Conceptual and abstract design is great, but sometimes, for users to get their jobs done in the most efficient way, why reinvent the wheel?

In this talk, Ryan explores the roots of common UI patterns, and their physical origins, and how this has helped him in his design journey, being neurodivergent. He then expands this into marketing strategies, product design and a real example of his award winning Service Design of the UK’s first paperless mortgage experience.

We begin by explaining the concept of literalism with real examples like car dashboards, UI components like accordions & carousels, and iconography like floppy disks!

Taking it up a level, Ryan talks about product-level literalism, and how companies/products like Lyft, Google Sheets and FaceTime have embraced it to their advantage for adoption and showcase 2 real case studies:

1. Jones Knowles Ritchie’s work with Dominoes pizza to redesign the product of packaging, using user research to inform the design using literalism.
2. Ryan's own, award-winning, design whilst at NatWest, of the UK’s first paperless mortgage experience.

Finally, we close with some future concepts, on how we can reverse modern technology, to embrace literalism, to bring back nostalgic dopamine from days of old.