Walt Disney (paraphrased): “I don’t build things to make money. I make money to keep building things.” From the biography, “Walt Disney: Triumph of the American Imagination” See the book here
Mark Zuckerberg: “Simply put, we don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services.” Full article here
Steve Jobs: “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.” More quotes here
Insights from Marc Hedlund on why his personal finance startup, Wesabe, lost to Mint:
Mint focused on making the user do almost no work at all, by automatically editing and categorizing their data, reducing the number of fields in their signup form, and giving them immediate gratification as soon as they possibly could; we completely sucked at all of that. Instead, I prioritized trying to build tools that would eventually help people change their financial behavior for the better, which I believed required people to more closely work with and understand their data. My goals may have been (okay, were) noble, but in the end we didn’t help the people I wanted to since the product failed. I was focused on trying to make the usability of editing data as easy and functional as it could be; Mint was focused on making it so you never had to do that at all. Their approach completely kicked our approach’s ass. (To be defensive for just a moment, their data accuracy — how well they automatically edited — was really low, and anyone who looked deeply into their data at Mint, especially in the beginning, was shocked at how inaccurate it was. The point, though, is hardly anyone seems to have looked.) Full article here.
“It turns out, like most success stories, the answer was simplifying the service. Taking features out. Reducing the value proposition to a clear and simple use case. This was not done in a vacuum. This was done by releasing a less than perfect product to the market, finding a few customers who wanted a less than perfect product, and then listening carefully to those customers to get to the ideal product.” - by Steven Diebold. Full article here.
“It’s important for entrepreneurs to understand that their “Brand” is the collective emotional response to their product or service. A brand is not a logo, and it’s certainly not a URL. Those things are the stimulus, while the brand is the response. It’s something out there, in the hearts and minds of the people you hope to sell to.” - by Mike Troiano on Onstartups. Full article here.
Google honors Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
I’ve been reading Walt Disney’s biography for a while now. I always savor the time I pick up the book and am finally nearing the end. I just came across a post called Ten Things I’ve Learned from Walt Disney that beautifully sums up all the reasons why I’m enamored with Walt and his indelible creative contribution to the world. Thank you Rachel Elizabeth for sharing your love of Walt with this well written post:
1. Do things only because they are fun, if you find them fun, chances are that others will too.
2. You have to grow older, but you never have to grow up.
3. Trust your instincts.
4. No good idea is ever garbage.
5. Never accept rejection.
6. Be a storyteller.
7. Reinvent yourself when necessary.
8. If you have a talent, share it with others.
9. Fall in love with ideas, not with money.
10. Enlarge your vision–whatever your dream, dream bigger.
A collection of opinions about Apple’s skeuomorphic UI design:
Skeuomorphism: The Opiate of the People by @andymangold
“Some people believe that skeuomorphism makes an interface easier to use, or more intuitive for the user, and I simply don’t buy that. But what hadn’t occurred to me is that it doesn’t matter if it actually does make it easier to use, all that matters is that it makes the average person think it’s easier to use. In reality, a user must take time to learn any interface, whether clad in faux leather or not. The skeuomorphism in iOS plainly tricks people that might otherwise walk away, convinced that they can’t learn something new, into putting in the time required to get acclimated to a new interface.”
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion: the Ars Technica review by
“In 2011, we’re far past the point where computer interfaces need to reference their forebearers in the physical world in order to be understandable (though it’s possible Apple thinks the familiarity of such designs is still an effective way to reduce intimidation, especially for novice users). At the same time, hardware and software have advanced to the point where there’s now ample “bandwidth” (to use Tog’s term) to support visual and functional nuances beyond the bare necessities.”
The condescending UI by Paul Miller
“My problem with many modern UIs is that they never get past the telling phase. They’re always dressing up their various functions with glows and bevels and curves, and in the process they somehow become overbearing to my senses. “Did you know you can click this? Don’t forget there’s a save button over here! Let me walk you to your control panel.” Imagine a car that verbally explains all of its various knobs and levers the first time you get into the car. Wonderful, right? Now imagine that car explaining all of these various functions every single time you get in the car for the next five years, until you finally snap and drive it off a cliff.”
Additional thoughts…