Daily Reading - Saturday, June 23 2013

5 little design decisions to admire

Snapchat’s single button for taking photo + video
Tap to snap. Hold to capture video.It’s intuitive because the thing you want to capture is the same in both instances; what’s different is how long you want to capture it for

Candy Crush Saga’s “5 more moves.”
Couldn’t finish the puzzle in the allotted number of moves, buy for more 5 moves.

Path’s sticker store
The sticker packs are displayed oh-so-prettily on neat little shelves, complete with dramatic spotlight as if this were a museum exhibit of sorts. Tilt the phone, and the stickers swing along, playfully reacting to your movements.

Spotify’s “Popular” section
For one thing, the discrepancy between the order of the songs and the global plays gives you an indication of what’s popular recently vs. what’s been popular historically, useful if you’re new to an artist. You also get a sense for the difference in popularity between various songs, something a simple sorted list doesn’t give you, so you can tell if the artist is a one-hit wonder or a consistent chart-topper

Evernote’s note cards
I’m talking about those little squares that look like white Post-It notes that show you a preview of the note’s content. There’s something about the tangibility and physicality of that design that makes it work so much better for me than a list.

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