in flash. And I had this concept that I, I, I. Even to this day, I still, I like the concept. I, I wanted this, I wanted, um, there's kind of, you know, there's like this wallpaper, and you could sort of click on this thing, there's like a little crack in the wallpaper, and you could click on it, and it would just open up a little bit more, and then eventually you would actually break a hole in the wall, and everything else would just fall away, and it would just be like, Just the end of the website, like it's just your experience just stopped. And I think that's what I wanted people to get there and just be like, Hey, it's done leave.
Joachim:Oh,
Nate:I think that's, that's the thing that we don't, we don't think about in terms of with experiences anymore. It's not, you know, we think of that as cinema. We think of that as, you know, I'm going to go to the movies. I'm going to do this experience. And our typical interaction design is very much just function. And, you know, If we have time and if we have resources, we'll try to make it look pretty at the end of, end of the phase or something like that. And I think that's about the extent. We don't, I don't think any of us really think about our work as art, uh, in terms of the way that I feel like the design industry maybe used to, to think about, uh, their digital design.
Ernest:I think too, that maybe part of it is, back in the early days, it was so much more of a, an individual, a medium for individual expression. even if you're doing work for an agency, you often were working in a pretty small team. Maybe you were the only designer, um, and you had a lot of leeway, um, or if you're doing your own personal site, whereas today it's just become such a. commercialized medium. Um, and so corporatized that now if it's a site for any sort of a brand, it's probably a ginormous team of people working on it across many different functions that didn't exist back in the early days. But something, um, I forget who said it, one of you mentioned, uh, creativity, but going back even further, this is like an old fogey show, but, um, you know, Pre webbed. I don't know if either of you recall this at all, but there was this thing called Kai's Power Tools. Have you guys ever heard of this? There were a set of plugins for Photoshop and Corel Paint, I think. And they had just the craziest interface. It was like this super punk rock sort of It looks like, you know, Swedish, uh, avant garde art, uh, that was created by this German computer scientist named Kai. Um, I forget his last name. We'll, we'll share some info about this, but it was a really, I remember this cause this is when I was coming up, just starting out in design and I was just so blown away. I thought it was terribly garish, but it was so distinct, had such a clear point of view. And, um, it was introduced in 1992. Um, It no longer exists. Uh, the company, um, got folded into Coral at some point, but, um, I thought I'd share just a couple of quotes that kind of spoke to why it was so special for people. This first one comes from a person who used it. His name is Felix LaPointe. This is from a blog post. He said, what made Kai's power tools truly special was its sense of innovation and experimentation. The plugins were not just tools. They were a playground for creative minds. They encouraged you to try new things, to break the rules, and to explore the possibilities of digital art. And I thought it was, I, it's a great way to put it. That's very much how I felt about it too. And then I'll just read you really a quick quote from the creator, Kai. This is from an interview he did, uh, with the Atlantic way back in 1997. And I, I think this is the part that kind of, uh, Uh, something one of you said kind of clicked with this, but he said, um, uh, the analogy I always use is that of Sony's inventing the camcorder. All the movies of weddings and babies are ludicrous if watched under the guideline of cinematography, but the camcorder is not a shortcut to Citizen Kane. In that sense, I do not like my tools to be approached as one click art shortcuts to Mona Lisa, but as beautiful aids for playing with your own brain. I just love that idea, and it's just the sort of thing that you just don't see anymore, right? I mean, like, this idea of, I'm just going to put this tool out here for you to play with. Play with your own brain versus to get as many transactions as possible. Uh, you know, maximize my click through rate or blah, blah, blah. And, you know, after I did seven rounds of AB testing to, to get to the right shade of blue. Um, I mean, I guess this does sound a bit old fogey ish, but it does feel like a lot of that, uh, more art driven approach to, to this. Space has been lost, but uh, I, I've not been a practitioner in some time. I'm just, it sounds like you have experienced this as well, though, Nate.
Nate:Yeah. And even when you were bringing up those plugins, I remember, uh, early in, I was, I think I was still in school, but there was something with illustrator, you know, illustrator is one of these softwares that you can draw things in and there's some glitch that if you inverted some part of the thing, it would make this crazy wild vector, geometric thing at the tails of things. And it was almost just. I think they just messed up the, how it displayed, but people started using this as sort of the style, and it was just these really sharp triangles going all over the place, and it was something I, you know, I enjoyed, because it was the trend that we were all doing. And it was just a, it was someone screwing up, and I think that's a little bit of the, the, things that we kind of miss sometimes, is those happy accidents, or those, those, things that, uh, the imperfections that actually make us who we are, and I think maybe that's even going back to that original thought, it's like, The coffee shop. It's like, it's too perfect. And I think what's supposed to be good is it's like, it's supposed to be human. It's supposed to be messed up. It's supposed to be a little bit dirty. It's supposed to be a little bit like just not right or not, not all put together. And I think that's, that's maybe speaks to some of that, uh, idea a little bit.
Joachim:so interesting because it is, it's the exact opposite of everywhere where we are. No one's taking risks. Maybe that's another way to put it. Do you think everyone's just scared? Nate, is everyone just scared of failing that this, this kind of, especially in UX design, I find people are very, very careful. And as Ernest was alluding to like AB testing till you figure out it's actually that blue that we want. Uh, is it, is it that, that, that infiltration of the false. precision that technology has given, allowed us to lean on, you know, we have these tools so we can precisely identify it is, but, but really we, we can't, of course not. It's a vibe that ultimately is the thing that decides it. So is it that the false precision or is it just general conservatism? Like we're too scared to try something. The stakes are too high. What, what is your sense of that?
Nate:I do think that there is a lot of things to be afraid of. I felt like maybe that's just an element of our time and, uh, Where we are in the history of everything, really, that fear is a motivating factor for a lot of people in lots of different ways. I think it also depends on where you work. I mean, I think if you're working for big tech corporations or even just big organizations in general versus a small consultancy, you know, they're all going to think of things differently. It's also about your company culture and trust. Like do your bosses trust that you're going to get this work done? And I think that's. Some things that is easy to get lost, um, that your project managers don't trust that you're going to get this done. Um, and, you know, because it is, it is something you have to communicate really well with your project managers. I mean, even myself, I'm still learning how to tell my project manager, Hey, I know this is what you want from me today, but I am going to have that, but I need to explore this first. It's going to take me this much time to do it. And it gets into that, this is one of the thoughts I was thinking about, like, we've gotten so much into this. I don't know if you guys know the agile or scrum mentalities about how we work, you know, it's, you know, let's just break everything down into tasks and assign those tasks to people. And, we have these sprints that we have a two week sprint that we're going to get everything done. These amount of tasks done for this sprint and this time. but I think there is times where you really have to pause and say, Hey, is this useful? Um, where is this going? I need to pause and think what's the bigger experience that I'm making right now. And I think a lot of people just don't have that either time to do that, or especially as a designer, it's either, um, You may not even have the agency. you may be earlier in your career and you don't want to stop the stop the flow of everything happening to bring up your concern about something. There's just there's a lot of things to be worried about as a designer. Um, so I think there's those things. And I think, um, you know, obviously companies is. want product shipped quickly, clients want their work done in an efficient manner and they don't want to feel like they're wasting their budgets on hiring another consultancy to do that. And so, yeah, so I think there is a, this tendency to, if you just put it simply just to play it safe and Hey, maybe I can't. Do this cool thing this time, but next time, next time I'll have that opportunity. Um, and then you have that fear of, hey, what if there isn't the next time, maybe my whole career is just gonna be doing these boring things. And so, yeah, so I think, I mean, I think there is things to be afraid of, but you know, I don't think we need to let that stop us as a designer. Um, so. You know, I was trying to think about this as in terms of like, well, what, what do I do as a designer for this? I mean, I think it's always about trying to collect as much of your own inspiration from outside sources. You know, it's always, Hey, what did I see someone else do? Especially when it comes to like innovation, there's lots of talk of this. Um, uh, I forget the term for it, but I like kind of a lateral market. Like it's, it's kind of similar to our market, a near market, maybe is the term. So it's like, Oh, what are these things? What are they doing? And how can we apply that in a different way to our market, which does bring about some new change? so I think there is things of just keeping your eyes open. I think you also have to lean into your own personal interests. what is it that you Love and how can you bring that to the table with what you do? And I think if you work with trusting managers or you have a relationship with the people that you work with They will give you that space to do that. i've been told by my bosses to say hey Yeah, if you think something can be done differently, yeah, spend half a day thinking about that. I mean, don't spend a whole week on it, but, but do give yourself some space to think about how we can do this differently. We want to do that. We want to think about this differently. But I feel like I am at a place where I, I am given that sort of that, uh, space One more thing on the, the, the perfection element, I was thinking about this in terms of like, denim, you know, when you buy denim, it's, you know, it's stiff, it's clean, it's like, everything that, you know, oh, just wear it a while, and it's gonna get better, and you know, those best jeans are the things that are worn, in the right places. And I think we've got like this reverse thing where it's like, let's try to strip all of that and try to get it as stiff as possible because that's what it should look like on the shelf sort of thing.
Ernest:You know, one of the things that's given me some hope because I think there's a lot of reason to be a little bit depressed about the state of design and digital design. But one of the things that's given me some hope is the discourse around Nike. And again, like Joachim said, all of this is, uh, our own opinions doesn't reflect those of our employers. It's also none of this is inside information, but, uh, just referencing a lot of the writing around Nike that's, uh, been published in the past few months as Nike's been going through some struggles. One of the most biting. Uh, pieces that has been referenced quite a bit was from a former brand person at Nike and I forget his name, but we'll provide a link to this piece. But one of the things he mentioned was that Nike spent too much time focusing on the things they could measure and instead of the things they should measure. Um, and. And I've been excited to see the extent to which even these, you know, very conservative financial publications like the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg have been focused on the fact that Nike hasn't been spending enough time on its brand. You know, they've been focused too much on transactions. So that was kind of exciting to see that, Oh, actually there is a recognition that there needs to be a balance that, um, you can't just be too, you know, Just so singularly focused on transactions and, um, and the numbers, if you want to be a brand like a Nike, um, that, you know, has historically been known for innovation. So I guess that that's given me some hope that even in the kind of business space, people are talking about things like that.
Joachim:What you were saying on this has got me thinking as well, because you mentioned that the idea that Nike got obsessed with focusing on things that it could measure as opposed to things that it couldn't measure, uh, and whether, and, and whether it's measuring the right things. So how do you convince someone to do something new when it's not been measured and is no longer measurable? In a conservative environment, I find that that's essentially impossible, right? Nike has the benefit of having been such a strong brand. It had strong vibes, strong feelings attached to it. So it can always go back and return to that overarching. feeling that it gave people, right? Of possibility, potential, fulfilling that potential. Um, but in the user interaction domain, if you're doing it for a new company or a new client, how do you even capture that type of magic? Is that still, is that something that can be done or is it just Also, maybe this is something to do with the tooling that we, we have now, like everyone uses the same tools. So every, if you go to a thousand consultancies, they're all gonna give you some figma of workflow, and then that's gonna not be the mockup of the app and everyone's using the same typefaces. And so you're picking between that blue, that blue or that blue with that button or that button or that one, which is the same button. But um, so the question is really, again, like this inherent conservatism. How do you find. the little space that's there that you can actually push the boundaries or something. Like, we can't do the stuff that we used to do. What, what do you do in this space now? Like, what can you do? Nate?
Nate:I think sometimes you do have to seek out as a designer, you have to seek out the places that you want to be and what you want to do. And, you know, Take the opportunities that you have to do something challenging. Um, I know for myself, I've always tried to find, I mean, I've had the luxury of being able to, to, you know, laser focus where I want to work, you know, and just, if I don't get in the first time, I try another time to get into a place and, uh, being able to just talk to people and talk about the things that I like and, you know, Open doors through just, having similar interests to people and, and having that trust. And I think what I'm trying to say with that is building the trust with these people that you may work with and saying, Hey, yeah, this is, this is the time to do it. And I think even there's, um, the place I'm at now and the previous company is that, um, they would say, Hey, you know, if you want, if this is the project that you want to knock out of the ballpark, then do it, go for it. Like, cause I think we have. Some agency, we have some, uh, the client trusts us to do this. So if you want to do something, try it. And when my last place, I remember, uh, there was a company. I was like, yeah, this is the one I'm going to, it was like a smart thermostat and I was like, I'm going to make this amazing. And I think me and another designer just went. all out with just these bizarre out of just crazy ideas, just thinking, you know, something's going to hit here. And I think we did this presentation and they're just like, okay, cool. Um, we were just looking for some ideas for this thing they were doing. They were actually still doing great stuff, but it just, I think, you know, we sometimes, yeah, you, you have to fail sometimes you have to mess up. You have to be willing to take that risk a little bit. Um, and I think there was, there's a great. Quote, um, I don't know how much you know about, uh, old, uh, graphic designers. Again, bringing in the old man, people, old person vibes here. These people are older than me, but, uh, uh, there's a couple of designers, David Carson and, uh, Paula Scher, which are ones that really influenced a lot of, uh, my thinking about this. But I remember Paula Scher gave a talk a while ago that was talking about like, um, How to, what you call it, serious play, uh, how do, basically, like, how do you be a novice at something again? How do I take everything I know and throw it out the window and just start over again? And she talks about this time where she was given an architecture project to do graphics for it, and she just said, You know, I don't know the rules of architecture. I'm just gonna do whatever I want to do. I'm gonna put graphics on the floor. I'm gonna wrap them around the wall. Just do whatever I want. And it was, it was a huge moment for her to sort of, uh, take this risk, do something crazy. and to learn from that experience. And I think that was a lot of what she, um, yeah, a lot of, uh, yeah, the ways that she thought about these things. I was actually trying to find this quote, uh, from her. It was, uh, this funny thing happened. I found I was no longer at play, but in the solemn landscape of fulfilling an expectation, which was not where I started, that's a terrifying factor because it means that all that's left for you is to go back and find out what the next thing is. is that you can push, that you can invent, that you can be ignorant about, that you can fail with, because in the end, that's how you grow. And that's how that's all that matters. Um, there's just so many things about it because she calls it a serious play. It's just, you know, you're just serious about going out there trying something new. And, uh, I mean, yeah, and she talks about When we start recycling the thing that worked, uh, that's when we get into this path where we keep recycling in it, and it just takes everything out of what was playful in the first place. And I think maybe that goes back to what we were talking about as well, but maybe that's a roundabout question, answer to your question there.
Joachim:No, that, that's, that's, that's it. That is really the the heart of it, isn't it? Is that the willingness to take a risk to, and then as you said, the very scary thing is kind of. To fail, which is very scary thing to confront when you're trying to push it. That then that gets me thinking like, out there, Nate? Who is pushing the boundaries or, put another way, if you had carte blanche, what would it mean? What would you be doing? What were the directions you would want to push into?
Nate:I think there's something out there that's like, we're trying to find something new. We're trying to find, and it's not just VR. I think that's, I think everyone's looking for this new theater to play in. So I think there is a lot of, Just existential sort of thoughts about, you know, what is it that I want to do cool stuff, but what is, I want to break the mold, I want to do something else, but where am I going? And I think, I think there is, we're not really sure. I don't think, I can't really think of, uh, that many interactive, uh, Companies that are like really, you know, on the cutting edge or whatever you want to call it of finding new ways to interact with things. Um, so yeah, I think it's, it's going to take a little bit more time. I think, I think the AI thing probably will be an interesting way of playing around with crazy ideas that you can get quickly. I think maybe that's one of the benefits of AI, uh, being able to just toss in a prompt and see what it comes out and maybe be surprised a little bit by that. Um, some of that may help, but some of it may just, you know, produce, uh, UI just that looks like everything else. Uh, so I think there's, it can go a couple of different directions.
Joachim:I think, as you were saying, is just in terms of tooling and inspiration, it seems like the AI would only be useful for this effort. When it goes wonky, right? So instead of just pulling something, some representation of something that is in its memory, it just mashes up something completely wrong. And then that becomes.
Nate:AI hallucination.
Joachim:So, back to the earlier idea that it's actually the wonky brokenness of something that can be the friction that gets you the innovative spirit moving forwards.
Nate:There's a whole idea of like the, the Japanese, is, the idea that these broken vessels that, you know, they mend it with gold and it becomes something completely new, and the sort of brokenness of it was, you know, not to get too philosophical here, but that's what made it this unique thing. Um, and yeah, it's something they're willing to tap into, an idea of that. Yeah, and I think that you had mentioned to me the idea of Bauhaus, what, how that affected design and what we think, because I think to a certain extent, the modern way of thinking about design in any terms really had a fundamental basis in Bauhaus and how they approached a lot of their things, that sort of minimalism thing, which was a response to the previous culture of the Art Nouveau work. ornate everything. And I think that they had that idea of form follows function. That was their sort of principle for everything, that the form follows what this is. So it's a chair, and, but it's, the form follows that. And I think we've kind of flipped that now, the function follows the form is a little bit of how we're thinking about it now in terms of, How we think about websites,
Joachim:I think early PC design highlights the highly constrained nature of graphics and how you, how can you create a meaningful user interface with very few pixels to represent anything. Um, so, you know, but that's one where the design had to match. the function of this machine.
Nate:there's another thing that you're bringing up with, uh, uh, constraints. And I think that's what a lot of art is about, is what are the constraints that I have with this, and how do I, how do I go up against those constraints? I think with, again, the Flash thing, don't need to be that the theme, but it was like, that was a constraint at the time. Websites look really terrible. How can we make this, open this up? You know, we made Flash. It sucked. You know, it, it was amazing with certain things, but it sucked a lot of battery out of these things and we had to reinvent something from it. And I think it's, there was a quote, a friend of mine was talking about like, he was talking about artistry. He was like, you know, and of course he, he was talking about football as in soccer, however you want to say it. But he was like, you know, It's the whole art of the game is the constraints. You have this perimeter that you have to stay within, but whatever happens within that thing, you can do whatever you want. You can make whatever artistry, whatever creative things you want to do, but you have to have these constraints to you. And I think that's where we nowadays, I think as interaction designers, we get. A little bit, uh, fearful of that stuff. It's like, there isn't any constraints. I can just do whatever I want. And okay, I'll just use Google material design for this, because that's just the easiest, I don't have that much time, so I'm just going to plop in material design and use that for all of my widgets on my, my thing. And I think that's, uh, those are, those are one type of constraints, but it's just, you know, it's, yeah. I don't know. Is it the right constraints that we need to have? And people just getting tired of something, you know, like the the dating app Tinder, you know, it's like, Hey, I don't want to have a selector box for all of these people. I'm just gonna swipe like what's how do I do? Like, maybe that's a better way to do it. Or, you know, tick tock. It's like, Hey, I don't want to just have this infinite scroll of things, infinite scroll in a different way. Yeah, there, there are things that come up every now and then that do sort of break break how we do things a little bit. Um, but I think it is probably people just getting tired of the same old, same old. And I think there is just a designer there just said, Hey, I, I want to do things differently. Let's mix it up. And everyone else is like, yeah, let's do it.
Joachim:Related to this, like the interactions and flipping things around. I'm seeing a little bit more in the ether of the internet, a little bit more of this appeal to focus. And. limitations. And a website that comes to mind is daft social. I can't remember if it's something that we've talked about here, but daft social is a social network that is antisocial. Uh, and the only way you can interact with it is via your email. So you, you, you sign up for an account, you get a URL, just like any other place you can imagine with a user handle. And then all you can do is send an email to a unique email address that's yours. You have to keep that secret if you want to control your page. But once you have that email address, you just send an email, which the content of the email is irrelevant. It has to all sit in the subject heading. So if you want to write something, you have to write it in the subject. If you want to post an image, you put the URL for the image in the subject. And then you send this email and that's it. You go to your page and it's all there. There's no likes, there's no direct sharing, there's no interactivity at all. If you want to see someone else's daft social feed, you have to know their username. It's such a shocking experience, because we're used to having the hamburger menu with the home, and the feed, and the settings, and the profile, and the blurb, and you need to do this, and, um, it's kind of incredible to be confronted with something that is so restricted. Maybe do we want more of that Nate? Do we want more stuff like that? Is that the future or is it? Is it something else? Like, I don't know, you know, that that's kind of
Nate:Yeah, I mean, I think again, the world has changed quite a lot from, you know, when we had that experimental thing where everything was cool or everything was different and wild, wild west of things. And yeah, I mean, now it's just a different world. And when was the last time any of us downloaded an app or when was the last time we visited a website that was something different?
Ernest:What what, history suggests is that, you know, as challenging as this time is right now, like Nate, you spoke about how there've been so many layoffs. There's a lot of people who are, you know, having a tough time finding work as well. Um, but I think history suggests that it's in these sorts of moments that, you know, exciting changes do happen. But, um, I think that there is this moment of great opportunity now, where the, I don't think we're alone in feeling so dissatisfied with the state of user experience. Um, and so I think there is this great, uh, moment of, um, you know, where I think we are going to start to see some changes, you know, maybe it hasn't quite happened yet, but. It does feel like that sort of a moment of sort of stasis where now, then we're going to start to see changes. Like, you know, back in the day when, uh, a young company called Nike approached this no, no name agency called Wyden and Kennedy, you know, agencies were well established. It wasn't as though Wyden and Kennedy was some new thing. But they just brought a much more authentic approach to the world of advertising that had become really stayed, you know, and these newer companies like Nike back then, um, that's exactly what they were looking for. So it feels like there's that sort of an opportunity now in a one, a one side I came across recently that sort of sparked that feeling for me in a way. Was this, uh, it's actually a Portland based apparel, outdoor apparel brand. And I believe you pronounce it newer. But it's spelled, uh, G N U H R. I will provide, you know, links to all this in the show notes. But it reminded me so much of these old school, kind of like, um, I don't know if you ever had ever seen cheapcds. com or, um, very text based websites, but it just has such an attitude. You know, it says, We're this, and if you don't like it, then F off, go away, you know. This is how, how we're going to be. And if you like it, then you're going to love it, you know, and we're here for you. And I, I really hope we see more of that. Um, and I think there is a hunger for that. obviously the big brands aren't going to go there, at least not for a long time. But I do feel like there's a lot of these entrepreneurs now starting up businesses who want to be more than just clones of, uh, the last generation of direct to consumer businesses. So as challenging as it might seem, I guess I'd say, I do feel like we're on the cusp of some, some new things, bluffs blossoming. I mean, maybe I'm being too naive,
Nate:I, I actually, as whatever I said before, I agree because I do feel like we are, our culture is yearning for something else. And I think those are the moments when something comes out. And I think as I've even just some of those interfaces I talked about, like tick tock tended, those companies were very much rewarded with doing something innovative, changing things up. So I think companies do, they are rewarded with trying these risks. And I think it's this idea that we need to keep as a designer, we need to keep Not just doing the first thing that comes up, the first thing that works, but actually what we call the explore the mild to wild. And I think we're going to, people will see something wild and they'll be like, Hey, this is amazing. Let's do it. And I think that's, we need to just keep telling ourselves like, Hey, pause. Take a break, go for a walk. And, and that's, I think that's when you come up with just kind of crazy, good ideas. And I think that's where we do have to jump out of those agile modes of just checking the boxes of, okay, this is what this task is done. And just sort of pause and say, okay, what am I doing? How can I make this work? Great. And I think we will get to that. I think it's just that, that darkness just before the dawn, maybe, that we're, we're thinking in right now. So, we have to believe in the power of design to change the world, is what we always are told. So, I think it will happen.
Joachim:okay, now the counterpoint to the old man talk. I wonder if when we see this new thing, it will be not appealing to us. You know, it will be something that will be off putting. And I was thinking about this in the context of just slang and language that has evolved separately now from, from me. I don't, I don't understand a lot of things. I just learned what Riz is. So now I know that's charisma. So that's something. And then Skippity Toilet. And it's horrifying. It's such a horrif It's scary. you know, maybe that is what the future of all of this stuff looks like. And that actually is the thing that's gonna push us to the next level. There is this stuff that is just so fundamentally difficult for us to wrap our head around, but for the next generation of people, they're saying, this is our vocabulary. This is the set of tools that we're going to be using. And this is how we're going to communicate pretty deep thoughts, but in a way that isn't immediately obvious to you. And so you just have to learn the language. And once you've learned the language, you'll appreciate what we're doing here. You'll understand that there's something of value. So, I, I, I wonder if that's the case.
Nate:And maybe, maybe we're thinking about it too much in a way, uh, because I do feel like there is a, the youth are going back to the different ways of interacting. And I think that's like the physical things, you know, LP vinyl sales are skyrocketing now because people want something more tangible. They want to put their hands on something. And the same thing I think about this all the time when I, you know, I changed the volume on my Sonos app or some, or my Sonos system, which is a different UI But it's, it's just really annoying to bring out my phone, flip on which speaker do I want to change the volume of and swipe on the app. And it's just, it's frustrating. And it was just like, I would much rather get up, walk over to that speaker or wherever and turn up the volume. And I think these are things we've just gotten out of control with digital, everything. Um, where I think physical interfaces are much better. You're finding that with cars, too. I think you guys have probably talked about that before, that physical interfaces with cars are much better than touchscreens. So I think there is going to be some balancing of all of this nonsense, I think, uber digital things that is happening. Um, but yeah, I think it takes a little bit of, and the physical aspect takes money. So I think you do, it takes money to make dials. It takes money to do those things. And I think, but we will, I think we will come back to a happy medium in the future. And I think that will solve some of our, uh, terrible interaction experiences that we're having these days.
Ernest:actually, that, that, that might be a good segue to, um, something we haven't been doing recently, which is recommendations. I'm just curious if Nate, there's anything that, whether it's a product or a digital experience, or work of art that you've encountered that's really inspired you recently,
Nate:Um, okay. This shows my dad ness, um, and Yoakim has probably heard me talk about this before, but I'm very much into my three year old's Yoto. Uh, Y O T O is the name. Actually made by Pentagram Studios, or at least a lot of the design was done by them. Um, but it is a fantastic physical, device for playing music and, uh, my kid, even when she was two, could grab a little card and put it in there and just, it plays whatever is on that card and, uh, they did the lo fi thing where it has a little screen but it's a, uh, 16 by 16 pixel grid, uh, there's nothing else, it's just a 16 by 16 pixels for each track. And so she can sort of scroll through each track by track with just a little icon and get that, uh, that music playing. And I think the best part is, is I can actually create my own playlist of whatever I want her to listen to and make a track and put a little icon in there. And it's just, it's fun for her to sort of, uh, Yeah, have even our own books that we read, uh, to her or whatever on there. And it's, it's a, it's a really great physical, digital blended product that again, dad points for this, right? So,
Joachim:Oh, I gave it such a bad, that was my anti recommendation like a few episodes ago, but, and I, at the time, I actually was convinced that we were going to send it back and we still have it. Um, and I have to say, aside from the very, very annoying, uh, Wi Fi setup and the idea that I needed to have an account. Um, Because I've somewhat neglected the device and just let my children interact with it, it's proven to be a very useful thing. And like you said, children have a really easy time with it. And so we've not had any trouble with the cloud. I have strong issues with all of that. That's a separate thing. Um, but You are right. That, that, that it has the right amount of tactile experience and knobs and, and the knobs are really, they click, they give a good click, they give a really good click. So big, you know, fidgety kids' hands, they can feel that click as they're cycling through stuff. It's, it has been, it's a, it is a well-designed device. I still want it to be self-contained without all of the wifi. given that it's now at home and it's connected up. Um, yeah, my children also do enjoy using it, but I was, yeah.
Nate:I'm, I'm finding new, new ways to work with it myself. Cause I think there's, as again, as a digital designer, I'm very cognizant of the time that people spend on screens. And honestly, I would like to people to spend less time on screens, and I think that's the thing where recently I've been taking episodes of shows that maybe she's watched and I've downloaded the audio and then I'll put that on the card. And it was quite amazing to see something that she had watched and kind of became a zombie to that. Whenever I put that as an audio book, she would actually get up and start dancing to something. And I thought, what is it about the screen that makes it that sucks us in as a creature? content thing, but when you make it an audio thing experience, it becomes a little bit more, uh, you're engaged with the world around you and it makes you do want to get up and dance. And I thought, hey, this was a nice little twist that we've, uh, but of course now she just wants to listen to episodes like at the breakfast table or anything, which is, you know, give and take a little bit here, so.
Joachim:that's an interesting point. You're right. There's something about audio that allows us to pro we're able to process sound and do other things at the same time. Visual things are just too much, too much processing power goes into that. So it is possible to multitask with audio. Um, so is there something in that? Should we be thinking about audio as a, as a more powerful medium for interaction and, and controlling stuff? I, I
Nate:Well, you have, what's, what is it about staring off into a blank, blankly staring off into space that lets you sort of, I mean, maybe it lets your brain work in a different way to just, uh, stare off, and
Joachim:I guess your inner, your inner eye takes over, right? And then the imagination can, can run a little bit freer, but even reading doesn't feel like such an absorbing experience. It's something about screen with movement and the world. It's, Maybe it does tap into your brain thinking, no, you're, you're out there in the world still.
Ernest:Uh, Joachim, is there anything that you want to recommend?
Joachim:Wait, there was something. Uh, did you have something, Ernest? You, I bet you do.
Ernest:Uh, yeah, I could, uh, give you a minute to think
Joachim:You should go first, I need a second. Yeah,
Ernest:we just this weekend saw this film called A Different Man. I'm not sure if either of you have heard of this. It's a pretty small film, uh, being distributed by A24. directed by a person named Aaron Skimberg, who I hadn't heard of before. It was written and directed by Aaron Skimberg. Uh, I won't, it's almost too difficult to explain, um, anything about it, so I won't even try. But what I was really interested in was the extent to which, kind of like you, you were alluding to just a minute ago, Joachim, that So much of my experience of the film was a function of my reaction to it. There was, obviously there's the text of the film, the story, but, um, it is so much about provoking a response from the viewer. And I think your experience of the film will really depend on your reactions and, you know, the different, um, ways that you respond to those provocations. My, my, I saw it with my wife and she hated it and I absolutely loved it. And I can't stop thinking about it more than anything I've seen in quite a while, because it just, without being didactic, it really forces you to question your own assumptions and values, I guess, and presumptions and, um, in a way that is It's sometimes really funny, sometimes really dark, but, um, it's just so interesting and kind of, of a piece of this whole conversation. So not like the standard Hollywood fair. It's, you know, like if you could find the exact opposite of a Marvel film, this is probably it. Although funnily enough, it's star Sebastian Stan who plays the, um, the winter soldier in the, uh, several of the Marvel films in a role like, you know, you've never seen him in before. He's, and he's really good in it. So, um, yeah. You might hate it, but I would really recommend a different man.
Nate:And, and actually A24, it's like, I think they're using a little bit of that model that we probably need, which is, hey, some of these are, things are going to fail, but some of these things are going to be amazing. And I think they've really succeeded in the past few years at throwing out these films that just really take
Ernest:That's a great shout. Yeah.
Joachim:Yeah, that's actually true. We actually, this is, well, maybe it's a recommendation, but it is the movie, uh, I Saw the TV Glow, which is
Ernest:Oh, yeah.
Joachim:um, movie of a very strange, retro, creepy film that is really about, uh, alienation and not, not fitting in and feeling like you're not living the right life, but also incredibly creepy. I would say it's. somewhat lynchian, like a David Lynch vibe to it, um, but it's a, it's a strange one, but again, like it's A24. So we're used to this idea of them being divisive or a little bit controversial or hard to wrap your head around. Um, But actually, my recommendation is something pretty, it's pretty, it's not that, I find, I think it has such broad appeal without being dumb but it's a book by Michiko Aoyama, and the book's called What You Are Looking for is in the Library and And it's, the main idea behind it is about people going to their local library, encountering a librarian who gives them recommendations for specific topics they're interested in. And then she always sneaks in an extra book at the end of her recommendations that she thinks would somehow resonate with this person. And she also gives them a little felt like souvenir. So someone will get a little airplane that she's made by felting or someone will get, uh, oh man, I forgot the other items, but so she gives them a little trinket. and an extra book recommendation that they don't ask for. And then the person goes off and they're obviously facing some sort of challenge, um, and this, the recommendation is just right. But what's interesting about the book is that it's, it's actually also a defense of books and it's a defense of, it's kind of making the case that books are just so necessary, like the art of it is necessary and we need to just have this in the world. And. We need to expand our definition of what is valuable. We have to expand our definition of. what society is, and this book builds a really sweet, very straightforward picture, but it is also just very heartwarming. So it's a book that I recommend. And it's very, it's a vignette based thing, but each vignette is somehow building to a very subtle Japanese crescendo. So it's more like a whisper, but it's very, very, uh, it's very compelling. So I would, I would recommend that book. I picked that book up as a total fluke. I was just in the local bookstore. There are various things on the shelves that look compelling and this was right at the checkout and My wife was saying, did you want to buy a book? I paNateed and I grabbed that one because the cover looked good and it was Japanese. I'm like that, maybe this is going to be okay. It was a good choice. It worked out. So I would recommend that book as a, as a light read. I read it in a couple of days. It's one of those that's just so easy to read, but still has enough depth to it, where it lingers in your mind. It's not just one of those, like, it's not just a page turner or a Jack Reacher novel, which has its place in the world. And there is great art in that. I will defend. Jack Reacher books all the way to the end of time. But, um, yeah, that, that's one that's been on my mind recently.
Ernest:Oh, that's awesome. That's a good one. All right. Well, I think that does it for us. Nate, thank you so much once again for joining us on Learn Make Learn. Where can listeners follow you or find more of your work?
Nate:Oh, good question. You can find me at nategrubbs. com.
Ernest:That's nice and
Joachim:Nice.
Ernest:And we'll, we'll provide a link as well, just in case, uh, for, for spelling. But, um, thank you again, Nate. And to those listening, thank you for joining us here at Learn Make Learn. As always, we want to hear from you. So please send any questions or feedback to learnmakelearn at gmail. com or shoot us a note on threads at Learn Make Learn show, all one word. Thanks for listening. And we hope you'll join us for the next Learn Make Learn.
