I’m Arun Venkatesan, and this is the arun.is newsletter, where I share my current obsessions, inspiration from around the web, behind-the-scenes content, and more.

This week’s issue covers a few things:

• What's new
• Elegant design
• Recommendations

What's new

Here’s everything that has happened since the last issue.

Three pillars of my blogging philosophy

As part of my ongoing series looking behind the scenes of my blog, I have written about why I blog. This piece is a collection of thoughts roughly organized into three pillars.

Four books about Apple design

This post features brief introductions to four books I own about Apple design. Each book offers a different lens through which to see how Apple designs and makes its products.

Elegant design

My favorite products are elegant. Their creators understand who is using the product and for what reason. The product conforms to the user’s mental model without forcing them to understand the inner workings of the product.

Matching complexity

Creators of elegant products understand the inherent complexity of a problem and design the product to suit. For example, the dynamics of flying an airplane is far more complicated than driving a car on the road.

Hence, the cockpit of an airplane is complicated in comparison to that of a car.

Oversimplified

Sometimes, products are oversimplified. An example is the recent trend of car makers moving physical controls to the touch screen. Physical controls allow drivers to keep their eyes on the road while changing the music volume or adjusting the temperature. Touch screens, with their lack of physical feedback, require that the driver look away from the road.

Overcomplicated

Sometimes products are overcomplicated. One example is this windshield wiper stalk. Moving it up one notch puts it in intermittent mode, which can be then further adjusted with a separate switch on top.

It’s not obvious what the graph for that control means. Some people interpret the longer lines to mean faster, while others think it means longer time between wipes.

Above the intermittent is a separate continuous low setting and high setting which don’t use that second switch.

Just right

Sometimes, a product is just right. In the case of modern Lamborghinis, the wiper setting is controlled with a single rocker. Flick to the right starts the wiper. Subsequent right flicks make it run faster. Flicking to the left does the opposite.

Complexity vs usability

Based on these examples, we could imagine usability charted against complexity of a solution. The challenge is to get it just right where both the problem and solution are perfectly matched. On the left is oversimplified, while the right is overcomplicated.

Recommendations

Execute Program

I mentioned Execute Program last issue, but I have to formally recommend it after finishing most of the content. It’s a platform mostly for learning JavaScript and TypeScript. It gradually introduces concepts and uses spaced repetition to ensure retention over the long term. I have found it the perfect complement to learning by doing projects.

Hack Chinese

Hack Chinese is a spaced repetition tool for Chinese language learners. I previously used Anki, but found it annoying to use. Hack Chinese fits my uses perfectly, with three main advantages. First, it has built-in lists like HSK or vocabulary from books. Second, it deduplicates lists. When I study a new list, I’m only shown new words. Third, it is extremely easy to add new words.

The Origin Story Behind Counter-Strike's Most Iconic Map

I played a lot of Counter Strike in high school and college and absolutely loved Dust II. This short documentary covers how its creator went about designing one of the most famous FPS maps of all time. I love how much the process matches software design.

That's it for this issue.

As always, this is my personal email, so feel free to respond directly.

Stay curious,
Arun Venkatesan