This article was written in 2015. It might or it might not be outdated. And it could be that the layout breaks. If that’s the case please let me know.

Surviving the digital apocalypse

There are some brilliant quotes in the article Design Machines, how to survive the digital apocalypse. And many, many painful truths. I was nodding all the time with a sad smile on my face while reading it. That Travis Gertz certainly knows.

Painful, but true:

There’s a higher demand for better designed interfaces, but that doesn’t necessarily put designers in a more favourable position

Crappy analytics

In the section about Metrics-obsessed pseudo-science

Metrics are the internet’s heroin and we’re a bunch of junkies mainlining that black tar straight into the jugular of our organisations

and

Unfortunately, the majority of those designing tests, interpreting statistics, doling out design criticism, and making design revisions are not exactly scientifically literate

Crappy content

In the very powerful section about Crap content selling crap:

Content on the web is not king. Half the time it’s barely the jester […] it’s rarely produced for noble intentions like education or entertainment

(This whole section can be quoted. And it should be be mandatory for every marketer to read it every time they plan to do anything)

Robots and platforms

Travis goes on to explain that robots might actually be better in creating beautiful veneer for crappy content

Having a website is as important for most companies as having a restroom

And he goes on about the platformisation of the web.

There’s hope

I could go on and keep quoting, but you should really just read the whole article for yourself. Especially the second section that starts with the heading: Humans are unpredictable mushy bags of irrationality and emotion

The article starts out as a very negative description of the current state of the digital design world. But it ends in a very practical advice about how we can survive this mess and come out better. Go on now and read it. All of it.