DPL Reading List – May 13, 2016
Here are some of the articles we’ve been reading around this office this week.
Systems Admins: We Need To Talk (Thanks to Jarrod Wubbels for recommending this article) – “Admins, lend me your ears. With good, basic, and built-in tools, you can defend against ransomware. With just a few hours of configuration (at most!), you can stop this madness.”
Ideo: The 7 Most Important Hires For Creating A Culture Of Innovation (Thanks to Brian Zimmer for recommending this article) – “What makes some companies great to work for and others a disaster? The answer: good workplace culture. It’s the difference between Google and Yahoo, Costco, and the Department of Corrections. Studies have shown that office culture is one of the most revealing indicators of workplace satisfaction. How can companies be intentional about building and nurturing a good workplace culture? The short answer: Hire for the right roles.”
Linux Foundation Launches Badge Program To Boost Open Source Security (Thanks to Matt Babcock for recommending this article) – “Announced on Tuesday, the non-profit said the Core Infrastructure Initiative (CII), a project which brings tech firms, developers and stakeholders together to create best practice specifications and improve the security of critical open-source projects, has now entered a new stage with the issue of CII badges to a select number of open-source software.”
How Music Affects Your Productivity – “Music has a strange temporal permanence; as art decorates space, so does music decorate time. With so much of our time being spent at work, and so much of our work being done at computers, music has become inseparable from our day-to-day tasks — a way to “optimize the boring” while looking at screens.”
Buttons In Design Systems (Thanks to Jarrod Wubbels for recommending this article) – “I love buttons. I can do things with buttons. Take a next step. Make a commitment. Get things done. With buttons, interaction springs to life. That’s why Buttons are arguably a design system’s most important component. Devilishly simple, they offer a simple label in a defined region I can press. As such, buttons are where you apply a design language’s base attributes in ways that’ll ripple throughout more complex component later.”
5 Steps To Get From Concept To Product (Thanks to Brian Zimmer for recommending this article) – “When developing IT products, problem solving is often the top motivation. Developers identify a problem and provide a solution. Unfortunately, without considering the user experience during the design phase, finished products often fail.”
The Value Of Multi-Typeface Design – “Don’t design for other designers, design for your audience. Using multiple families can mean you have to make fewer compromises, and it gives you an opportunity to create rich, distinctive palettes. Every typeface you add makes your visual language more nuanced, which can aid, instead of hinder, clarity for your audience and establish an aesthetic that is unique.”
