*Information is beautiful* David McCandless is a data journalist who sees information overload not as a problem, but as a design opportunity. Bringing information into relevant proportions, McCandless exposes hidden patterns as a data detective...

Psychologist Barry Schwartz takes aim at a central tenet of western societies: freedom of choice. In Schwartz's estimation, choice has made us not freer but more paralyzed, not happier but more dissatisfied. Conventional wisdom tells us that gr...

Don Norman explains how pleasant things work better and how happiness leads to better creativity and better problem-solving. He also delves into the three emotional cues a well-designed product will evoke. Don Norman discusses beauty, fun, pleasur...

Legendary Milton Glaser discusses inspiration for graphic design and the process of creating a meaningful concept from both abstract and structured sources. He also explains how breaking the rules can sometimes be a fresh way to refurbish old ideas.

In the design world, intangible value can be a creative – and even better – alternative to quantitative value. He asks the very interesting question, “How many problems in life can be solved by tinkering with perception instead of trying to change...

Sheena Iyengar explores trivial choices (Coke v. Pepsi) and profound ones, and shares her groundbreaking research that has uncovered some surprising attitudes about our decisions. We all want customized experiences and products — but when faced...

Janine Benyus has a message for inventors: When solving a design problem, look to nature first. There you'll find inspired designs for making things waterproof, aerodynamic, solar-powered and more. Here she reveals dozens of new products that take...

Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi asks, *"What makes a life worth living?"*. Noting that money cannot make us happy, he looks to those who find pleasure and lasting satisfaction in activities that bring about a state of "flow".

In his entertaining, often hilarious, discussion of simple design (some good, some bad), David Carson shares his views on emotional response to design, including the artist’s intuition. Carson encourages designers to embrace personal perspective t...

Jason Fried has a radical theory of working: that the office isn't a good place to do it. He lays out the main problems (call them the M&Ms) and offers three suggestions to make work work.

Does collecting more data lead to better decision-making? Competitive, data-savvy companies like Amazon, Google and Netflix have learned that data analysis alone doesn't always produce optimum results. In this talk, data scientist Sebastian Wernic...

Engineering a website is equal parts vision and adaptation... responding both to how users navigate the site and what new goals of the organization have emerged. Challenged with combining mismatching interfaces of Spotify into a single harmonious ...

Showing a series of inspiring, unusual and playful products, British branding and design guru Paul Bennett explains that design doesn't have to be about grand gestures, but can solve small, universal and overlooked problems.

Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty? In studying the leaders who've had the greatest influence in the world, Simon Sinek discovered that t...

Simon Sinek presents a simple but powerful model for how leaders inspire action, starting with a golden circle and the question "Why?" His examples include Apple, Martin Luther King, and the Wright brothers - and as a counterpoint Tivo, which (un...

Facebook’s “like” and “share” buttons are seen 22 billion times a day, making them some of the most-viewed design elements ever created. Margaret Gould Stewart, Facebook’s director of product design, outlines three rules for design at such a massi...

If only today's technology were simpler! It's the universal lament, but it's wrong. We don't want simplicity. Simple tools are not up to the task. The world is complex; our tools need to match that complexity. Simplicity turns out to be more compl...

David Pogue takes aim at technology's worst interface-design offenders, and provides encouraging examples of products that get it right. To funny things up, he bursts into song.

Just in the way that I'm inspired by books and magazines of all kinds, conversations I have, movies, so I also think, when I put visual work out there into the mass media, work that is interesting, unusual, intriguing, work that maybe opens up tha...

It’s worth noting that not every designer dreams of catering to the luxury design market that Apple inhabits. Many designers want to solve the problems of the poorest people in the world. The question then becomes; how can I get something that doe...