324: Interface Design and the Physical World

Design Details

In this week's episode, we riff on a listener question about the influence of the physical world on digital interfaces, and we end up covering everything from video game controllers to sliders and shiny buttons. And as always, we share a couple cool things like a fun dramedy and another sci-fi novel.

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Follow-up:

• Matt wondered about user-controlled counts on social sites
  • Hide Likes Everywhere lets you "hide likes and other vanity metrics for a more authentic online experience"
• Michael Knepprath agrees that games have more battle-tested onboarding
• Tiffany Tseng took notes on our social proof discussion (!)
  • Bradley L. Hurlburt replied with a Stanford paper on “How Community Feedback Shapes User Behavior”
• A warm welcome to new listener Grant Howarth!
• Patrick Marx enjoyed the episode on Onboarding Design
• Kevin Bennett got "stuck" in that episode, too (in a good way)
• Aaron Miller liked hearing from Meg and Ryan on illustration

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News:

The stuff we were excited about this week was decidedly design-tangential, so we'll talk about the following topics in the next episode of Bonusland:

• Tesla Cybertruck
• 16" MacBook Pro
• iPhone Battery Case

Join us on Patreon to get access to all episodes of Bonusland!

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Listener Question:

nosam7 asks, "What, if any, design choices have you been able to incorporate into a digital platform, that you learned from interacting with something IRL?"

• Hollow Knight is an "adventure through a forgotten kingdom of insects and heroes"
• Video: "The Director AI of Left 4 Dead | AI and Games"
• Episode 322: Designing App Onboarding Experiences
• Video: "What Games Are Like For Someone Who Doesn't Play Games"
• Article: "History of the Video Game Controller"
• Video: "What Breath Of The Wild Is Like For Someone Who Doesn't Play Games"
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild presents the player with button prompts that show the relative position to other buttons
• Image: "Press X" is a sad but true thing
• Material's Floating Action Button "represents the primary action of a screen"
• A skeuomorph is "an ornament or design on an object copied from a form of the object when made from another material or by other techniques"
• According to Wikipedia, radio buttons "were named after the physical buttons used on older radios to select preset stations"
• Video: "Photoshop Tutorial: Create a Glossy Button"
• Material's Motion Principles "help orient users by showing how elements are related to one another"
• Image: Maps in early versions of iOS employed a page flip and grey linen background for the in-app settings
• Video: "Expanding the Sensory Experience with Core Haptics"
• Instagram Threads is "a new camera-first messaging app that helps you stay connected to your close friends"
• Cue is "your social calendar"

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One Cool Thing:

• Brian shared Peanut Butter Falcon, a dramedy starring Shia Leboeuf about an unlikely duo on an adventure
  • Image: I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE
  • Video: "Shia LaBeouf Sheds a Tear While Eating Spicy Wings | Hot Ones"
  • Even Stevens
  • Holes
• Marshall shared Expeditionary Force: Columbus Day, an irreverent sci-fi novel about humans getting caught up in an interstellar war between alien hamsters and alien lizards
  • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the quintessential irreverent sci-fi novel
  • The Bobiverse Trilogy is a great series and a recurring reference on the show

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GOBBLE GOBBLEEEEE!