Reflections on Google IO, design guidelines aren't gospel, remove complexity from UI design, creating the perfect VR UI and more!

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News

Google IO 16 — A tale of two Googles

Google IO this year left me confused and disappointed. I found a massive gap between the official messaging and the tech on display. I’m underwhelmed with the keynote and the media outreach. The much more interesting work in the breakout sessions, talks and demos excited me. It seems to me that what Google wants to promote and the media to pick up is different to what its engineers showed. That’s OK, but it feels like sales stepping on a developer conference turf.

Google announces Spaces

A few days ago Google came out with a new app called Spaces. It sounded sort of interesting. “With Spaces, it’s simple to find and share articles, videos and images without leaving the app, since Google Search, YouTube, and Chrome come built in,” wrote Google product director Luke Wroblewski in the blog post announcing the app.

Design & UX

It’s not gospel, it’s guidelines

I can tell you that I’m not old enough, wise enough, or experienced enough to share the “rules of design” — in my opinion. I have, however, heard a few things here and there that have stuck with me and bettered me as a designer. I’ve thought of them as guidelines in my current career. Take it or leave it.

Designer! Get your seat at the table

In the process of making a product, there are a multitude of voices around the table that affect the set of features it will include. This is as true for universal remote controls as it is for digital products and services. Each person involved in the development process approaches the question “what does this product need?” differently depending on their role, area of expertise and background.

Basic steps on how to remove complexity out of UI Design

You’ve probably heard the term “information at your fingertips” and wondered about designing your interface to require the least number of clicks to find the information you’re searching for. How many clicks are too many or too few? User interface design is meaningless unless you put the user at the heart of all your focus and attention.

Creating the perfect user interface for VR

Creating great user interfaces in VR is not easy. If you assume it’ll be straight-forward, there is a real chance of it going horribly wrong. Ndreams CEO Patrick O'Luanaigh offers advice on how to present information in virtual reality.

Development

Facing JavaScript Obstacles The Right Way

JavaScript is filled with obstacles. Most of us treat obstacles as “Those things that are blocking my way. I need to get past them ASAP.” And as developers, we face many obstacles every day.

What's new in Swift 3.0: a list of changes (of which there are many)

Swift 3.0 is changing pretty much everything, and your code will almost certainly refuse to build until you make the necessary changes. Seriously, if you thought the jump from Swift 1.2 to 2.0 was big, you ain't seen nothing yet. In this article, I'm going to explain some of the most important changes with as many code examples as I can, and hopefully, this will give you some chance to be prepared to update your code when Swift 3.0 goes final. There are many more changes than the ones listed below, but the changes below are the ones that are most likely to hit you.

It's really just a matter of your favorite color (Clean Coder Blog)

We've passed the point of diminishing returns. No future language will give us the factor of 10 advantage that assembler gave us over binary. No future language will give us 50%, or 20%, or even 10% reduction in workload over current languages. The short-cycle discipline has reduced the differences to virtual immeasurability.

So then why are there always new languages being invented? It's a quest for the Holy Grail.

Resources

iOS 9 UI Kit

A rather complete PSD of iOS 9 UI: system screens, notifications, navigation and tab bars, keyboards, modals, pickers, action sheets and actually many more.

Inspiration

“Eat, sleep, code, repeat” is such bullshit

I appreciate the enthusiasm, I do. But there’s a damaging subtext, and that’s what bothers me. The phrase promotes an unhealthy perspective that programming is an all or nothing endeavor — that to excel at it, you have to go all in. It must be all consuming and the focus of your life. Such bullshit. In fact, it’s the exact opposite.

I don’t keep a daily schedule, here is why

I don’t like keeping a schedule. People always ask me how I manage my time on all my different projects, and how I stay productive. My answer is fairly simple: Don’t keep a schedule.

Geeking out

CRYENGINE source code

CRYENGINE’s real-time rendering technology is now open source and on Github. It has been redefining industry standards for over a decade. Building on a legacy of powerful performance, CRYENGINE V introduces a new low-overhead rendering pipeline and DirectX 12 support, allowing for the creation of tomorrow’s gaming experiences on today’s hardware.

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