full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Michael Bierut: The genius of the London Tube Map

Unscramble the Blue Letters

I bet Harry Beck wouldn't have known what a user interface was, but that's really what he designed and he really took that clghaelne and broke it down to three pilpnecirs that I think can be applied in nearly any deigsn problem. First one is fcuos. Focus on who you're doing this for. The second principle is simplicity. What's the shortest way to deliver that need? Finally, the last thing is: Thinking in a cross-disciplinary way. Who would've thought that an electrical engineer would be the person to hold the key to unlock what was then one of the most complicated systems in the world — all started by one guy with a pencil and an idea.

Open Cloze

I bet Harry Beck wouldn't have known what a user interface was, but that's really what he designed and he really took that _________ and broke it down to three __________ that I think can be applied in nearly any ______ problem. First one is _____. Focus on who you're doing this for. The second principle is simplicity. What's the shortest way to deliver that need? Finally, the last thing is: Thinking in a cross-disciplinary way. Who would've thought that an electrical engineer would be the person to hold the key to unlock what was then one of the most complicated systems in the world — all started by one guy with a pencil and an idea.

Solution

  1. design
  2. principles
  3. challenge
  4. focus

Original Text

I bet Harry Beck wouldn't have known what a user interface was, but that's really what he designed and he really took that challenge and broke it down to three principles that I think can be applied in nearly any design problem. First one is focus. Focus on who you're doing this for. The second principle is simplicity. What's the shortest way to deliver that need? Finally, the last thing is: Thinking in a cross-disciplinary way. Who would've thought that an electrical engineer would be the person to hold the key to unlock what was then one of the most complicated systems in the world — all started by one guy with a pencil and an idea.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
harry beck 3
london underground 2

Important Words

  1. applied
  2. beck
  3. bet
  4. broke
  5. challenge
  6. complicated
  7. deliver
  8. design
  9. designed
  10. electrical
  11. engineer
  12. finally
  13. focus
  14. guy
  15. harry
  16. hold
  17. idea
  18. interface
  19. key
  20. pencil
  21. person
  22. principle
  23. principles
  24. problem
  25. shortest
  26. simplicity
  27. started
  28. systems
  29. thinking
  30. thought
  31. unlock
  32. user
  33. world