#19779
Get Smart: Interface Design and Production Meet Editorial on a New CD-ROM Magazine 
Creating a new magazine is a large task. Creating a new magazine on CD-ROM can be a huge task. All of the design and layout decisions which are part of any project are magnified in an electronic project. Writers and editors have to learn to write “for the screen, ” illustrations have to fit the size, graphics format and palette determined by the display program, every reference, sequence and link has to be checked online, and the whole thing has to run on a “real world” 386 machine. GetSmart made the journey, with its premier issue release in July 1995.
Quesenbery, Whitney. STC Proceedings (1996). Design>User Interface>Editing
#22576
Getting Involved in Interface Design
Describes a four-step process to help technical writers gain influence over product design.
#18291
GNOME 2.0 Human User Interface Guidelines
This document tells you how to create applications that look right, behave properly, and fit into the GNOME user interface as a whole. It is written for interface designers, graphic artists and software developers who will be creating software for the GNOME environment. Both specific advice on making effective use of interface elements, and the philosophy and general design principles behind the GNOME interface are covered.
Gnome.org (2003). Design>User Interface>Style Guides>Linux
#21425
Lawyers may know their way around a courtroom, but they have no business designing products. Too often, in their zealous pursuit of zero liability, they end up damaging products, alienating customers, destroying companies, and killing people. It's up to you to stop them.
Tognazzini, Bruce. Nielsen Norman Group (2002). Design>User Interface>Legal
#21072
Google Voice Search allows you to make a telephone call to Google with a search query and get the results on a web page. The purpose of this article is to briefly describe the user experience and investigate the usability implications of this tool.
Rhodes, John S. WebWord (2003). Articles>Web Design>User Interface>Audio
#21699
A primary technique to achieve improved user-interface is clear, distinct, consistent visible language.
Deshpande, Shashank. STC India (2003). Presentations>Graphic Design>User Interface
#25115
The Greatest Design of all Time
After a while one of my dining companions asked me what I regarded as the greatest design of all time.
Jordan, Pat. uiGarden (2005). Design>Usability>User Interface
#23508
Focuses first on the differences between GUI and Web environments, and reveals effective approaches for each that can enable the best possible user experience.
Berry, Dick. IBM (2000). Design>Web Design>User Interface
#22523
This site is meant to be an online museum of graphical interfaces, especially those old, obscure and in desperate need of preservation. For those interested in seeing how the GUIs evolved throughout the decades.
GUIdebook (2004). Design>User Interface>Human Computer Interaction
#30036
Guidelines for Designing Usable DVD Menus
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.
Költringer, Thomas, Martin Tomitsch, Karin Kappel and Thomas Grechenig. University of Vienna (2006). Design>User Interface>Multimedia>DVD
#23108
GUIs and XML Configuration Data
Discusses how XML is used in the configuration of GUI interfaces. He looks at Mozilla's XML-based User Interface Language (XUL) which allows you to write applications that run without any particular dependency on the choice of underlying operating system. This may seem strange at first, but you'll soon see that this Mozilla project offers powerful tools for GUI building that allow you to develop for an extensive base of installed users.
Mertz, David. IBM (2004). Design>Web Design>User Interface>XML
#23283
When people buy things, they engage in a decision-making process. Research shows that one of the major problems with commerce sites is that they fail in supporting the customers in this process. By understanding their needs and concerns as they progress through the decision-making cycle, we can build better and more successful commerce sites.
#21177
Hierarchical Menus with the Underrated style.display Object
One of the most common DHTML requests I get is for a Windows Explorer-style hierarchical menu, where there's a list of topics or 'folders' that a user can click on to reveal subtopics, or 'files,' within that folder. It's a common desktop metaphor that seems ever more necessary on the Web, especially as we see navigation bars incorporating larger and more complex content while still trying to fit on the screen. Hierarchical menus are a solution to the common problem of having too many links in too small a space.
Pena, Bill. O'Reilly and Associates (2002). Design>Web Design>User Interface>DHTML
#25087
How Many Items Should Go in a Menu?
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.
Salmoni, Alan James. Milui (2005). Articles>User Interface>User Centered Design
#18686
How To Avoid Foolish Consistency
People don't like to learn things. If they take the time to learn something, they expect to be able to apply that knowledge in many places. It follows that good designers conserve the number of things users need to learn to get stuff done. The streets in American cities are good examples of conservation of knowledge. Anywhere in America, yield and stop signs look exactly the same. Traffic lights use red, yellow, and green to mean precisely the same things regardless of the street or city. Mailboxes on street corners use the same colors and icons, so they are clearly identifiable anywhere. It becomes difficult for people when their knowledge of things breaks down. A driver from a country with different street signs who visits America will make mistakes until they learn the new signs. Even subtle variances like the difference in speed of two different yellow traffic lights can cause American drivers to make mistakes.
Berkun, Scott. UIWeb (1999). Design>User Interface>User Centered Design
#26915
How to Build a Better Web Browser
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.
Berkun, Scott. ScottBerkun.com (2006). Articles>Web Design>User Interface>Web Browsers
#13504
How to Design a Web Table of Contents
There's something in our human nature that makes us want to dive into things, to browse, to dabble. We first try to program our VCRs without looking at the manual. We drive for awhile; if we get lost, we look at a map or ask directions (or not, depending on our gender).
Toub, Steve. WebTechniques (1999). Design>User Interface>Web Design
#24785
How to Design an Effective User Interface
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.
Chiricosta, Tracey C. and Alice A. Jones. STC Proceedings (1995). Design>User Interface
#26949
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.
Usernomics. Design>Human Computer Interaction>User Interface
#19004
Human Interface Design Principles
This section provides a theoretical base for the wealth of practical information on implementing the Aqua interface elements presented in the rest of this book. You’ll undoubtedly find that you can’t design in accordance with all of the principles all the time. In those situations, you’ll have to make decisions based on which principle or set of principles is most important in the context of the task you’re solving. User testing is often an excellent way to decide between conflicting principles in a particular context.
Apple Inc. (2003). Design>Human Computer Interaction>User Interface
#27993
Icon Analysis: Evaluating Low Spatial Frequency Compositions
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.
Queen, Matt. Boxes and Arrows (2006). Design>User Interface>Usability
#18578
Icons: Much Ado About Something
Every battle has a psy-ops component, otherwise known as psychological operations. Each side attempts to demoralize the other and re-moralize its own troops. In UI design, the battle against GUIs from hell is no different. Recall the evil influence of cryptodesign – design ideas that work for certain situations but get misapplied in other, quite different circumstances. We’ve seen a lot of developer trauma associated with icon design: cryptohyperinconitis. But hang on. This article gives you, the troops in the field, some psycho-innoculation against the cryptic IMFAP syndrome (Icon Mania, Fetish, and Phobia)!
Schaffer, Eric M. Human Factors International (1996). Design>User Interface
#15145
Inductive User Interfaces: A New Opportunity for Writers
Discusses inductive user interfaces, which use single screens to guide users through each task in a software program.
Carlson, Janice L. Intercom (2002). Design>User Centered Design>User Interface
#21079
Information Architecture for the Rest of Us
The purpose of this article is to explain information architecture in a very simple and clear manner. If you have been confused about information architecture and what it is all about, this is exactly the article you should read. An analogy is used to get at the core concepts and several useful examples are provided.
Rhodes, John S. WebWord (2002). Articles>Information Design>User Interface
#13536
If the experts are on the mark, very soon handheld computer technology—--also known as the personal digital assistants (PDA)—--will supplant the desktop computer as ubiquitous technology on campuses and in the workplace (Weiser 1998; Chen 1999). In 1998, Gaston Bastien, vice president and general manager for the Personal Interactive Electronics Division of Apple Computer, noted that the handheld computer market 'could potentially grow larger than today's computer industry,' partly because of the capability of dynamic, modular design, and partly because its utility spills over to diverse communities of users. In 2001, Gartner Research (Bloomberg News 2001) predicted a 260% increase in unit sales, from 9.39 million units in 2000, to 33.7 million units in 2004.
Albers, Michael J. and Loel Kim. Technical Communication Online (2002). Design>Information Design>Web Design>User Interface
