http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Design/User-Interface A listing of the most recently indexed works about Design and User Interface in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Design/User-Interface http://tc.eserver.org/35655.html http://tc.eserver.org/35655.html The arrow and its brethren are everywhere on our computer screens. For example, a quick examination of the Firefox 3.0 browser, shown in Figure 1 in its standard configuration, yields eight examples of arrows—Forward, Back, and Reload buttons, scroll bar controls, and drop-down menus that reveal search engine, history, and bookmark choices. http://tc.eserver.org/35577.html http://tc.eserver.org/35577.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/35578.html http://tc.eserver.org/35578.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/35459.html http://tc.eserver.org/35459.html Clean. Easy to use. User-friendly. Intuitive. This mantra is proclaimed by many but often gets lost in translation. The culprit: complexity. How one deals with complexity can make or break an application. A complex interface can disorient the user in a mild case and completely alienate them in an extreme case. But if you take measures first to reduce actual complexity and then to minimize perceived complexity, the user will be rewarded with a gratifying experience. http://tc.eserver.org/35173.html http://tc.eserver.org/35173.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/35101.html http://tc.eserver.org/35101.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/35071.html http://tc.eserver.org/35071.html The YUI Library is a set of utilities and controls, written in JavaScript, for building richly interactive web applications using techniques such as DOM scripting, DHTML and AJAX. YUI is available under a BSD license and is free for all uses. http://tc.eserver.org/34935.html http://tc.eserver.org/34935.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/34950.html http://tc.eserver.org/34950.html The icons or baby faces used as part of user interface have now turned into a major aspect of product branding. With powerful computers, enhanced graphics capabilities, advanced tools for illustration, and professionals to advocate rich user experience, icon design has become more important and complex than ever before! Windows Vista has raised the standard of quality icons even higher. An interface design project forced me to think about ’style’ in icon design. It raised some basic questions in my mind. http://tc.eserver.org/34969.html http://tc.eserver.org/34969.html The purpose of this research is to examine search goal redefinition during users' interaction with information retrieval systems. http://tc.eserver.org/34903.html http://tc.eserver.org/34903.html 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。 http://tc.eserver.org/34563.html http://tc.eserver.org/34563.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/34539.html http://tc.eserver.org/34539.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/34514.html http://tc.eserver.org/34514.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/34321.html http://tc.eserver.org/34321.html What is simplicity? Simplicity is the quality of being natural, plain and easy to understand. It is not surprising then that simplicity is often thrived for in user interface design. Most people naturally dislike complexity in devices and software. Yes, some people find joy in figuring out how something works, but for most of us, being unable to operate a device leads to wasted time and frustration, and that’s not a good thing. If you can take a complex device or a piece of software and somehow rearrange, reorganize and redesign the interface to make it easy to use and understand, then you’re well on the way to delivering a better user experience. In this article I’m going to talk about 7 practical techniques that you can utilize in web design to make your websites or web applications simpler and less cluttered. http://tc.eserver.org/34065.html http://tc.eserver.org/34065.html Does a truly intuitive user interface exist? The author of this blog post doesn't think so. To create one, designers and developers really need to put the wrecking ball to the UI as it is now. http://tc.eserver.org/33840.html http://tc.eserver.org/33840.html This paper focuses on managing constraints in a way that enables developers to create an accessible and usable user interface (UI). The constraining processes presented in this paper comprise of a language to describe a logical web page in an application, a basic bottom-up repository management system and the processing required for compiling pages. http://tc.eserver.org/33720.html http://tc.eserver.org/33720.html Using patterns has become a well-known design practice and is also considered best practice in the software development community. While UX teams can and should constantly promote best practice, we can also approach tackling poor design practice from the other side: antipatterns. Antipatterns are approaches to common problems that might appear obvious, but are less than optimal in practice. http://tc.eserver.org/33453.html http://tc.eserver.org/33453.html Usage goes down as interaction costs increase. User motivation determines how fast demand drops, following an elasticity curve. http://tc.eserver.org/33432.html http://tc.eserver.org/33432.html We love stories, recognise patterns in fractions of a second and have a set of highly developed social behaviours. In "Persuasive Design" Mike will be running through a collection of these hard-wired influence points and exploring how they can be used in the design of products, interfaces and experiences. http://tc.eserver.org/33384.html http://tc.eserver.org/33384.html AJAX enables faster, more responsive Web applications through a combination of asynchronous Javascript, the Document Object Model (DOM), and XMLhttpRequest. What this means for Web interface designers is that a DHTML-based Web application can make quick, incremental updates to a user interface without reloading the entire screen. http://tc.eserver.org/33371.html http://tc.eserver.org/33371.html I’d personally love a computer experience which emphasized ‘flow’ and gradual, constant change. No longer would every little change pull your attention away from an important task. Instead, those Mail notifications, system messages and the like could gently change without you noticing, until you decided you wanted to actually look. http://tc.eserver.org/33203.html http://tc.eserver.org/33203.html Years back, we compared successful clickstreams (clickstreams that resulted in users accomplishing their goals, as observed in tons of usability tests) with unsuccessful clickstreams (clickstreams where users abandoned their goals before completing), looking for any clues that would help us predict behaviors in one that we didn’t see in the other. One factor we looked for was whether the clickstreams contained image links versus text links — does one type of link show up more often in successful clickstreams than the other. Our finding was when users clicked in image links they were just as likely to succeed or fail as when the clicked on text links. There was no statistically-meaningful difference. http://tc.eserver.org/33001.html http://tc.eserver.org/33001.html When McAfee Inc. recently introduced its ProtectionPilot software--a dashboard-type management console for its Active VirusScan SMB Edition and Active Virus Defense SMB Edition suites--the trial downloads were fast and furious: In the first 10 weeks after release, more than 20,000 users went online to get a copy. http://tc.eserver.org/32721.html http://tc.eserver.org/32721.html The whole may be more than the sum of its parts, but without the parts, there is no whole. Lest that sound like some weird philosophical meandering to you, take comfort in observing the finer aspects of creative and appealing user interface design. http://tc.eserver.org/32672.html http://tc.eserver.org/32672.html Making use of the overflow and scrollLeft DOM property to scroll elements is a much more effective use of the CPU, over animating using CSS top/left. So this episode of J4D demonstrates the same effect used in two completely different ways. http://tc.eserver.org/32238.html http://tc.eserver.org/32238.html I recently conducted a study into the helpfulness (or lack thereof) of zebra striping—the shading of alternate rows in a table or form. The study measured performance as users completed a series of tasks and found no statistically significant improvement in accuracy—and very little statistically significant improvement in speed when zebra stripes were implemented. http://tc.eserver.org/32029.html http://tc.eserver.org/32029.html The common wisdom is that we now live in the age of information; the freedom and access we have to data is unprecedented in history; and the efficiency and convenience of online commerce, research, and communication has already transformed our lives for the better. While this is true, of course, our excitement should be tempered by a few realizations. http://tc.eserver.org/31996.html http://tc.eserver.org/31996.html One of the most frequent tasks on many intranets is finding people within the company. Providing an effective way to search people is thus a key goal in designing intranets. This goal becomes even more important for an organization like Emirates, a leading international airline, which has over 35,000 employees with over 140 nationalities and where more people are likely to use this feature more frequently. http://tc.eserver.org/30862.html http://tc.eserver.org/30862.html Designers of DVDs have failed to profit from the lessons of previous media: Computer software, Internet web pages, and even WAP phones. As a result, the DVD menu structure is getting more and more baroque, less and less usable, less pleasurable, less effective. It is time to take DVD design as seriously as we do web design. The field needs some discipline some attention to the User Experience, and some standardization of control and display formats. http://tc.eserver.org/30828.html http://tc.eserver.org/30828.html AJAX, rich Internet UIs, mashups, communities, and user-generated content often add more complexity than they're worth. They also divert design resources and prove (once again) that what's hyped is rarely what's most profitable. http://tc.eserver.org/30801.html http://tc.eserver.org/30801.html It's not that people resist change whole-scale. They just hate losing control and feeling stupid. When we make critical changes, we risk putting our users in that position. We must take care to ensure that we've considered the process of change as much as we've considered the technology changes themselves. Only then will we end up with changes that our users embrace. http://tc.eserver.org/30793.html http://tc.eserver.org/30793.html By its nature, all UI consists of two parts: input and output. When designing output information, the matching between system model and conceptual model actually results in another commonly used UI design principle: 'use users' language'. To be more specific, when displaying information to users, such as prompt messages or error messages, the words or terms used should be understandable to users. http://tc.eserver.org/30794.html http://tc.eserver.org/30794.html For programmers, a programming language is a software tool. Its interface consists of its lexicon, grammar and semantic rules. From this view, using a language to do programming is actually using that tool to accomplish something. As we will see shortly, different languages vary greatly in the degree of how they get close to programmer's conceptual model. http://tc.eserver.org/30791.html http://tc.eserver.org/30791.html If you let your developers create your UI, hilarity ensues. http://tc.eserver.org/30683.html http://tc.eserver.org/30683.html The design decisions that both industrial designers and interaction designers have made on the Breva provide an enhanced experience for the rider--that is, for me. http://tc.eserver.org/30665.html http://tc.eserver.org/30665.html With Ajax still one of the industry's hottest buzzwords, more and more applications are being built with Ajax technologies. However, it's not always easy to build a good application. This article focuses on how to build intuitive, easy-to-use Ajax-driven applications. http://tc.eserver.org/30632.html http://tc.eserver.org/30632.html An interview with David Malouf on his article, Foundations of Interaction Design. We discuss several foundations of Interaction design including time, metaphor, abstraction, and negative space. David also provides greater detail to comments posted on his article from readers from around the world. http://tc.eserver.org/30345.html http://tc.eserver.org/30345.html A well-thought-out design and well-written content reduces the time required for good international products and saves money. As a bonus, most internationalization issues apply across all languages and usually help improve the quality of the American-language product as well. http://tc.eserver.org/30033.html http://tc.eserver.org/30033.html Watching DVDs can be a frustrating experience, because DVD menus often miss out on usability and are complex and difficult to navigate through. Similar to the early years of web development, there is a lack of design standards. In this paper, we show the development of user interface guidelines for DVD menus. These guidelines can be used to design and evaluate DVD menus. We built a prototype according to the guidelines, conducted usability tests with the prototype and evaluated other movie DVDs using the guidelines to show the applicability, utility and usability of the guidelines. http://tc.eserver.org/30036.html http://tc.eserver.org/30036.html DVD menus often suffer from serious usability problems, which has a negative impact on the user experience. The reason for this is that there is a lack of design standards. In this paper we describe the development of user interface guidelines for DVD menus and present the final guidelines. In order to obtain usable and applicable guidelines we went through three phases, which included among other usability-engineering methods an expert walkthrough, a ua prototype, and validating and improving the guidelines. http://tc.eserver.org/30031.html http://tc.eserver.org/30031.html When we create technologies that are extremely complex and do not provide comprehensive feedback for each and every possible error, such as a seat belt left unbuckled, people have a tendency to drive their aircraft into garden parties. When we create technologies where similar actions produce dissimilar results, such as placing a brake and accelerator pedal side-by-side, to be actuated in the identical manner by the identical limb, people will periodically die. http://tc.eserver.org/30027.html http://tc.eserver.org/30027.html The experience profile of a product can be described in terms of these experiential components. Once such an experience profile has been properly defined, it must be translated in all product properties the designer can affect. It has an effect on the sensorial aspects of the product, but also on the way it functions, it affects the way people operate the product and even the way the product is marketed. In sum, the profile has an impact on all aspects that together shape the human-product interaction. http://tc.eserver.org/30012.html http://tc.eserver.org/30012.html Abstract user interface prototypes offer designers a form of representation for specification and exploration of visual and interaction design ideas that is intermediate between abstract task models and realistic or representational prototypes. Canonical Abstract Prototypes are an extension to usage-centered design that provides a formal vocabulary for expressing visual and interaction designs without concern for details of appearance and behavior. A standardized abstract design vocabulary facilitates comparison of designs, eases recognition and simplifies description of common design patterns, and lays the foundations for better software tools. This paper covers recent refinements in the modeling notation and the set of Canonical Abstract Components. New applications of abstract prototypes to design patterns are discussed, and variations in software tools support are outlined. http://tc.eserver.org/30022.html http://tc.eserver.org/30022.html The design of a special-purpose selection list is reviewed. As part of a performance-support application for classroom teachers, a means was needed for rapid selection from a large number of alternative words. By taking into account the inherent structure of the terms in the list, instead of treating it as a simple list of unspecified objects, a more efficient and more easily used design was achieved. By incorporating the structure of the alternatives, the design was also able to reflect and support best practices in classroom lesson planning. http://tc.eserver.org/30015.html http://tc.eserver.org/30015.html Naked Objects, the latest incarnation of the persistent notion of object-oriented user interfaces, proposes to eliminate the need for visual and interaction design of user interfaces by always presenting users with unadorned domain objects in a standard form and by constraining all interaction to the same few interaction idioms. Such simplistic user interfaces can be generated automatically through a software framework. This article examines the likely impact of the Naked Objects approach in light of its strengths and shortcomings as well as its undeniable appeal to developers and decision makers seeking shortcuts to user interface design. The ultimate significance of Naked Objects may be in the lessons it offers for practicing professionals, lessons that highlight the need for empowering users as problem-solvers by giving them better tools that enable them to achieve diverse ends by diverse means. http://tc.eserver.org/30018.html http://tc.eserver.org/30018.html In practice, designers often select user interface elements like widgets intuitively. So, important design decisions may never become conscious or explicit, and therefore also not traceable. In order to improve this situation, we propose a systematic process for selecting user interface elements (in the form of widgets) in a few explicitly defined steps, starting from usage scenarios. This process provides a seamless way of going from scenarios through (attached) subtask definitions and various task classifications and (de)compositions to widget classes. In this way, it makes an important part of user interface design more systematic and conscious. For an initial evaluation of the usefulness of this approach, we conducted a small experiment that compares the widgets of an industrial GUI that was developed as usual by experienced practitioners, with the outcome of an independent execution of the proposed process. Since the results of this experiment are encouraging, we suggest to investigate this approach further in real-world practice. http://tc.eserver.org/29954.html http://tc.eserver.org/29954.html In a world where everything is designed to amaze and distract, it's awfully difficult to get a user's attention. Learn how to use new techniques such as lightboxes, pop-ups, windows, and fading messages with your Ajax tools to get your users' eyes on your content. http://tc.eserver.org/29964.html http://tc.eserver.org/29964.html File upload is a basic function of today's Web portals. In this article, authors Xiaobo Yang and Rob Allan describe how to develop an Ajax-based file upload JSR 168-compliant portlet using DWR (Direct Web Remoting). DWR is an ideal Ajax framework for Java developers that dynamically generates JavaScript based on server-side deployed Java classes. You will learn how you can use DWR to retrieve file upload progress from the portal server. http://tc.eserver.org/29821.html http://tc.eserver.org/29821.html Rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) represents a mechanism for exhibiting temporal information instead of spatial information to overcome the limitations of small-screen devices. Previous studies examining this area focused only on information presented by RSVP displays and disregarded changes in the performance of accompanying tasks associated with such displays. Therefore, this investigation performed a dual-task experiment (a search task for static information and a reading task for RSVP display information) to examine the effects of presentation mode (character-by-character, word-by-word, and one-line format), speed (171, 260, 350, and 430 characters per minute, or cpm), and text-flow orientation (vertical and horizontal orientation) of RSVP display information on the visual performance of users during different stages of usage (whether current usage is the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, or eighth day of usage) for a small screen. http://tc.eserver.org/29820.html http://tc.eserver.org/29820.html Incorporating emotional value into products has become an essential strategy for increasing a product's competitive edge in the consumer market. It is therefore important for product manufacturers to understand how products affect consumers' emotions. This study was undertaken to investigate the types and characteristics of household products that elicit pleasurable responses, in particular among young, college-age consumers. The results of the study could suggest the types and characteristics to consider when developing pleasurable products aimed at young consumers. http://tc.eserver.org/29819.html http://tc.eserver.org/29819.html Due to limitations on screen size and resolution, the usability of web maps relies heavily on their interface design. The main goal of this research is to find better interface designs for web maps and to facilitate their usage by the public. The research consists of two stages of investigation: (a) a survey on the operation interfaces of popular web maps; and (b) a usability evaluation of simulated interfaces by measuring task performance and conducting subjective evaluations. http://tc.eserver.org/29813.html http://tc.eserver.org/29813.html When we ask designers what stage they spend the bulk of their time in when launching a product, the majority of designers answer, the Implementation Stage. However, our research shows that the teams launching the most usable products on schedule and on budget spend the bulk of their time in the Measure and Learn stage. http://tc.eserver.org/29766.html http://tc.eserver.org/29766.html Many web sites and applications include a search feature. Often they provide an extremely simple search interface consisting of a single text box and a "Go" button. Sometimes, however, the users' tasks call for more sophistication, and guidelines for complex search interfaces are difficult to find. This paper details four levels of search interface, and it provides heuristics (guidelines) to use when designing complex search interfaces. Different solutions are appropriate, depending on the users' motivation and knowledge of their subject, experience using search interfaces, and search goals. Finally, PubMed serves as a useful example to illustrate how these guidelines can be used to analyze existing search interfaces. http://tc.eserver.org/29672.html http://tc.eserver.org/29672.html How can a designer increase the degree to which people bond with a product? This is the question researcher Ruth Mugge tackled, who has recently received her PhD degree on this topic at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering of Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. http://tc.eserver.org/29591.html http://tc.eserver.org/29591.html The amount of data stored in personal digital devices increases rapidly as their memory capacities increase. These devices are usually equipped with relatively small displays, which makes presenting the information a challenge. We set out to explore the spatial design space for small screen user interfaces by incorporating additional dimensions into the visual representation, and investigate techniques that may be used to display more information at once. We focus on interactive visualization, with a document manager as a target application. We present the design factors and a simulated application running on a desktop computer. We also report a formative usability study with promising results. http://tc.eserver.org/29588.html http://tc.eserver.org/29588.html XML has revolutionized application UI design in recent years. With a cunning blend of XML and script languages such as JavaScript, rich, aesthetically pleasing applications can be quickly constructed with ease. We've looked at Widgets and XUL as two examples of this in the past and now, I'm going to take a look at some of the innovative Java UI toolkits that implement XML as an integral mechanism for application II design. Please note, this is the first part of a two-part article. http://tc.eserver.org/29509.html http://tc.eserver.org/29509.html Why do so many good designs get trampled during the product development process? If everyone is trying to create something good for their customers, why is the development process so rife with disagreements and compromises that actually hurt businesses in the long run? If everyone has the same good intentions, can't the business people just make up their minds about what kind of product they want to create and let design create the right solution? http://tc.eserver.org/29508.html http://tc.eserver.org/29508.html As creators of digital user experiences, we must transform complex workflows and tasks into useful applications. Experts have written much about the UX design process as it applies to broad audiences, industry-specific vertical markets, and large corporate user groups. However, as our evolving information economy continues to encourage greater and greater specialization of job roles, there is an increased need for customized applications--digital systems that only a select few people will ever use. http://tc.eserver.org/29496.html http://tc.eserver.org/29496.html Monthly articles on the latest usability research and its practical implications for user interface design. http://tc.eserver.org/29288.html http://tc.eserver.org/29288.html The original tab signaled an information storage revolution and helped enable everything from management consulting to electronic data processing. http://tc.eserver.org/28956.html http://tc.eserver.org/28956.html I am in favor of good design and attractive products. Easy to use products. But when it comes time to purchase, people tend to go for the more powerful products, and they judge the power by the apparent complexity of the controls. If that is what people use as a purchasing choice, we must provide it for them. While making the actual complexity low, the real simplicity high. That's an exciting design challenge: make it look powerful while also making it easy to use. And attractive. And affordable. And functional. And environmentally appropriate. Accessible to all. That's why I like design: it presents wonderful challenges. http://tc.eserver.org/28913.html http://tc.eserver.org/28913.html Many UX designers--myself included--approach projects from a combination of information architecture, information design, interaction design, and visual design perspectives. These disciplines and their methods are fundamentally different from those people use to construct the continuous linear narratives we see and hear in film, video, and music. However, as the technologies for creating interactive user experiences become more robust--especially in the realm of Rich Internet Applications (RIAs)--we have an opportunity to draw upon a much wider visual vocabulary. This will also make narrative elements such as timing, pacing, and rhythm increasingly important. Using such design elements may enable us to move users from mere understanding to engagement and, ultimately, to immersion in our digital products and services. http://tc.eserver.org/28784.html http://tc.eserver.org/28784.html Jarrett is one of the authors of User Interface Design and Evaluation, a beginning text for technical communicators moving into user interface design. Jarrett says this book is a perfect start for users looking to add usability basics to their toolbox. She also talks about forms, and how the best forms are ones you barely notice. http://tc.eserver.org/28680.html http://tc.eserver.org/28680.html For UX designers, some of the most exciting projects to work on are new-to-the-world or breakthrough products that solve real problems people didn't even realize they had. Get them right and they may be hugely successful in the marketplace, but they're also the riskiest projects. While user-centered design (UCD) techniques can sometimes be valuable on new-product projects, more often, they don't seem to work particularly well when designing breakthrough products. Here are some lessons I've learned from my own work on new-product projects. http://tc.eserver.org/28692.html http://tc.eserver.org/28692.html During my years as an interface designer, I've worked with lots of different development teams. From big companies to small startups, the interactions between me--the product designer--and developers have been pretty consistent. We work through what interactions and features are possible given our timeframe and resources. We discuss edge cases and clarify how specific interactions should work. We debate product strategy, information architecture, target audience, front-end technologies, and more. We also frequently encounter the same issue: the need to consider what's not there. http://tc.eserver.org/28683.html http://tc.eserver.org/28683.html How ironic that we think we can get more exact results from our computers by emulating human interaction, but when we want exact results from human interaction, we unintentionally emulate computers. Engineering, air traffic control, legal contracts--in all endeavors where precise communication is critical--our success has depended on washing out human emotion and natural language in favor of formal procedures and protocols, complete with a detailed domain-specific language. http://tc.eserver.org/28679.html http://tc.eserver.org/28679.html Without cooperation among designers of digital products, the proliferation of complex information systems can lead to unintended consequences--chiefly user fatigue, frustration, and the confusion that results from dealing with a host of variant user interfaces. http://tc.eserver.org/28686.html http://tc.eserver.org/28686.html Here are some 'truths' we've all heard: 'Documentation is just a band-aid for poor design.' 'Real users don't read manuals.' 'Super users never read anything.' 'Help doesn't.' But are they really true? I've seen some signs of life in the use of documentation for digital products recently. http://tc.eserver.org/28663.html http://tc.eserver.org/28663.html For backgrounds behind text, use solid, contrasting colors, and avoid the use of textures and patterns, which can make letterforms difficult to distinguish or even illegible. Choose combinations of text color and background color with care. Value contrast between body text and its background color should be a minimum of about eighty percent. http://tc.eserver.org/28662.html http://tc.eserver.org/28662.html If you do not consider the needs of people with color-deficient vision when choosing color schemes for applications and Web pages, those you create may be difficult to use or even indecipherable for about one in twelve users. http://tc.eserver.org/28668.html http://tc.eserver.org/28668.html Of all the objects that occupy our digital spaces, there are none that capture the imagination so much as icons. As symbols, icons can communicate powerfully, be delightful, add to the aesthetic value of software, engage people's curiosity and playfulness, and encourage experimentation. These symbols are key components of a graphic user interface--mediators between our thoughts and actions, our intentions and accomplishments. http://tc.eserver.org/28659.html http://tc.eserver.org/28659.html Successful Web applications tend to grow--both in terms of capability and complexity. And this increasing complexity is often passed on to and absorbed by a Web application's forms. In addition to needing more input fields, labels, and Help text, forms with a growing number of options may also require selection-dependent inputs. http://tc.eserver.org/28500.html http://tc.eserver.org/28500.html Prototypes often model one flow of interaction--the path that users are most likely to take. But when we create interaction designs with dynamic and complex flows, we often need to include deviations from the sunshine scenarios to see whether they work. In this article, we'll look at how to do this Visio and Axure. http://tc.eserver.org/28496.html http://tc.eserver.org/28496.html Selections of 'least favorite' designs from graduate students of the George Mason University Department of Psychology. http://tc.eserver.org/28349.html http://tc.eserver.org/28349.html It seems strange to be talking about something as basic as 'navigation' 11 years into the web era. And yet, if you’re a web designer, chances are you’ve made some mistakes in this fundamental area. I know I have. So let’s go back to basics. http://tc.eserver.org/28332.html http://tc.eserver.org/28332.html Navigation refers to the method used to find information within a Web site. A navigation page is used primarily to help users locate and link to destination pages. A Web site's navigation scheme and features should allow users to find and access information effectively and efficiently. When possible, this means designers should keep navigation-only pages short. Designers should include site maps, and provide effective feedback on the user's location within the site. To facilitate navigation, designers should differentiate and group navigation elements and use appropriate menu types. It is also important to use descriptive tab labels, provide a clickable list of page contents on long pages, and add ‘glosses' where they will help users select the correct link. In well-designed sites, users do not get trapped in dead-end pages. http://tc.eserver.org/28256.html http://tc.eserver.org/28256.html Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction is an explanation of the design of the current and next generation interactive technologies, such as the web, mobiles, wearables. These exciting new technologies bring additional challenges for designers and developers - challenges that require careful thought and a disciplined approach. Written for both students and practitioners from a broad range of backgrounds, this book addresses these challenges using a practical and refreshing approach. The text covers a wide range of issues, topics and paradigms that go beyond the traditional human-computer interaction (HCI). http://tc.eserver.org/28231.html http://tc.eserver.org/28231.html When asked to project 50 years ahead, a scientist is in a bit of a quandary. It is easy to indulge in wishful thinking, or to promote favorite current projects and proposals, but it is a daunting task to anticipate what will actually come to pass in a time span that is eons long in our modern accelerated age. If fifty years ago, when the ACM was founded, biologists had been asked to predict the next 50 years of biology, it would have taken amazing prescience to anticipate the science of molecular biology. Or for that matter, only a few years before the initiation of the ACM even those with the most insight about computing would have been completely unable to foresee today's world of pervasive workstations, mobile communicators, and gigabit networking. http://tc.eserver.org/28211.html http://tc.eserver.org/28211.html All things have an interface. Shaping interfaces is shaping the character of things. The brand is what transports the character of things. When looking at McDonalds, iPod, Nintendo DS it becomes quite obvious that the interface is the brand. http://tc.eserver.org/28219.html http://tc.eserver.org/28219.html As an information designer the interfaces we currently work on - no matter whether Apple or Windows, bother me. Yes, OS X looks a lot better than its predecessors, and Windows' upcoming rip off of OS X looks better than the previous rip off. But however pretty, glossy and lickable those Interfaces may look, no matter how many twist and turn effects they build in - the problem they have is not one of special effects. If a good interface were a matter of special effects, George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic might do a very good job. http://tc.eserver.org/28205.html http://tc.eserver.org/28205.html Increasing numbers of websites are developing new types of user interface design, taking advantage of users' increasing levels of Internet-sophistication and faster connections. This article will have a look at some of them. http://tc.eserver.org/28107.html http://tc.eserver.org/28107.html Passwords are a widely used mechanism for user authentication and are thus critical to the security of many systems. Strong passwords (e.g., b5j#Kv!8N) are less vulnerable to attack but at the same time more difficult to remember. Minimal-feedback hints are introduced to support users in remembering their passwords and thereby enabling them to choose stronger passwords. http://tc.eserver.org/28093.html http://tc.eserver.org/28093.html A multi-leveled framework for user interface design guidelines of Web applications is presented. User interface design guidelines tend to provide information that is either too general, so that it is difficult to apply to a specific case, or too specific, so that a wide range of products is not supported. The framework presented is unique in that it provides a bridge between the two extremes. It has been dubbed the "Bull's-Eye' due to its five layers, represented as concentric circles. The center of the Bull's-Eye is the Component layer, followed by Page Templates, Page Flows, Interface Models and Patterns, and Overarching Features and Principles. To support this approach,requirements were gathered from user interface designers,product managers, UI developers, and product developers. Also, usability testing of the guidelines occurred on several levels, from broad guideline tests to more specific product tests. The guidelines and lessons learned are intended to serve as examples for others seeking to design families of Web applications or Web sites. http://tc.eserver.org/28094.html http://tc.eserver.org/28094.html Every software development team either hires a UI specialist or consults an expert to design the next best killer application. As more and more users log onto the net, user base tends to grow and new technologies evolve, web developers and designers are left with very little time to cope up with new techniques in user interface. Thus a new wave of User Interface issues has occurred in the software development life cycle. http://tc.eserver.org/28096.html http://tc.eserver.org/28096.html Interface standards provide context-specific guidance for implementing a system based on the task goals and functions within it. A solid standard provides guidance at two levels. At the level of look and feel, it ensures consistency throughout the application or site. To be meaningful in usability terms, the standard also must provide guidance to support a consistent experience at the functional level. http://tc.eserver.org/28097.html http://tc.eserver.org/28097.html 'Standards': the word strikes fear in designers around the globe, and makes engineers lives so much easier that they bow at its alter. (Yes, this is an exaggeration for affect, but an important one.) But before we can dig a big deeper into standards for designers, we need to do some definition work. http://tc.eserver.org/28018.html http://tc.eserver.org/28018.html A usability assessment entailing a paper prototype was conducted to examine menu selection theories on a small screen device by determining the effectiveness, efficiency, and user satisfaction of a popular cellular phone's menu system. Outcomes of this study suggest that users prefer a less extensive menu structure on a small screen device. The investigation also covered factors of category classification and item labeling influencing user performance in menu selection. Research findings suggest that proper modifications in these areas could significantly enhance the system's usability and demonstrate the validity of paper-prototyping which is capable of detecting significant differences in usability measures among various model designs. http://tc.eserver.org/27993.html http://tc.eserver.org/27993.html Icons that are difficult to tell apart can lead to disastrous consequences. Queen shows us how studying the way the human visual system encodes information can lead to more effective icon design. http://tc.eserver.org/27726.html http://tc.eserver.org/27726.html It is now possible to make flexible layout with user-friendly short lines that adapt to screen resolution, to width of browser window, and to font-size chosen by the user. This could be a new beginning for more accessible and usable web pages. http://tc.eserver.org/27549.html http://tc.eserver.org/27549.html You know all that copy that goes around your forms and in your confirmation e-mails? Who’s writing it? Derek Powazek explains why it’s important for user-interface designers to sharpen up their writing skills. http://tc.eserver.org/27312.html http://tc.eserver.org/27312.html These guidelines are designed to assist you in developing products that provide Mac OS X users with a consistent visual and behavioral experience across applications and the operating system. http://tc.eserver.org/27016.html http://tc.eserver.org/27016.html Personal computing is in an awkward adolescence right now. On one hand, we are rapidly moving into ubiquitous computing environments that let people constantly interact with the omnipresent network; on the other, the devices and interfaces we are using to enter these new frontiers provide woefully inadequate user experiences. Let's take a look at one of the key technologies that will take mobile user experiences to the next level: holography. http://tc.eserver.org/27010.html http://tc.eserver.org/27010.html Design professionals often decry the lack of importance and investment their companies place on design. After all, most software projects revolve around a product's engineering, to the ongoing detriment of its design--not to mention the chagrin of so many designers, who wriggle uncomfortably toward the bottom of the food chain. But there is a good reason for this: products can be very profitable without investing a single penny in interface design--at least, beyond the user interfaces the engineers build. Indeed, at least in the early stages of a market or company, resources dedicated to intentional interface design are often a bonus rather than being viewed as a necessity. http://tc.eserver.org/27017.html http://tc.eserver.org/27017.html Many software programs provide access to, and let users work with, large amounts of information. In addition to interactions that allow users to create, edit, and expand massive data sets, these information-rich applications must also support effective data interpretation. Data monitoring, reporting, and modeling applications require people to makes sense of large amounts of information quickly and easily. It should come as no surprise, then, that for such applications many interface design problems are actually information design problems. As a result, we can leverage information design solutions when tackling such problems. Using small multiples is one such solution. http://tc.eserver.org/26958.html http://tc.eserver.org/26958.html 我正坐在百老汇的一间咖啡厅里写这篇文章。我坐在这里已经有一会了，写文章，回邮件，用手机和我的客户联系，看着窗外移动的世界，享受着 3美元一杯的咖啡。昨天晚上，我很荣幸作为嘉宾出席了在纽约市举行的的设计与营销的学术会议。那是一个美好的夜晚，我的演讲收到了很好的效果。会议结束后，组织部门的工作人员将我领到了离时代广场差不多一个街区远的一家非常棒的餐厅用餐。在享受美味的晚餐的同时，我们的话题自然地就转到了设计和推广出色的产品与服务上。谈了一会后，其中一个人问我，在我看来哪个设计是永远伟大的的设计。 http://tc.eserver.org/26949.html http://tc.eserver.org/26949.html Human Factors is often used interchangeably with User Interface Design or Human-Computer Interface. There is a lot of overlap in these disciplines; however, Human Factors generally refers to hardware design while HCI generally refers to software design. http://tc.eserver.org/26915.html http://tc.eserver.org/26915.html Web browsers are funny things. On the one hand, they’re supposed to be lightweight little programs that just let you view websites, and on the other, they carry the same burdens as operating systems and application suites, trying to provide everything to everyone. Here in this little essay I explain what I know about designing browsers. I’m in the lucky minority of people that have actually designed successful browsers, or parts of them, for any length of time, and with Firefox and Opera in the headlines, and the art of browser design becomes important again, I thought I’d write down some of what I know. Its been years since I was a program manager on the Internet Explorer project, but I’ve maintained interests in the design of navigation and searching systems of all kinds: what follows is a rough summary of what I’ve learned. http://tc.eserver.org/26905.html http://tc.eserver.org/26905.html 草图和原型是产品的整个设计过程中不可缺少的一个环节，这对设计概念的产生，以及和他人进行讨论和评价时都十分重要，尤其是在以用户为中心设计的情况下。原型的方法是设计教育的必修部分、是专家的工具包，但如果能够将这一过程展示给产品和界面开发过程中其他学科的人士，也具备巨大的价值。 http://tc.eserver.org/26784.html http://tc.eserver.org/26784.html Sketching and modeling are integral features of the design process, critical for both the generation of ideas, and the communication of concepts to others for discussion and evaluation, particularly in the context of human-centered design. While these methods are a natural component of the designer’s education and professional tool kit, there is immense value in exposing other professions involved in the development of products and interfaces to at least a limited set of these same basic tools. http://tc.eserver.org/26658.html http://tc.eserver.org/26658.html A well designed user interface is comprehensible and controllable, helping users to complete their work successfully and efficiently, and to feel competent and satisfied. Effective user interfaces are designed based on principles of human interface design. The principles listed below are consolidated from a wide range of published sources (Constantine & Lockwood, 1999; Cooper & Reimann, 2003; Gerhardt-Powals, 1996; Lidwell, Holden & Butler, 2003; Nielsen, 1994; Schneiderman, 1998; Tognazzini, 2003) and are based on a long history of human-computer interaction research, cognitive psychology, and design best practices. http://tc.eserver.org/26551.html http://tc.eserver.org/26551.html This studio/seminar course will contribute to students' practical and theoretical knowledge of user-centered interface design. In the move from Engineering English to Technical Communication, technical communicators increasingly work with and within computer interfaces, as content developers, as human-factors and usability experts, and as information designers. This course examines both the work of interface design, focused on web and multimedia interfaces, and the theory of such work, particularly where it intersects with critical and cultural theory. We'll be looking at the development of user-centered and participatory design (Johnson, Ehn, Winograd), critical theories of technology (Foucault, Feinberg), and design strategies for critiquing or politicizing design (Laurel, Kolko). http://tc.eserver.org/26540.html http://tc.eserver.org/26540.html When McAfee launched it's new ProtectionPilot software in the summer of 2004, the number of support calls they received was drastically less than expected and what is typical of a software launch. The article on softwareceo.com presents 23 tips attributed to McAfee's success with the ProtectionPilot launch. http://tc.eserver.org/26447.html http://tc.eserver.org/26447.html When forms give users the option to continue in two or more alternative directions, such as registering as a new customer or signing in as a returning one, unfortunate users will take the wrong turn if it isn't unmistakably obvious which way they should go. In this article, we'll take a look at a few intersection flows that have caused users problems. http://tc.eserver.org/26456.html http://tc.eserver.org/26456.html The Explorer bar is a component of the Internet Explorer web browser that provides a unified model for web navigation activities. The user tasks of searching for new sites, visiting favorite sites, and accessing previously viewed sites are simplified and enhanced by using a single user interface element. http://tc.eserver.org/26451.html http://tc.eserver.org/26451.html The IxDA Resource Library is an annotated collection of content on all aspects of interaction design. http://tc.eserver.org/26448.html http://tc.eserver.org/26448.html Most web development projects put a lot of effort into the design of navigation tools. But fact is that people tend to ignore these tools. They are fixated on getting what they came for and simply click on links or hit the back button to get there. http://tc.eserver.org/26420.html http://tc.eserver.org/26420.html Traditionally, web applications are accessed via a single mode interface; information is presented and captured with text. However, one can additionally use a voice browser to navigate the Internet. One can navigate or access 'hands free' Internet applications from anywhere; you are not restricted to the desktop or a portable computer. VoiceXML is a language for Internet telephony applications and is based on the XML language. VoiceXML can 'speech-enable' an existing web application to be used through a conversational interface, providing a more natural way of interaction between users and Internet applications. http://tc.eserver.org/26414.html http://tc.eserver.org/26414.html The Java programming language contains object-oriented features enabling the construction of interface-based application frameworks. Interfaces separate module implementation from core implementation, thus simplifying module development. The following article demonstrates how to take advantage of Java interfaces by designing and implementing a game playing application framework. http://tc.eserver.org/26374.html http://tc.eserver.org/26374.html The phrase User agent or user-agent or UA or browser or client or client application or client software program...all pretty much refer to the same thing. Or maybe not. http://tc.eserver.org/26159.html http://tc.eserver.org/26159.html User interfaces vary significantly from library to library, and even within a library, from library holdings to CD-ROM databases to web resources. Why such variation? http://tc.eserver.org/26076.html http://tc.eserver.org/26076.html To offset this sometimes irritating tendency to critique and redesign everything we see, I'd like to offer a selection of software that I consider to be truly well-designed. To avoid creating a list that is simply an expression of my personal taste (which of course it is, to some extent), I devised some criteria as necessary aspects of a well-designed software product. http://tc.eserver.org/25972.html http://tc.eserver.org/25972.html This article discusses dynamic annotation (DA), a feature that allows developers to improve the accessibility of their user interface. http://tc.eserver.org/25971.html http://tc.eserver.org/25971.html This article is for developers and content editors seeking to supplement the visual elements of a user interface with text equivalents. This article describes what text equivalents are, why they are required, how to create them, and the best approach to writing and editing them. http://tc.eserver.org/25738.html http://tc.eserver.org/25738.html We have not really given much attention to what most people think of when they think about the topic of internationalization as applied to the design of computer systems. For most people the issue is one of making a system (generally developed for a particular national audience) acceptable in another country. http://tc.eserver.org/25696.html http://tc.eserver.org/25696.html Help your site’s visitors reach their goals quickly with a dynamic menu that takes its cue from the Mac OS X Finder. http://tc.eserver.org/25625.html http://tc.eserver.org/25625.html Over 50% of the work done by the designer on a day-to-day basis is routine design that consists of reusing past design solutions (Moore, 1993). Despite of this fact, there are no tools that rationally support reuse of such solutions. Case-based design (CBD) has been pointed out as a promising aid to help this situation. In order to be of practical use, however, a case-based design system has to be able to use the information that the designer creates during the design process. The design information that the designer creates is today mostly in the form of weakly structured information, e.g. text documents, calculation documents, and 2D-drawings. This paper proposes an approach that enables capturing and representation of weakly structured information for the purpose of case-based structural design. The representation proposed allows us to apply most of the objectoriented abstract principles also on weakly structured information. It is also shown how the conceptual framework, the dependency structure, and the design process can be captured, represented, and used in CBD. The approach is successfully implemented into a prototype for reuse of computerized design calculation documents. http://tc.eserver.org/25531.html http://tc.eserver.org/25531.html The best web interfaces take time – the one asset that seems to be in perpetually short supply. Leading Scandinavian web developer Pär Almqvist presents a time-based perspective on web interfaces and the network economy. http://tc.eserver.org/25464.html http://tc.eserver.org/25464.html Speech applications have come to be in demand with many applications, which can sound daunting to developers who have never before made provisions for speech. Don't put it off, though, believing that it means a massive rewriting of your current offerings. It is now possible to enhance current Web applications, or develop new ones, with the Voice Toolkit and Reusable Dialog Components. Learn to construct successful voice apps, and without a big learning curve. http://tc.eserver.org/25115.html http://tc.eserver.org/25115.html After a while one of my dining companions asked me what I regarded as the greatest design of all time. http://tc.eserver.org/25087.html http://tc.eserver.org/25087.html A lot of people think 7 ± 2 (i.e., between 5 and 9, with a preference for 7). NO! It isn’t! And here I will explain why. http://tc.eserver.org/25075.html http://tc.eserver.org/25075.html uiGarden is a bilingual on-line magazine that provides an opportunity for researchers and practitioners who work in the user interface design (including user experience, information architecture, GUI, and usability) field in the Chinese and the English speaking worlds to publish their thinking and exchange views with each other. http://tc.eserver.org/24873.html http://tc.eserver.org/24873.html Describes a process for improving interface usability. http://tc.eserver.org/24838.html http://tc.eserver.org/24838.html Until recently, emotion was an ill-explored part of human psychology. Some people thought it an evolutionary left-over from our animal origins. Most thought of emotions as a problem to be overcome by rational, logical thinking. And most of the research focused upon negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, and anger. Modern work has completely reversed this view. http://tc.eserver.org/24839.html http://tc.eserver.org/24839.html We are all designers -- because we must be. We live our lives, encounter success and failure, sadness and joy. We structure own worlds to support ourselves throughout life. http://tc.eserver.org/24785.html http://tc.eserver.org/24785.html Technical communicators who work as members of software development teams often act as user advocates. Part of this role includes working with developers to design screens that allow users to easily use the software and understand the information presented. This workshop presents various exercises and handouts which help attendees develop an easy-to-use and understand interface for users. http://tc.eserver.org/24753.html http://tc.eserver.org/24753.html Current search interfaces reflect the inner workings of search technology rather than what we know about how people look for information. http://tc.eserver.org/24736.html http://tc.eserver.org/24736.html Perhaps we should look to the simplest elements of usability for inspiration. Perhaps it's time to recognize the contribution of a single humble helper. Yes, it's time for an ode to Balloon Help.