What do you do?
I am the President and Creative Director for our studio (Eric Miller Design, Inc. - ericmillerdesign.com) and also the designer for our shop UX Kits (uxkits.com).
Tell us your design philosophy in three words.
Simple, Intuitive, Beautiful
What are your tools of trade?
Hardware
- iMac
- Wacom Intuos Pro Tablet
- Sony NEX-7 for product shots
- Paper & Pencil (by FiftyThree) for iPad sketching
Apps
- Sketch: UI design, UX Kits product design
- OmniGraffle: Wireframes and flows, UX Kits product design
- Illustrator: Illustrations, UX Kits product design
- Photoshop: All around design
- Slack: For collaboration
- InVision: For prototypes
- Flow (com): Project management
- ScreenFlow: Video/gif editing
Sketching
- Pigma Micron Pens
- Pentel GraphGear1000
- Derwent Graphic pencils
- Spectracolor colored pencils (I like outlining in ink and adding color in pencil)
- Dot Grid Book
- Any other sketch book I can get my hands on
Name of the book/magazine closest to you now.
My bookshelf is right behind me so it's a close call. But the book literally closest to me is probably Area 2 by Phaidon. http://www.phaidon.com/store/design/area2-9780714848556/
What is your proudest professional moment?
Two come to mind. When I went full time in my design business in 2008, after years of planning, is definitely one. Second, when we launched our first UX Kit and it was adopted by so many designers as part of their workflow, we were not only proud but also saw we had a legitimate 2nd business to build.
What's your one UX pet peeve?
Overcrowded interfaces. When there is too much to digest, primary actions are lost. There are many ways to avoid this including logically nesting elements, writing shorter copy, removing excess visuals, including sufficient white space and last but certainly not least, understand your users and what should be prioritized.
What qualities does someone need to succeed in crafting experiences?
- Being able to design for your audience and not yourself.
- The ability to see the big picture and details simultaneously.
- Knowing how to recognize problems and patience in solving them.
- Logical thinking, particularly in the organization of data, navigation and UI elements.
- Good design sense.
What is the next paradigm shift for this industry?
Being able to order a pizza by blinking. Kidding, but only sort of. We've only begun to explore alternatives to the click and tap; voice commands, hand gestures and facial expressions are only common to specific devices (for most) but not part of our everyday interactions with websites and applications.
UX, UI, what does it all mean? Do we need a new word to describe what we are doing? And what would your word(s) be?
I don't know if the industry will come up with some kind of catch-all that describes the field. To me, we are designers and "design" is already the catch-all. I think "product design" encompasses a lot and will continue to be less tied to physical products.
Checkout the give-away we're having with UX Kits:
https://uxkits.com/win