Canon
The idea of a personal canon comes from Dave Cole's website, a place to gather writing that shapes how I work – whether it’s about design itself or the broader philosophy behind doing good work.
Fast software
Craig Mood
Fast software is not always good software, but slow software is rarely able to rise to greatness. Fast software gives the user a chance to “meld” with its toolset. That is, not break flow.
Keep it within context
Eliel Saarinen
Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context – a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.
In your own way
Oliver Burkeman
What if it's taking action, rather than not taking action, that's the default or "natural" state of affairs? In other words: what if the main problem, when it comes to meaningful productivity, isn't that we can't get ourselves to work on what matters, but that we construct psychological barriers that get in the way of actions that might otherwise occur without too much effort?
Design and compromise
Mill's Baker
While persuasion and collaboration are perfectly sensible, the real advantage the best innovators and creators have is that they understand that compromise is epistemologically invalid and procedurally fatal.
Useful and beautiful
Frank Chimero
Do not make something unless it is both necessary and useful; but if it is both, do not hesitate to make it beautiful.’ We all believe that design’s primary job is to be useful. Our minds say that so long as the design works well, the work’s appearance does not necessarily matter. And yet, our hearts say otherwise. No matter how rational our thinking, we hear a voice whisper that beauty has an important role to play.
Incremental correctness
Guilhermo Rauch
Incremental correctness is the process of iterating towards something more truthful, accurate, usable, or interesting. The faster we can iterate, the faster we can discover good ideas. Things aren't perfect today, but tomorrow things can be slightly closer to perfect. Incremental correctness changes everything about the way you work. It's anti-perfectionism. It's pro-generation. It's about discovery and proof, research and prototyping, and having a framework to reliably test your instincts. It discourages major redesigns, preferring isolated improvements to a small subset of nodes in any kind of working tree
The best management books
Tyler Cowen
You will learn the most about management by reading books about sports and musical groups.
