Nuberodesign > Blog > In Praise of Buttons – Part One

What would a world without pushbuttons look like? | Aeon Essays

A history of buttons …and the moral panic and outrage that accompanies them.

By looking at the subtexts behind complaints about buttons, whether historically or in the present moment, it becomes clear that manufacturers, designers and users alike must pay attention to why buttons persistently engender critiques. Such negativity tends to involve one of three primary themes: fears over deskilling; frustration about lack of user agency/control; or anger due to perceptions of unequal power relations.

Design Patterns on CodePen

This ever-growing curated collection of interface patterns on CodePen is a reliable source of inspiration.

The ineffectiveness of lonely icons | Matt Wilcox, Web Developer & Tinkerer

When in doubt, label your icons.

When not in doubt, you probably should be.

Visual Design meetup, Brighton

Are you a UI designer? In Brighton? Well, feel in this form if you’re interested in gathering with like-minded people.

This local, monthly and free meetup will let designers show their work, share any methods, processes and tools and ask for the odd critique.

Designing inspired style guides presentation slides and transcript | Stuff & Nonsense

Having spent half a decade encouraging people to make their pattern libraries public and doing my best to encourage openness and sharing, I find this kind of styleguide-shaming quite disheartening:

These all offer something different but more often than not they have something in common. They look ugly enough to have been designed by someone who enjoys configuring a router.

If a pattern library is intended to inspire, then make it inspiring. But if it’s intended to be an ever-changing codebase (made for and by the kind of people who enjoy configuring a router), then that’s where the effort and time should be concentrated.

But before designing anything—whether it’s a website or a pattern library—figure out who the audience is first.