Office 2010 and Data Driven Design Decisions

Nice example of data driven design decisions. An excerpt:

"...Customers told Microsoft they love blue; it's predominantly their favorite color. That's why the Office 2007 UI defaulted to a blue color scheme. In practice, however, having all that blue onscreen distorted users' color perception. Placed images would appear too reddish, and users would complain that Office was shifting the colors somehow. As a result, Office 2010 now defaults to the more neutral Silver color theme, and users should be happier (even if they don't realize why)."

Office 2010: At last, the suite that users built | Developer World - InfoWorld

Shared via AddThis from Infoworld.

Where's Frodo?

Check out this wonderful set of infographics that show, over the course of each story, which characters are with each other. Very clever.

Charting the Course of Characters in Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and more!

When is a design finished?

When a designer undertakes a project, whether it's personal or professional, at some point there's the question, is it done? What does done mean?

In your creative endeavors, what does done mean? Is your process iterative? A mad creative dash?

This article speaks to 23 designers and poses the question:

A Design is Finished when... 23 Pro Designers' Opinions 

Shared via AddThis from Abduzeedo.com