“On Flipboard, we encourage readers to do just one thing: flip. Just open the app, and flip from left to right. By minimizing friction and encouraging readers to focus on the content, we become transparent. And that, we believe, is the secret of great design.”
—Marcos Weskamp, Head of Design at Flipboad, from this great interview from Mashable.
Flipboard is my all-time favorite iPad app and easily in my top five iPhone apps. The user experience is pretty much perfect and it’s great to hear some of the thoughts and process behind the product.
Craig Mod has an excellent essay over on his blog about his journey as a designer for Flipboard for iPhone, but as per usual with Craig, the essay goes much deeper with some excellent thoughts on the creative process in the digital space:
For a while now it had been clear to all of us that edges are a critical framing aid in helping us consume but it wasn’t until last year — helping build Flipboard for iPhone — that I began to understand how critical they are to gain perspective on creation. To gain perspective on a journey captured in bits.
Flipboard is one of my all-time favorite apps so it was great to see this in-depth look at it’s creation as well as the beautiful book Craig designed to document that process in a thoughtful and lasting way.
Edges are about feeling as much as seeing. With edges comes a sense of weight. And with that comes the ability to feel — physically and psychically. And with that, a better understanding of what we’ve built and where we’ve been.
I think Craig Mod is one of the most interesting designers working today. Previously the lead designer for Flipboard for iPhone (which is fantastic), he’s currently a MacDowell Writing Fellow working on the future of the books. I like the way Craig writes and talks and most importantly, I like the way he thinks. His career has largely focused on what future books could look like and the experience that shapes them.
His recent talk at the Build Conference is a great look into what books can be and how to bring the nostalgia we associate with physical books into the digital space. We often speak about the artifact or the interface of future books but here, Craig argues what will be most important—most nourishing—is keeping that nostalgia and experience and romanticism as books go digital. I highly recommend this one.
Mike Kruzeniski:
Products like Flipboard are attractive because they are consciously and carefully designed to highlight the content, instead of crowding the experience with UI tools. The design of these experiences is being driven by new thinking in interaction design, where visual design is central to the experience, rather than painted on at the end. Once the traditional elements of UI are torn away, designers can concentrate their efforts on working iwth the content that remains. And it ends up looking a lot like Print. If we pull Visual Design to the front of the product creation process, we can break free of the bad design habits that surround us. As Interaction Designers we can stop polishing our icons, and focus on communicating the content inside, clearly and with style. The rewards are simple: more beautiful products that are easier to use, and beautifully branded experiences with more room for self-expression.
Mike hits the nail on the head in this fantastic essay on what interactive designers can learn from the rich history of print design. In the end, however, it all comes back to content. The problem with a lot of interactive design—especially in regards to editorial work—is more than typographic (though that is also lacking). The struggle is getting that interactivity out of the way so the content can return to the focus. I wrote a little bit about this this past November:
I think the time of calling ourselves print designers or web designers or interaction designers is coming to a close. We are all now content designers.
Secondly, I think using Flipboard as an example is perfect. Flipboard is easily my favorite app and when I pick up my iPad, nine times out of ten, Flipboard is the first app I open. Why is that? The guys as Flipboard have figured out how to remove extraneous interactive elements allowing me to easily get to the content I want. It has quickly become my go to place for the latest news.
