How to Improve the UI--Really!

A colleague has made me realize that user assistance writers are codependents of bad UI design. Because we explain how the UI really works, we somehow leave our developers and companies feeling like they're "covered" when the users have a bad experience.

Hughes, Michael A. User Assistance (2009). Articles>User Interface>Documentation>Technical Writing

Usability Tips for Your Application (Part I)

There are a exponentially growing amount of applications being developed. Some of them vanish at an early stage, while others grow to be quite (and sometimes extremely) popular. What really dazzles me is how sucky many of them (both the popular and the unpopular ones) are regarding how they deal with user-interaction.

Odden, Michael. Unlimited Edition (2009). Articles>Usability>User Interface>Interaction Design

Top-Ten Information Architecture (IA) Mistakes

Structure and navigation must support each other and integrate with search and across subsites. Complexity, inconsistency, hidden options, and clumsy UI mechanics prevent users from finding what they need.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2009). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>User Interface

What Makes a Good Mobile Interface?

While the perfect mobile user interface is beast that doesn't exist, there are good interfaces that work around any issues there are with the displays on mobile devices.

Nesbitt, Scott. DMN Communications (2009). Articles>User Interface>Wireless Web>Mobile

Great Designs Should Be Experienced and Not Seen

When things are going well in a design, we don't pay attention to them. We only pay attention to things that bother us. The same is true with online designs. We attend to things that aren't working far more than we attend to things that are. When the online experience frustrates us, we pay attention to its details, often because we're trying to figure out some way to outsmart it.

Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2009). Articles>Web Design>User Experience>User Interface

Reusing the User Experience

As a rule of thumb, the earlier in the development process reuse can occur, the more efficient reuse becomes. Like software component reuse, the reuse of UX design elements can be a very efficient form of reuse—particularly because this form of reuse occurs very early in the product development cycle. The ability to reuse prior work effectively is one characteristic of a mature discipline.

Hornsby, Peter. UXmatters (2009). Articles>Project Management>User Interface>Planning

Using Wikis to Document UI Specifications

As Agile gains momentum as a development approach of choice, documenting design becomes a challenge. Peter Gremett shows how using a wiki to capture your design is a great way to be adaptive as you build and deliver product to customers.

Gremett, Peter. Boxes and Arrows (2009). Articles>User Interface>Agile>Wikis

The Worst Interface Ever

Never, ever, ever let systems-level engineers do human interaction design unless they have displayed a proven secondary talent in that area.

Tognazzini, Bruce. Nielsen Norman Group (2004). Articles>User Interface>Case Studies

情報アーキテクチャの間違いトップ10

ウェブサイトは、その構造とナビゲーションシステムとが互いに支え合っていなければならない。検索システムとも結びついていなければならない。サブサイトに至るまで一体化していなければならない。複雑で、一貫性が無く、選択肢が隠れていて、UIが扱いにくければ、ユーザーは必要なものを見つけられない。

Nielsen, Jakob. Usability.gr.jp (2009). (Japanese) Articles>Web Design>Information Design>User Interface

The Art of Icons

Being "minimalist" and "streamlined" is not always most effective. Have you ever written yourself a quick, shorthand note, only to find later that you had no way to unpack your own great idea? Icons work similarly. They are pictures – meant to provide a visual shorthand to users moving through a task. While research indicates that icons are best when initially paired with text to increase recognition and learnability, users experienced with a given set of icons will begin to ignore the text, scanning for and acting from the image alone.

Michaels, Mary M. UI Design Newsletter (2007). Articles>Graphic Design>User Interface

Search Goal Redefinition Through User-System Interaction    

The purpose of this research is to examine search goal redefinition during users' interaction with information retrieval systems.

Hider, Philip M. Journal of Documentation (2007). Articles>Web Design>Search>User Interface

Systems Thinking: A Product Is More Than the Product

A product is actually a service. Although the designer, manufacturer, distributer, and seller may think it is a product, to the buyer, it offers a valuable service. In reality a product is all about the experience.

Norman, Donald A. Interactions (2009). Articles>User Interface>User Experience>Usability

Inside Out: Interaction Design for Augmented Reality

While ubiquitous computing remains an unpleasant mouthful of techno-babble to most people who know the term, and everyware is still an essentially unknown idea, the visibility of augmented reality has surged in the last twelve months.

Lamantia, Joe. UXmatters (2009). Articles>User Interface>User Experience>Information Design

The Inclusion Principle

Affordance allows us to look at something and intuitively understand how to interact with it. For example, when we see a small button next to a door, we know we should push it with a finger. Convention tells us it will make a sound, notifying the homeowner that someone is at the door. This concept transfers to the virtual environment: when we see a 3D-shaped button on a web page, we understand that we are supposed to “push” it with a mouse-click.

Link-Rodrigue, Margit. List Apart, A (2009). Articles>Web Design>User Interface>Usability

User Interface Pattern Documentation Review

User interface (UI) patterns have the potential to make software development more efficient. The prospect of such efficiency gains has led to interest in user interface (UI) patterns by individuals and organizations looking for ways to increase quality while at the same time reducing the costs associated with software development.

Stapleton, Patrick. Boxes and Arrows (2009). Articles>User Interface>Documentation>Functional Specifications

Review: A Review of the Balsamiq Mockups wireframing application

This is a review for Balsamiq Mockups. This is a reasonably-priced application for creating wireframes that is easy to learn and use suitable for smaller projects. Creating interactive prototypes out of Balsamiq wireframes is now possible with the release of another application called Napkee. This review talks talks about: Balsamiq Mockup specifications; Balsamiq’s distinct visual character and how it work both in favor and against Balsamiq being adopted by users; Pros and cons of the application; and a conclusion with a recommendation on who should use and what to use Balsamiq Mockups for.

Rautela, Abhay. Cone Trees (2009). Articles>Reviews>Software>User Interface

Enhancing User Interaction With First Person User Interface

First person user interfaces can be a good fit for applications that allow people to navigate the real world, “augment” their immediate surroundings with relevant information, and interact with objects or people directly around them.

Wroblewski, Luke. Smashing (2009). Articles>User Interface>Usability>3D

Powers of 10: Time Scales in User Experience

From 0.1 seconds to 10 years or more, user interface design has many different timeframes, and each has its own particular usability issues.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2009). Articles>Usability>User Experience>User Interface

Bringing Gaming to the Disabled

To a huge number of gamers and would-be gamers, though, even the most sensible and well-laid-out controller scheme is unplayable. For them, accessibility and interface issues make gaming at best an incomplete experience and at worst a total impossibility.

Hartford Courant (2009). Articles>Accessibility>User Interface>Games

Preferences Considered Harmful

Every programmer and user interface designer eventually comes to this point: You can’t decide how a specific part of your user interface should behave. It’s easy, of course. Just make it a preference, and everyone will be happy.

Mathis, Lukas. ignore the code (2008). Articles>User Interface>Usability>User Experience

Touchscreen Usability

Touchscreen devices can only work well if both hardware and software are uniquely optimized for touch interaction. Simply adding touch interaction to an existing device will make the user experience worse instead of better.

ignore the code (2009). Articles>User Interface>Human Computer Interaction

Treating User Myopia

Fortunately, you don't see dialogs in web apps much, but this sort of modal dialog lunacy is, sadly, becoming more popular in today's AJAX-y world of web 2.5. Those who can't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, I guess.

Atwood, Jeff. Coding Horror (2009). Articles>Web Design>User Interface>Usability

Teaching Users to Read

This may sound a little harsh, but you'll see, when you do usability tests, that there are quite a few users who simply do not read words that you put on the screen. If you pop up an error box of any sort, they simply will not read it.

Atwood, Jeff. Coding Horror (2004). Articles>User Interface>User Centered Design>Usability

The Consistency Conundrum

A common mandate at many software companies is “Make our products consistent!” I’ve heard this clarion call for consistency at every company I’ve worked for that has more than a single product or service. The rationale behind the consistency mandate is that it will reduce design and development costs, improve the overall quality of the software, strengthen the brand (“the products should all look like they come from the same company”), make learning easier for users, and reduce errors when multiple products are used together. These are all great goals, but there is a problem with the consistency mandate – consistency is complex, multi-dimensional, and sometimes at odds with other important goals like usability.

Wilson, Chauncey E. Designing the User Experience at Autodesk (2009). Articles>User Interface>Usability

The Road to XAML

XAML stands for eXtensible Application Markup Language and was created by Microsoft. It is currently the primary mechanism for declaratively creating the user interface in a Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) application. WPF is part of the .NET 3.0 framework. Why discuss these very technical things in a design blog post? The answer is simple: because XAML is designed for designers. It has other uses of course, but one of its main tenets is that XAML enables the separation of UI and logic (code). That is a very powerful concept! In this and future posts, I will explain how a few of us at Autodesk are using XAML in our design process as a way to enable design refinement during the Development phase.

Stein, Matt. Designing the User Experience at Autodesk (2009). Articles>User Interface>Programming>XML