Talking with Aaron Irizzary (@aaroni268) about a recent video post of his which was about “diluting content and un-necessary entitlement” Aaron gave me a really great overview of what he’s faced with each time he starts to work on a new post for his website and what gets him engaged and/or disappointed. Thinking about creating content that will actually help us get better as designers (or whatever it is we do for a living) is where we should start. Take the time and make sure the article/post is ready to go and actually helpful instead of falling into the same old content that’s been covered before or the dreaded “list post” that isn’t very deep.
We touched on the “entitlement” aspect of his post, where we as the design community really “dig” into what other people are doing before we step back and think about how we could be constructive in our opinions.
We also talked about the “list post”, why is it that they work for building traffic. We all seem to hate them but they can drive traffic to your website/blog. I agree with Aaron here that there’s a place for everything on the web, even the list post. But the drawback is there’s a bit of enablement with it, where we as designers fall into the trends and do what others are doing because the list post can be so easy to consume.
Talking through what makes a design community great, Aaron shared that in his opinion a great community will “help us get to places where we couldn’t get on our own”. I love the idea of a design community that will share connections, insight and opinions. It’s something we strive to build here around unmatchedstyle.
Thanks to Aaron for taking the time out to talk with me about these issues and weighing in with his opinions. Aaron keeps up a really great blog, you should check it out if haven’t yet.
Great interview Gene! As I’m sure Aaron already knows, I am a big fan of him has a designer, UXer and simply as an overall person. I really haven’t come across to many other people with as much passion, knowledge and humility as Aaron.
This was definitely a spot on perspective of the design blog world. Posts about experience, opinions & perspective is what drives the design community to progress. Inspirational posts are great in their own sense but they don’t necessarily push for NEW boundaries. They do a good job of emphasizing good current design trends which is definitely helpful to make the web a prettier place but what lacks is seeing the solution process behind the prettiness.
You cant help but be thankful for bloggers like Aaron who are willing to put their own time in to help and share with others focusing on the subject matter instead of putting out content simply to drive traffic. And if it’s any justification to him and others alike, blogs like “This is Aaron’s Life” are the only blogs I feel the need to subscribe to anymore. It’s irrelevant for me to know every time an inspirational list post comes out. But I benefit greatly from getting notified & getting to hear what next topic Aaron is discussing.
I couldn’t agree more Josh. That’s why I love talking to people like Aaron. It makes me push the type of content we create here at UMS. Hopefully we can start to live up to it better…
I’m proud to say I’ve enjoyed a San Diego ocean sunset with Aaron. And I mean that in a totally gay way.
@Josh – you are way to kind.
@Gene – thanks for the opportunity, I really appreciate the opportunity to chat, and talk about the design community.
@Chris – haha… good times, no one collects sea shells like you man.