UX Podcast · James Royal-Lawson & Per Axbom

The rule of three with Ellen Lupton

April 18, 2024

Season 2, Episode 15 starts with pace. The cold open talks about storytelling as movement between big moments and small ones, quiet turns and louder ones, then brings that back to design advice. Ellen Lupton joins through typography, books, teaching, visual design, and a recorded conversation at From Business to Buttons in Stockholm. The useful bit is the vocabulary. Maze and labyrinth can blur in everyday speech, but Lupton treats them as different ways to think about structure. The host does not just accept the distinction. He asks how a designer would know which kind of situation they are dealing with. Her answer stays practical. A website or digital product can have linear parts and non-linear parts, depending on what the user is trying to do. Some flows need a sequence. A one, two, three process can help people stay oriented. Other moments work better with branching choice: customizing a service, combining account features, or reading side stories in a newspaper. The Swedish translation problem gives the exchange a little friction. If the words are missing, does the idea still hold up? Lupton lands on linear and non-linear instead, which keeps the question useful: where should people feel guided, and where should they feel free? Freedom is not free. Non-linear experiences can give people agency, but they can also tire them out when every path asks for another decision. The host keeps testing the edge cases, and Lupton's vocabulary becomes a way to inspect website and product structure without making it precious.

As heard by us

Ellen Lupton gives UX Podcast a practical language for designing paths, choices, pace, and attention.

UX Podcast brings Ellen Lupton into a conversation about storytelling as something designers build with, not just something writers add later.

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Why you'd press play

Listen if you want storytelling and visual design framed through the maze-versus-labyrinth idea.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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