Something pops up into your head and it sounds so good and cool you can’t wait to tap it into the machine, never once stopping to ask yourself along the way, ‘But does this actually make sense?’

(…)

The older I get the more I think the best writing is pretty much invisible. If you notice it something’s wrong. With The Killing I made a deliberate attempt to simplify my writing to the extent that it mirrored the blunt, monochrome nature of the TV series itself. I worried that might make me less ‘readable’, whatever that means. Judging by the feedback I get it actually makes me more.

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But wait, there's more!

Want to read more like this? Buy my book's second edition! Designed for Use: Create Usable Interfaces for Applications and the Web is now available DRM-free directly from The Pragmatic Programmers. Or you can get it on Amazon, where it's also available in Chinese and Japanese.

ignore
the
code

written by
Lukas Mathis

Hi. My name is Lukas Mathis. I studied Computer Science/Software Engineering and Ergonomics/Usability at ETH Zürich. I work as a software engineer and user interface designer for a swiss software company creating process management software. I've written a book about usability. It's been translated to Chinese and Japanese. My first computer was a Performa 450, my first programming language was HyperTalk, my first electric guitar was a cheap Peavey, my first videogame was a VCS 2600 and my current snowboard is from Lib Tech. I live in a small cottage in a remote part of the Swiss Alps, and you can reach me at or on twitter.

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Meaning Trumps Sound