Epicenter software design: Building features from the inside out.
So, if you're wondering where to start on a new feature or a new product, discover the epicenter. What's the one thing it needs first before it needs anything else? What's the core? What's the absolute essential bit of functionality that must exist before anything else can exist? When you've discovered that you've found the epicenter.
There are some succinct tips for writing succinctly in this Writing for Busy People article:
- Making important points up front
- Clear taxonomy of headings, and lots of them
- Writing clearly and succinctly
- No long, unbroken paragraphs or tracts of text
- Preferring bulleted lists with clear points to paragraphs
- Use of emphasis in formatting to make important things clear
A List Apart: Articles: In Search of the Holy Grail
Three columns. One fixed-width sidebar for your navigation, another for, say, your Google Ads or your Flickr photos and, as in a fancy truffle, a liquid center for the real substance. Its wide applicability in this golden age of blogging, along with its considerable difficulty, is what has earned the layout the title of Holy Grail.
I couldn't agree more with ADTD.
I'm tired of this nonsense that suggests a "non-designed" site will be more successful because people are sensitive to using applications that aren't under the thumb of the man... Damn! I've struck gold! Quit your day job people, it doesn't matter if you have a good idea, it just doesn't matter. Go into Microsoft Frontpage and select Build > Community > Non-Designed > Ugly > Cash Cow and just wait for someone to offer hundreds-of-millions to buy you out.
