In the web design community, Doug Bowman has distinguished himself both as an individual and as a part of big-name creative teams. Currently, he is Twitter’s creative director, a job he took after leaving Google last year.
This year, Twitter’s dramatic redesign was the talk of the web — the “new Twitter” is both beautiful and functional. Its addition of new features is perfectly balanced with its subtle aesthetic upgrades. Overall, the design team didn’t just make the product prettier, it made the user experience vastly more interesting, simple and pleasurable.
The new Twitter is a clear product of Bowman’s philosophy on web design:
“In a world where data bits flow abundantly, our minds have developed filters to sift through the overflow of useless and badly designed information. While design must appeal to our sense of aesthetic, it must not stand in the way of delivery, cause complications or introduce stumbling blocks.
“Rather, the presence of design should simplify and facilitate our everyday life, enable us to accomplish our tasks more effectively and help us enjoy them along the way.”
We asked Bowman to shed some light on a few subjects, including the redesign. After all, when your application is at scale and users are already accustomed to an experience, how do you change the interface gracefully and well?
“Know very well the reasons why the product needs a redesign, or if it does at all,” Bowman told us. “Understand that users are creatures of habit, and change is often hard to move beyond. Allow them time to try and shift over to a new design.
“However, don’t be afraid of taking substantial risk with a redesign if the product needs a substantial overhaul to improve the user experience,” he added. “Some redesigns are often appreciated more for what they eliminate than what they add.”
Bowman emphasized user experience above all in his notes to us. He’s not the kind of art-for-art’s-sake aesthetic snob who’d sacrifice a user’s needs for a designer’s wants.
“As designers, one of our ‘wants’ should always be to help satisfy user needs. [It] kind of goes with the job description when the user experience is so critical to a product’s success. Good designers understand and are attentive to what users need and want to accomplish,” Bowman explained. “Great designers realize that fulfilling those needs can happen in unique and unexpected ways.”
In addition to reimagining one of the modern web’s more popular applications, Bowman has also built an extraordinary design team at Twitter. Together, they’ve rolled out a string of successful mobile applications in addition to rebuilding Twitter.com.
In a market rife with talent, how do you build a design team that works?
“Look for creative folks who understand basic design principles and critical thinking over those who have sought out advanced skills in Photoshop or CSS,” Bowman advises.
“Hire designers that are more talented than you,” he added. “Encourage everyone on the team to share their work and think often. With a small amount of guidance, trust that they will create incredible experiences.”
Finally, we asked Bowman what most stimulates his creativity. He cited nature and architecture as inspiration, and after his focus on UX, we weren’t surprised to find that Bowman is also inspired by “constant cycles of user feedback.”
Image courtesy of Flickr, gorriti.
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