One of the best design write ups I've read in long time.
They nailed the fundamentals first, then moved on to the surprise and delight features. I believe that is fundamental for anyone doing UX/Design. I've seen way to many companies try to gamify or add silly features to improve the user experience, when in fact it ends up doing the opposite.
By understanding the problem, you can bring multiple people together to figure out how to solve it. We all have different skillsets and sometimes the best solution isn't in our skill set or is a combination of skill sets.
I see this with my boss. He always brings feature request to me and we have to work backward to get to the problem. Then we usually come up with a simpler solution once we understand the problem.
Thanks for sharing your story. I think there are a lot of people out there like me not looking to be a unicorn company, but would love to be the next VidaliaOnions.com
Adding some color and better labeling would be good. Also I would have a confirmation dialog box to confirm what will happen when the button is pressed.
The odds are stacked against us. Working in the nutrition and fitness space has really opened my eyes into how poor nutrition over time really starts impacting lives. Even people who don't eat 'bad', still are having lots of health issues. So much sugar and other stuff in foods that are typically billed as healthy.
I'll have to check out those books, they sound really interesting. You might want to check out the book "The Case Against Sugar", it tells the story of sugar and is really interesting.
Design will always be a blend of form and function. With an optimal goal of creating a product that is aesthetically pleasing and easy to use.
I would error on the side of making something more useable than beautiful. If something is ugly, but still usable, it has value. If something looks good and is not usable, it doesn't have much value. Unless it's Art or something that is only meant to be looked upon.
Now that task could be range from buying a faucet to seeing when your favorite band is in town. The easier it is to accomplish the task, the better the website.
With flat design, sometimes it's really hard to know what you are suppose to click on. I enjoy its simplicity, but it does have some usability problems that come with it.
I think we went way overboard with it and the pendulum swung to far to the side of flat design. Hopefully we start moving away from super trendy flat design, much like we moved away from those crazy web 2.0 design styles.
They nailed the fundamentals first, then moved on to the surprise and delight features. I believe that is fundamental for anyone doing UX/Design. I've seen way to many companies try to gamify or add silly features to improve the user experience, when in fact it ends up doing the opposite.