I’ve been driving a BMW on public roads for a while. There are roads with several lanes and turns, so you have to turn and switch lanes. I use the steering wheel (it’s like all cars) and the awfully designed turn signals.

It’s not ‘press-and-stick’.

It causes a problem because you don’t know which turn signal is on or if it’s on at all. It’s similar to the Caps Lock key when you don’t know whether it’s on or off.

As a result, indicating the status of turn signals takes so much energy that you just don’t want to use them.

It’s kind of like CDs. They still exist, but I don’t really know why. Who are the people who buy CDs? And who are the people who burn things on them?

At the same time, I have a million business cards. I made them wherever I worked. Online design is as if it were unreal, while offline design is real. Last time I ordered business cards, I used a printing house that uses an early 20th-century press. These cards were made of extra-thick linen paper (so that trees do not suffer). I was very satisfied.

But there is a cooler solution: reusing. Take someone’s business cards and write over your data. Cross out the name and write yours; change the logo and contacts.

There is an outrageous tradition to bring three versions of a design. As a designer, I’ve never done that. And as a client, I beg to give me only one version. But nothing works; designers agree, nod, but still bring several versions.

It looks like this. As promised, they show me one version, calling it the ‘main’ and then the second and third, calling them bonuses. But it’s not a bonus; it’s them leaving their work to me.

Among other things, designers should choose a design option. If he could not make a choice in the process, then he did not get into the issue well enough, did not understand it, and did not spend enough time there. But the designer is not a neural net, and I don’t want him to sell me a randomizer—something that just happens to look like a solution.

I want a real solution.

It’s cool if merchandise doesn’t look like merchandise. Corporate T-shirts are a type of uniform that cashiers and couriers are used to wearing but not employees. It’s neither interesting to them nor clients. For them, the only valuable merchandise is a quality base T-shirt with a logo on the inside. It doesn’t make clients look like advertisers when they put this thing on. Instead, they see the logo and appreciate the gift.

Back when clothes were quite expensive, employees were happy to get an extra hoodie or T-shirt. Now such a gift is not that valuable, as people want something more. Merch clothes should be independent fashion items. Regardless of the logo, it should be appealing to wear.

Here is the merchandise that we made inside Yandex Ads. To do this, we even created an internal studio and a special site: merchproject.studio.

There is a term «customer satisfaction». This is a general name for metrics to understand the convenience and usefulness of the product: how quickly the customer copes with the task and how much he enjoys the process. It is considered as the principal aim.

But the simple ambition to satisfy a customer is something like a fight for all the good against all the bad. This is not enough; there still must be a profit for business.

When creating a feature, you can just specify what the user will get and what the company will.

Together with an amazing team, we redesigned the interface, visual style, logo and identity. Yandex.Direct has retained its functionality, but it has become simpler and closer to the user.

Read more on Medium.

If you have a working product used by a large audience, then you can’t change anything at once. It’s difficult, expensive, and sudden redesigns break down metrics.

It’s frustrating. Why bother to draw concepts at all if the first changes can only be seen in a year (if at all). But the concept is such a big, beautiful and clear goal. It shows the team what we want to achieve.

The concept is also like a compass, all small changes in the product design can be correlated with it and evaluated: whether these changes bring you closer to the goal or not. Are they similar to how we see ourselves in the future?

In short, it’s when you are afraid of being fired. Not for anything in particular, but in general. Irrational imprecise fear makes your brain choosing options: I leave office too early, I don’t reply quickly enough in work chats, I wasn’t invited to some meeting and all that stuff.

It effects your work badly. Instead of doing what you want, you start worrying too much and already looking for another job subconsciously .

Today we discussed with Seryozha that a manager can help an employee cope with this irrational fear and say: «Listen, don’t worry about being fired. I can tell you frankly: if you work the way you work now, I won’t fire you. I expect that in the next year at least you will definitely be with us, and I promise that I will not even think to fire you.»

It does not mean that an employee cannot be fired at all, that a man can just not go to work. We can fire a person for objective issues, and if his quality of work drops significantly (for example, if an employee chills out), then it’s time to say goodbye.

But in this case, an employee with an anxious consciousness will be sure that everything is OK, there are no hidden problems or factors, and everything is honest and open. This will help him hand a blank check to himself; focus on work, not on worries and attempts to guess the mood of the manager.

I have never understood the topic about work-life balance. Why is it about working and non-working cases, why should I divide it like that? You can balance all the work in general, well, or divide them according to another principle. For example, «I need» and «I want».

Then try to shift everything important to «I want». Look at this work from a different angle; try to find a hidden interest or motivation. And if it doesn’t work out — figure out how to stop doing it at all.

In order to do something well, it is not necessary to spend a lot of time, but it is necessary to pay a lot of attention.

It seems that the ability to concentrate is some kind of innate talent. But I’ve understood that it’s possible if you stop multitasking.

One thing at a time.

Russian designers discuss Russian design in the film “33 Words about Design”. And I left home to watch it, because I could watch it only in the cinema.

The film consists of thirty-three episodes, in each of which a separate designer tells about Russian design. Someone is sitting at a table, someone is lying in the woods, someone is going to throw out garbage, someone is walking around the store, someone is reading the manifesto very pretentiously. As I understand, everyone shot the videos independently — it is this detail that makes the film interesting. I recommend it.

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And the best part of the film is Anton Schneider’s part, in which he talks extremely charismatic about the differences between good and bad designs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLafkzWDIr8

A good design is aesthetic and functional one, without any stylization. It’s not trying to entertain you or pretending to be anything else. Rush.

Before creating any feature, many product managers ask themselves two questions:

1. What should happen after we launch it?
2. What happens if we don’t launch it?

It makes sense to ask yourself these questions when planning everything in life in general.

Good and bad logos exactly exist in my world as well as brilliant and disgusting ones. There are successful and unsuccessful rebrandings. There are also techniques that I’m just not familiar with, for example, open grotesques and various kinds of Art Nouveau. But this is the designer’s world, in which logos generally owe a lot.

And there is a real world in which logos need to do only two things:

1. Please founders
2. Not confuse the customers

In the Hogan test, there is a parameter responsible for pleasure-seeking. People with high obsession seem relaxed even working hard, and those with low obsession look like workaholics. But this parameter, of course, does not affect the actual efficiency. It is possible to achieve cosmic results in a relaxed way, and you can also fuckup, working 12 hours a day.

I know about a study which shows that if you’re satisfied with your job, you can be dissatisfied with life in general. Especially if the job is easy. And it seems to look logical from the point of evolution – complex tasks lead to development, they create new things and complicate the world.

But unfortunately, evolution is not going to make me happy. So-so.

Six months ago, Kostya Gorsky wrote that Intercom refused to trial product designers. So did I.

The fact is that the test assignment is not actually a test. Unlike a trial period, it does not show the designer in action, at most it confirms UI skills. And product work is, first of all, immersion in the context and team work. Test assignment can’t check these skills at all.

Instead of the test, you can invite a candidate to tell in detail about one of the latest projects. What the task was, why the final solution was exactly the way it was, what the difficulties were, and what turned out easy. And one of the most important questions: what has happened after the launch?

Six months ago, I fired a person for the first time. I want to reflect on how it was. What I have done right and wrong.

Dismissal is a win-win. No one wants to give up a good life, but if you are unhappy with each other, then stopping working together is a great way to change your life and the life of the company for the better.

You can fire quickly — as soon as the first problems arise, you can wait until the fuckup. I think it depends on the situation: sometimes a weak person can seriously harm the project, so it’s better to say goodbye as soon as possible. And sometimes you can give a second chance and help grow, what will ultimately lead to benefits.

In my case, I was shuffling. From time to time, the designer and I discussed the problem, something improved a little, but sluggishly. One day I realized that it was more harm than good and made a decision. My mistake was that before that I had never told him directly that if he did not change, we would have to leave. So he was shocked, the process was tense and our relations were harmed.

What have I done right? I was prepared: formulated the reason, remembered specific cases. I started the meeting with something like: «we need to part with you, let’s think about how to make it as comfortable as possible». I also admitted that this was the first time for me and apologized for being worried — after which, by the way, the excitement greatly decreased.

Peace.

When life forces you to evaluate design layouts and make decisions, the question arises what to do with your own subjectivity. In our society, it is not accepted to show it — it is considered bad manners or even unprofessionalism. Seniors respect each other’s expertise, and disagreements are checked in A/ B tests.

However, suppressing subjectivity is harmful not only for yourself, but also for the project. A design solution may have problems that are difficult to formulate or that may seem subjective. I usually follow the scenario:

1. If I like the layout it doesn’t mean it solves the task perfectly. But you can launch it and look at rates.
2. When you don’t like the layout, you need to look for a problem that may be in the mission statement itself.

If you have worked before, then remember how managers estimated the design in clicks. The fewer clicks the user makes the better. Arguments like «well, this is an extra click» were discussed absolutely seriously (immediately after the proposal to place everything on the first screen).

In fact, it was not because of stupidity, but because of the slow Internet. Users tried not to make unnecessary clicks, fearing a long and expensive download.

Now the Internet has become fast and cheap, but people still don’t want to delve into loaded pages. Don’t be afraid to shorten and hide all nonessentials behind links.

I wanted to write a note about the cognitive ease of interfaces, but I realized that such a term is out of the question.
In short.

The interface must be not just clear, but very very quickly clear. This means: no onboarding, hints or explanations — if your interface needs them, then you have already lost. A person should instantly understand where he is and what is wanted from him.

But how to manage without onboarding? Probably, in some products they are essential. Somewhere the user is ready to spend his time learning the interface, and somewhere the product is driven by other things.

Funny thing has happened recently. I’m subscribed to LOT2046 — I don’t know how to better explain what it is: the guys produce things (clothes, accessories, and household items) and sell them for $100/month by subscription.

Every month I get a package with black things that I never know beforehand. Actually, I suppose what they produce, but what exactly they will send me this time is unknown. The last package contained two pairs of socks and underpants, a T-shirt, a baseball cap, a backpack, an iPhone charger, cream, cotton swabs and some kind of hair powder. In the previous one, there were also socks and underpants, a T-shirt, a hoodie, sneakers, a toothbrush, deodorant and powder, here it is:

I used it a couple of times and was satisfied with the result: the hair was fixed, but it was not very comfortable to use and I stopped. Yesterday I went to my personal account to add this item to the stop list and saw that it was not hair powder (does this even happen?), but tooth one.

Passers-by often ask me whether a designer should write texts or not. I always say in depends on the agreements.

Design is a composite process, and writing text is not only a part of it, but also a basic skill of a designer (provided that you actually have a designer). When the whole process is handled by one person, the product turns out to be more harmonized. But for the sake of efficiency or because of the complexity of the product, the roles are often separated: the texts are written by the editor. It’s great if he discuss it with the designer in the process.

How to learn to write? I don’t know.

It’s not enough to read “Write, Shorten”, as it’s not enough to just learn a Sketch or Photoshop. It is necessary to develop a broad-mindedness and visual experience.