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All the small things
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I’ve just listened to Rick Beato break down “What’s My Age Again?” — Blink-182’s second biggest hit. Funnily enough, he kicked off his "What Makes This Song Great?" series with their biggest hit — "All The Small Things". One person commented: I can’t believe you started the series with All The Small Things when it’s all the small things that makes the song so great. In the chorus of “What’s My age Again?”, Rick points out how most bass guitarists would play continuously, but Blink-182 left a tiny gap for the snare to play on its own. In the same chorus, Mark Hoppus sings “away from me”, “twenty three”, and “tv shows” where the melody goes downward. But Rick points out how Tom DeLonge sings the same words with his harmony going upwards. And in the final chorus, Mark harmonises with himself, creating a third layer of vocals - on top of Tom’s part. Rick spent 15 minutes unpacking just a few seconds of that song. Blink-182 spent hours getting those seconds right. That’s the thing about craft: The better you do it, the less anyone notices. But most people only notice the small things when they’re missing. Design is no different. For example, take this form field:
It asks ‘Are you over 18 years old?’ with radios for ‘Yes’ and ‘No’. Users fill it out and move on. But imagine if instead, they got this:
Compared to the first design:
Radio buttons have many small things to get right - but they’re on the simpler end of the design challenge spectrum. A long form might have 20+ fields. A product might have 20+ forms. A checkout flow alone has hundreds of these moments:
Ignore them and users get stuck, contact support, or give up altogether. What makes great design is often all the small things, done right, at scale, like Blink-182. If you’d like to get all the small things done right, at scale, like Blink-182 you might like my course, Form Design Mastery: https://formdesignmastery.com Cheers, |
Design tips to help you create products that are ridiculously simple and accessible to use
Join 10,000+ designers, content designers and engineers who get my free weekly newsletter with evidence-based design tips (in 3 minutes or less). Mostly forms UX, but not always.
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