20: A Stark Difference in Design
Hey! Welcome to this week’s Stark Difference in Design. Whoa, it’s newsletter number 20. Looking forward to when that’s number 200. Last week’s Edition No. 19 had a 45% open rate. The most popular link was Make Your App Accessible for Everyone blog post. 💌
Tidbits
+ How to Design for Everyone, in 3 Steps
It’s a myth deeply ingrained in our society that there’s an average or “normal” person. The idea dates back to the 1800s, when the Belgian mathematician Adolphe Quetelet attempted to find the numerical average for a host of body measurements, like the chest circumference of soldiers, as well as the average stature, the average weight, the average age of marriage, and even the average of death for humans. This attempt to calculate how an ideal human looks and acts ended up codified in design as the “average user.”
+ Interface Lovers interview: Alexander Muench of Doist
We took the opportunity to revamp our entire color palette making the colors much more accessible, not only in dark theme but also light themes.
Great interview touching on design, inspiration, accessible design and more with designer @alexmuench! Thanks for the Stark shout, Alex. 😍
+ Designing maps that are accessible
This is a fantastic guide of do’s and don’ts on designing navigation for those with visual impairments and others that use accessibility features. It was by a team led by Dr Young Mi Choi at the Georgia Tech School of Design and they used Google Maps as their example.
For bookworms
+ Good Design is a Tough Job
If you need any convincing that this book is in fact a good design book, look no further than the fact that it has a Red Dot Design Award. You’ve done something right when your design book receives a design award.
Though it’s a culmination of work done strictly by one design agency (Strichtpunkt), it’s more than that. What you have in this book are 40 award-winning projects created and arguably a solid mini-manifesto on its own of what good design is. Made in Germany, the book is available on Amazon DE only (it seems) for a hefty but well worth it price.
From the Stark team
+ We have a new way to collect feedback!
We just discovered a platform called Nolt which makes feedback collection and roadmap transparency super easy for both you and us to share our thoughts. We want to make sure we always have an up-to-date list of what you need from us as we expand, and a way to update you on the status.
Check it out and leave your feedback and feature requests on there! ⭐️
+ Are you using Stark on a team?
Whether you’re 1 of many on a team or your colleagues are using Stark alongside you, we’d love your thoughts. We’re currently working on expansion and your feedback on this (decently quick unless you’re completely distracted) survey would be super helpful.
Liked this newsletter? Let us know. And we’re always talking shop on Twitter @getstarkco or in our community chat.
–Team Stark