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Vitor Lourenço er en ung designer som allerede har rukket mye i sin korte karriere. Han har jobbet i Yahoo, men mest kjent er han for redesignet av Twitter.com. I september kommer han på Webdagene.
Vi intervjuet Vitor live på Twitter 21. mai. Han svarte på våre og andres spørsmål om hans tanker om design og hvordan han har forbedret Twitter.
Her er Twitterviewet i sin helhet:
webdagene: Please tell us who you are – in 140 characters. ;)
vl: I’m a Product Designer. I’ve been working @Twitter for the last 2 yrs, helping change the world 140 chars at a time :)
webdagene: When did you start doing design?
vl: Around 10 yrs ago. I started designing personal sites just for fun, and never planned to pursue this as a career.
webdagene: Then what made you turn this into a career?
vl: I really loved what I was doing. When I was 18, I joined the major media company in Brazil and after that, Yahoo!
webdagene: And then you went on to Twitter after that?
vl: Exactly. I started consulting for Twitter, and later on joined as a full-time employee and moved from Brazil to SF.
dnmack: how he feels about twitter is the most popular social network?
vl: I don’t see Twitter as a social network. It can be social too, but it’s a real-time information network.
webdagene: Please tell us, what is most important to you when creating a great design?
vl: Scannability. If people can scan through your page for key points, they may decide to stay and use your product.
webdagene: How do you design for scannability?
vl: Be visual, but avoid unnecessary decoration. Use large typography and keep concise paragraphs.
webdagene: You may already have answered this in a way, but what is a great design to you?
vl: A great design/interface is the one that fades gracefully, allowing *content* to be in the very front row.
webdagene: That’s interesting, esp. as many attendants at Webdagene are primarily working with content. Why should design be important to them?
vl: No one picks up a boring book cover. Design generates interest & plays a primary role in the interpretation of a msg. Design should be created around content, not the other way around. Requires collaboration between designers & editors.
webdagene: Can you tell us a little about how you have improved Twitter through your design?
vl: We’ve been listening to users carefully, polishing things, adding new features but trying to keep the core simplicity.
aregh: how do you maintain the core simplicity when everyone is crying for more feautures?
vl: Follow Maeda’s mantra “SHE” (Shrink, Hide, Embody), so you can add more things, but keep the core elegant and easy to use.
aregh: Shrink, Hide, Embody? Please elaborate :)
vl: Shrink what’s less relevant, hide what’s not needed all times and group things together so they look like just 1 element. That’s basically designing around reduction, organization and efficiency. Example: see how we hide the tweet actions until you hover over a tweet? This helps keeping the overall page simplicity.
aregh: Sweet! I think you need to go in more detail about this when you get her in september :)
vl: Sure, will do!
aregh: Twitters 140chars is an extreme constraint – how do you deal with constrains when designing?
vl: Constraints are everything. They help me a lot. Design is more about problem solving than blue-sky thinking.
webdagene: What are your thoughts on design and marketing?
vl: The best marketing strategy is to have a remarkable/viral product. Build a purple cow and people will talk about it.
Mr_Rollo: which designers would you recommend following on twitter?
vl: I have a design list with great recommendations. Check out http://twitter.com/vl/design
khamnes: What are your thoughts on culture in design? Do users in different cultures use twitter in different ways?
vl: We try to come up with more universal solutions, but there’re differences around language, color interpretation, etc. There are also behavioral differences. Twitter is very open/public by nature. And we’re big in Brazil, for instance.
webdagene: What are your thoughts on having culture-specific versions of a site like Twitter vs. one site that should fit all?
vl: It’s crucial to at least support users native languages. That’s why we’re internationalizing the whole site.
webdagene: Many sites come in a regular and a mobile version, as do Twitter.com. What do you think of this practice?
vl: It’s critical, as more and more consumers rely on their mobile device as their primary Internet browsing device. And mobile also means tablet devices. Touch is far superior than trackballs/keypads. We should embrace that on the web.
webdagene: In what way do people’s use of Twitter.com on a mobile device differ from how they use it in a desktop browser?
vl: Twitter on mobile is a great way to learn more about what’s happening *around* you, using geo tweets for example. And we’ve been mobile since day one (SMS). It’s definitely part of Twitter’s DNA.
aregh: What are the key differences when designing for touch?
vl: Everything can be more familiar. You can interact with the UI/content the same way you interact with real world objects. For instance, the fact that you don’t need UI controls to scale up a photo or video is a breakthrough.
aregh: So u’re saying that the constraints of touch forces us to simplicity? That sounds promising :-)
webdagene: As we increasingly use networks as Twitter to seek information, what do you think’ll be the role of web sites in the future?
vl: Websites can give you a more immersible experience by grouping things together and providing clear start points. But it’s more important to focus on social media presence: listen to what people are saying about you & engage.
webdagene: Finally, can you give us a short teaser for what you will be talking about at Webdagene?
vl: I’ll talk about how Twitter changed the way we communicate and how design played a primary role in that :)
webdagene: Sounds great! Maybe you’ll touch upon the principles for simplicity we talked about today as well? Looking forward to it! :)
vl: Will do. And maybe a couple of more things. Looking forward to the event!
Hør mer fra Vitor på Webdagene…
Med bakgrunn fra psykologi, interaksjonsdesign og programmering, brenner Kjell-Morten for å skape gode opplevelser i møtet mellom brukerbehov, forretningsmål og tekniske muligheter.
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I mars går Difi i gang med å kvalitetsvurdere 700 offentlige nettsteder i Norge. Og til høsten avsluttes det med konferanse, stjernedryss, premiering og fest. Men alt er ikke rosenrødt med Kvalitet på nett. Kanskje det er på tide med noen endringer.
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