
The Design Squiggle - ingve
https://thedesignsquiggle.com/
======
Stratoscope
For anyone like me who is on mobile and wondering "where's the squiggle?" here
is a trick I stumbled into. This worked in Chrome on Android:

1\. Tap menu and select "Desktop site".

2\. Watch the black squiggle flicker a couple of times and then go blank
again.

3\. Scroll down so the blank area is off the top of the screen.

4\. Take your finger off the screen and pause for a moment.

5\. Scroll back up to the top.

6\. Now you can see the squiggle.

It's like the Konami Code of design squiggles!

If the other two squiggles on the page don't appear, leave Chrome in desktop
mode and and use the same trick: scroll down past them so they are off the
_top_ of the screen, pause, and then scroll up again. With a little
persistence you will eventually see them all.

I think this has helped me understand why the squiggle looks so chaotic.

~~~
Cenk
Direct link to Squiggle:
[https://freight.cargo.site/w/1750/i/d1147981b1e6aa6fd58e0b34...](https://freight.cargo.site/w/1750/i/d1147981b1e6aa6fd58e0b34927c70f3a1d33c2c282acd339f5c10aa1d35a8f0/ds-
bk-home-thumb.jpg)

------
caribousoup
Junior Designers vs. Senior Designers

[https://medium.com/the-year-of-the-looking-glass/junior-
desi...](https://medium.com/the-year-of-the-looking-glass/junior-designers-vs-
senior-designers-fbe483d3b51e)

~~~
gowld
VP Designer: generic medium blog pablum for personal brand building.

------
capableweb
How do you manage design and implement such a basic website (thanks, I like
that) and still screw up something like zooming? Seems there is a JS library
or something that adds `font-size: 51.39%;` automatically to the HTML tag in
the markup, effectively killing zooming...

~~~
chrismorgan
That’s what you get when you define font sizes relative to the viewport size.

I’d say “disable JavaScript” since this one is JavaScript-induced rather than
just `font-size: 5vw` or similar, but the body element has `style="visibility:
hidden"` which is removed by JavaScript, so you’ll get a blank page for your
trouble. And the squiggle and other images use <img data-src> which is turned
into <img src> by JavaScript.

I still haven’t decided which I hate more, pure-JS pages that should have been
plain HTML, or pages that are gratuitously hidden in CSS and then unhidden in
JavaScript… so long as you run it.

~~~
buckminster
This is one of those "hidden in CSS" sites so disabling JS doesn't help.
Anyway, the squiggle is a disappointment. Closing the tab is the best option.

------
carapace
Is this the "pet rock" of design? A late April fool's joke that I don't get?
Is it Andy Warhol or Andy Dick?

------
gav
Similarly, "The Creative Process":

[http://toothpastefordinner.com/103012](http://toothpastefordinner.com/103012)

------
noen
With one ever so tiny tweak, this would be an apt metaphor.

It should be "The Design Squiggles" plural.

Design process is rarely a continuous line or a singular path.

You generate, observe, understand, and decide. Repeat. The squiggles can take
on different forms (they are squiggles!) but they do take on a shape of their
own.

If anything, I think it would be interesting and valuable to look at the
patterns of the squiggle groups to see what those may tell us about the
designer and the scenario.

~~~
cableshaft
Yep. I saw the drawing and thought "Wrong. It gets into a single straight line
too quickly." I have gone back to the drawing board many times for my personal
projects. I just did again for another project today, as a matter of fact.

------
jonplackett
I like the idea of the squiggle but it does appear to be trending in the
correct direction from the very beginning, which would require tremendous
foresight or just not really finding anything too unexpected on your journey.
I think a more realistic squiggle - while still being chaotic - would trend
one way for 50% of its development, then have some 90 or 180 degree hand break
turns of realisation before finally having its straightening up phase in
probably a completely different direction.

------
weakfish
Some of the "book" examples don't have the squiggle included...? Am I missing
something?

~~~
furyofantares
From the "in use" page? I'm assuming it's somewhere inside the book, rather
than on the cover.

------
qqn
Looking forward, life's a zigzag; looking back, I see it was a straight line.

------
msla
Nice page. Very abstract. The design squiggle is blank white, then?

------
crimsonalucard
It's always easy to refine an abstract idea, such is trivial.

For implementing and maintaining designs, especially in software, the squiggle
goes in the opposite direction.

~~~
meristem
The squiggle is meant to explore a particular design paradigm, where the mess
is the research, and things start calming down as research is synthesized,
constraints are applied, a design is created and tested, and finally an
iterated version is delivered. It assumes surprises but suppresses the height
of ups and downs in the middle 50%.

~~~
crimsonalucard
Yes, I know. I am saying refining an idea is done all the time. But you have
to realize that designers are only dealing with an abstract idea. It is easy
to cut a thing in half and reconfigure components of that thing into abstract
perfection when that thing (aka Design) lives only in your imagination.

Such is not the case for an idea that has already been materialized. There are
high costs to modifying an idea that is already implemented.

The cost is so high that often developers don't reconfigure the product from
scratch, what they do is build patches, grafts and superficial additions on
top of the core product so that the implementation of the idea looks like the
actual idea.

Like patching up an old car, eventually the accumulated ugliness reaches an
apex and the core product must be rebuilt from scratch. I would say for the
vast majority of projects implemented in the real world, the squiggle is in
the opposite direction.

Most Designers tend to not understand the realities of what happens to their
designs in production. The design of a system should not end at
implementation. Implementation is just the beginning of the journey.

The best designers are the ones that can create designs that account for the
inevitable degradations that happen to an idea that has already been
crystallized.

The best designers are ones that can modify a design to take into account
current limitations of technology and flaws while the idea is being executed
in production.

