Hey everyone. I hope you don’t mind but I have a book to share, a book I wrote myself called the Tao of Design and User Experience: The Best Experience is No Experience. All the books you can currently find in the world about design introduces design principles. However, mine takes a completely new angle, as the principles I introduce come from Taoism and my passion for martial arts. Because these principles are higher than design, it is capable of cultivating your understanding to a new level.
This is my form, and way of thinking which I wish to introduce to the world.
There are 4 main principles that I introduce, and a master thesis. I can give you examples of how they relate to martial arts, and how they intersect with design.
Formlessness - To have no form so you can assume all forms. In martial arts there are different styles of fighting, each style has its strength and weakness. If you put a wrestler against a boxer, the wrestler is going to avoid getting punched and try to go for a takedown. The boxer is going to stay on his feet and avoid takedown. Whoever is able to exploit the other opponents weakness is the one that is going to win.
Well, how do we apply this in design? I can give some examples.
skeuomorphic design and flat design each have their strengths and weaknessess, thus, no style is the best style. You must realize that the best style is a combination of the strengths of different styles, and discards of the weaknessess. Styles may also evolve.
I think often there is a notion that there is an “Android” way of interaction vs a “iOS” way of interaction. But I believe that this way of thinking is a crystallization. We are looking at it the wrong way, that there is a distinction between an Android user and an iOS user, but I believe that we should be looking at the users as human beings. We only have 2 hands and 10 fingers, and we all hold the phone in similar way regardless of what phone it is. This means it is possible for us to aim for a solution that does not necesarily cling to an Android form, or an iOS form, but one expression that is formless.
Dynamism - All things are in motion, whether you see it or not. All martial art styles must evolve. Combat is dynamic and constantly changing, but always relating. The art evolves everyday, so you must evolve with it.
Design evolves everyday. Your style of expression must evolve. The way you design, and do things must constantly be in motion. The practice of design lives through us as human beings, just like all forms of art, and each of us are unique, so we are not bounded by any set of ‘doctrines’ to advance it.
One idea that came to my mind recently (after my book) was this: paper prototyping. I wonder who actually still uses this process? It is a traditional way of prototyping, but I believe this method is either dying or already dead, if not, there must be a new definition for it. It was widely used in 1990s when we didn’t have a lot of prototyping tools that we have today. Nowadays we have software that will allow us to draw boxes, copy them 10 times, and delete them 10 times in 10 seconds as opposed to drawing it out on paper, and cutting, redrawing. Instead of simulating the prototypes with our hands we can simply put them in invision and define a flow much more quickly. We can also send these prototypes to clients halfway across the world as opposed to sitting down beside them. There are much more efficient ways of achieving a low fidelity prototype that are much more favourable. I know that paper method is a still being passed down as part of a ‘traditional process’ which may be misleading because it may cause an amateur designer to try to cling too closely to a design process that is not fit for needs of today. This is to help you guys realize that processes, and methods must evolve. Traditionalists only try to preserve the form, without realization that it is obsolete. This also goes for a lot of martial arts instructors as well.
I think my post is going to be too long so i’m going to shorten it
Expression - Learn to express yourself, not just copy and pasting or following ‘trends’
Simplicity and Directness - Follow a straight line to the objective. Don’t beat around the bush with fancy interactions if it doesn’t get the job done.
The Best Experience is No Experience - Designing an experience is not about making it ‘pleasurable’, ‘meaningful’ or ‘delightful’ I believe the best experience is to have no experience, yet without experience, you can have all experiences.
my book is available on https://www.amazon.com/Tao-Design-User-Experience-Best/dp/1542784808
www.taodesignux.com ( I explain no ux principle in this video)
Now I’m not asking you guys to buy it (unless you really want to), but I’m open to giving the ebook version away (10 copies), in exchange for positive review (unless you really dislike it) I only wish to spread my philosophy in design, and this is a good stepping stone.
Thanks for reading.
Andrew