The printing press was the great innovation in early modern information technology, but economists have found no macroeconomic evidence of its impact. This paper exploits city-level data. Between 1500 and 1600, European cities where printing presses were established in the 1400s grew 60 percent faster than otherwise similar cities. Cities that adopted printing in the 1400s had no prior advantage and the association between adoption and subsequent growth was not due to printers choosing auspicious locations. These findings are supported by regressions that exploit distance from Mainz, Germany – the birth place of printing – as an instrument for adoption.

Navigation, as crucial as it is to the user experience, is merely a means to an end — the end being to consume content. This is why users have very contrasting expectations about content and navigation. via Pocket

We see it every day on signs, billboards, packaging, in books and magazines; in fact, you are looking at it now — the Latin or Roman alphabet, the world’s most prolific, most widespread abc. Typography is a relatively recent invention, but to unearth the origins of alphabets, we will need to travel much farther back in time, to an era contemporaneous with the emergence of (agricultural) civilisation itself.

от пиктографического письма до Гражданской азбуки

In 2012 and again in 2013, we ran a survey investigating the struggles of modern web design. More specifically, the surveys dug into responsive design, and how it affected workflow for web workers in all sorts of situations.

Верстку Pinterest считают одной из причин его популярности, она нравится многим дизайнерам и неоднократно использовалась в других проектах (например, для нижней части главной страницы «Рамблера» или нового сайта «Эха Москвы»). У этого способа представления есть ясные достоинства — например, он переносится в мобайл простым соединением колонок в одну (хотя это скорее особенность «карточного» представления информации).
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Если у анонса есть картинка (что почти обязательно при использовании такого дизайна), то она лишь иллюстрирует контент: в лучшем случае — обозначает тематику, в худшем — привлекает внимание сама по себе или просто занимает место.

Команда британского сайта электронного правительства Gov.uk опубликовала 10 принципов веб-дизайна, которые помогают создавать по-настоящему качественные продукты и сервисы.

Bad content, bad links, bad navigation, bad category pages... which is worst for business? In these examples, bad content takes the prize for costing the company the most money.
Every year, I see thousands of design mistakes in both user studies and everyday life. The curse of working with Don Norman is that half the elevator buttons I see make me angry: Why can't these guys do what Don told them to do 20 years ago?
Then again, Web designers don't do what I told them to do 13 years ago, so why am I surprised? Following is a modest harvest of design stupidities I've recently encountered.

Инфографика на single-page websites

What kind of content should you have on your site? How should you structure the menu? What should be the first-level menu items? One or two menus? What should the menu links be called? This post will give you the answers. via Pocket

“Observe how your users approach information, consider what it means, and design to allow them to achieve what they need.” I discovered the concepts in this article while preparing material for an introductory information architecture workshop. via Pocket

The point about poor hyphenation must be right, but what about the claim that Flush-left text ... is demonstrably more readable? This is widely claimed, but the evidence isn't overwhelming.

Design, Art & Codeby Martin Pavely Draw anywhere for navigation O/P Email, Twitter, Vine, Instagram, VSCO, Google+, Designspiration,

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had. via Pocket

В любой момент времени человек может сосредоточить свое внимание только на одном предмете. Это может быть какой-то объект реального мира (например, лист бумаги) определенная область экрана или окна, а может и какой-нибудь процесс «в уме» (например, когда человек обдумывает свои действия или что-то рассчитывает).

Emotional design example

EXPERIENCE WHAT IT’S LIKE TO LIVE FOR LIVE

January 1976. Philadelphia Flyers v. CSKA Moscow. The Cold War. The soul of hockey at stake. Story by Dave Hollander, drawings by Stephen Halker.