An Inspiring Mix

There was no single thing that stood out for me last week, so I’ve created a mix of things I enjoyed watching/reading.

On the Spectrum of Abstraction

I found this great talk from last year’s react-europe conference by Cheng Lou somehow.

It starts theoretically and shows that one of the hardest problems in programming is finding the right level of abstraction. He then takes different problems and explains why one solution might be a better choice, when looking at it on the level of abstraction. For example he explains why the React team chose JSX over templates.

Future UIs

I’m a big fan of so-called “Future UIs”, which are UIs designed for movies. Although pretty much all of them are very bad from a usability point of view, they look fantastic. I still wonder if it’s possible to build a UI that feels the same as those movie UIs and remain usable.

This video by Ash Torp for Assassin’s Creed is less of a UI and more motion graphics. I found it very inspiring how the monochrome color scheme, simple shapes and motion can create such beautiful images. Have a look for yourself:

Motivation

There was a point last week were I got a little demotivated. Luckily I’ve learned some time ago where motivation comes from and therefore what to do about it.

If you want to dive deep into this topic buy Daniel Pink’s book Drive. If you want a 10 minute summary, watch this video:

Human Nature

I’ll end this post with nothing less than a philosophical question about human nature.

I always enjoy Joe Edelman’s essays and his latest one is again inspiring and thought-provoking. He argues that the hard problems we are currently facing as humanity arise or are not solved, because we’re waiting on a new vision of human nature.

What view of human nature would give a broader sense of what we need to thrive?

Read “Nothing To Be Done” by Joe Edelman

Design Cultures

That’s all from last week. See you next time!