Little Big Details is a curated collection of small, thoughtful design touches found in apps, websites, and products.
HN commenters link it as a source of design inspiration, saying that careful small details build an emotional connection and that software has become less playful.
I use RSS to follow my frequently used sites. My startup related stuff is design-y, but my top 5 recommendations are:
http://sidebar.io/ - most frequent, always bump into something new
http://worrydream.com/ - of course
http://littlebigdetails.com/ - collecting little patterns into my brain
http://theindustry.cc/ - see the reviews, probably the best site for app reviews that I've seen. allows me to know what's new.
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/show/extra-credits - look forward to this every single week
I'd include http://www.paulgraham.com, but you probably already follow that
I'd argue this Twitter item is cute but a bad example:
http://littlebigdetails.com/post/2922618704/offcial-twitter-app-for-iphone-dragging-down-the
There's absolutely no indication that doing this is possible. Clever UI is neat but if your users never know it's there, you're wasting your time. A little handle, some sort of visual indicator that an action is possible would make for a better interface. Twitter (neé Tweetie) is my favorite Twitter app for iPhone or OS X, but this kind of easter egg functionality is sprinkled throughout and it just makes me sigh.
It really is amazing how much making sure the little things are right can help. I think it helps develop a slightly more emotional connection for the user as they find themselves subconsciously enjoying various elements that the designer/developer took the time to polish.
To that effect, http://littlebigdetails.com/, is a great list of 'little things' that can be great for inspiration / a list of innovations. Quora is on this list for a few elements.
I love this so much.
Software has gotten so boring. OSX used to have a ton of fun weird little things (like the poof when you removed an app) that have all been removed. Same with Google. I miss it.
One of our company values is "Err on the side of whimsy," and it's my far my favorite one... life's too short to not make things a bit weird fun and interesting.
(Also, for people who haven't seen it, also check out https://littlebigdetails.com/ )
Thank you very much!
http://littlebigdetails.com/ is close to what I'm looking for, and looks like they are organized well by tags (e.g. http://littlebigdetails.com/tagged/password)
And it doesn't have to be UI only; it would be a good idea to list down the different ways to authenticate for example (passwords, optional passwords, auth through email).
Pinterest does something really clever related to this - not so much for data placeholder but for images. They have precomputed the dominant color for each image and show that color while the image loads.
http://littlebigdetails.com/post/56782380031/pinterest-before-image-is-loaded-the-background