Principles for Usable Design

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.

Usability Body of Knowledge. Design>Usability>User Interface

Princippet om Helhed

Inden for Internet genren hersker der, ligesom i enhver anden medie genre, trends og mode. I denne artikel vil de nuværende strømninger bliver udredet i forbindelse med en fokusering på de generiske elementer, der ligger til grund for webdesign. I relation til enhver løsning vil der kunne tales om et interface. Interface metodologi kendetegnes på nuværende tidspunkt ved en række design zoner, som sætter en linje for ”tidens trend”. Denne trend opfølges af designere, og ender slutteligt i de kommercielle kredse. Beviset for denne teori findes i www.k10k.dk (som nu er taget off-line), som gennem de sidste 2 år har defineret kommende trends. Først var det det minimalistiske, widescreendesign i år 2000, og i år 2001 er det retro i c64 stil (bit æstetik). Denne trend vil kunne spores i designkredse, som www.coolstop.com , www.coolhomepages.com (i mindre grad, på grund af deres meget store lister) og naturligvis www.k10k.dk. Trenden dækker imidlertid over et dybere æstetisk paradigme. Et teknologiparadigme som fokuserer på grænserne i mediet, og overskridelsen af disse.

Quark, The (2002). (Danish) Design>Web Design>User Interface

Prototyping Beyond the Sunshine Scenario

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.

Olsen, Henrik. GUUUI (2006). Articles>User Interface>Interaction Design>Methods

Pull-Down Menus: Out of Sight, Out of Mind  

This article focuses on a particularly wily cryptodesign foe: pull-down menus. Recall our definition of the developer’s eternal foe: cryptodesign. These are decisions that worked for certain situations, but are often misapplied in different, inappropriate situations. Pulldowns are the “guerilla” combatants of GUI design – so named because at one glance they look like good-guy civilians, but in another moment, they’ve wreaked havoc on ease-of-use. Let’s explore how to neutralize these design sapper bombers.

Schaffer, Eric M. Human Factors International (1995). Design>Web Design>User Interface

Lo Que Dice la Red

Elaborar información procedente de la red y presentarla en forma gráfica es lo que se propone 'dicelared', una interesante iniciativa en español.

Dursteler, Juan Carlos. InfoVis (2003). (Spanish) Design>Web Design>User Interface

A Question of Interface Design: How Do Online Service GUIs Measure Up?

Online services have redesigned their old command-based software into graphical user interfaces for the same reason that fledgling stars get their noses fixed. GUIs, as these software versions are commonly called, are a natural choice of interface because they are user-friendly, colorful, window-based interfaces that rely on icons and natural language processing.

Head, Alison J. InfoToday (1997). Design>User Interface>Usability

Reality Check

Many would-be e-businesses, seduced by the lure of the emerging 'virtual-world' on the web, have ignored 40 years of accumulated wisdom in how to design usable information systems, and have seemingly forgotten that a satisfying 'user experience' is key to the successful implementation of any information system.

Macefield, Ritchie. UIdesign (2004). Design>Web Design>User Interface>Usability

Reconciling Information-Seeking Behavior with Search User Interfaces for the Web  

Current search interfaces reflect the inner workings of search technology rather than what we know about how people look for information.

Rose, Daniel E. Earthlink (2002). Design>Web Design>User Interface>Search

The Red Queen Color Theory

The search for compelling color is a struggle. As in fashion, success at one time and place is no help at any other.

Stein, Bob. Digital Web Magazine (2001). Design>Graphic Design>User Interface>Color

Reduce Redundancy: Decrease Duplicated Design Decisions

User interface complexity increases when a single feature or hypertext link is presented in multiple ways. Users rarely understand duplicates as such, and often waste time repeating efforts or visiting the same page twice by mistake.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2002). Design>User Interface>Collaboration

Remote Control Anarchy

The six remote controls required for a simple home theater illustrate the problems caused by complexity and inconsistency in user interfaces.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Design>User Interface>Usability

The Role and Evolution of Design in Software Products

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.

Knemeyer, Dirk. UXmatters (2006). Design>User Interface>Programming

The Role of Project Managers in Interface Design

This describes the role that I played as program manager for IE5.0, and the basic process we used. It's a good anecdote as to how one team managed the cross discipline work of design and usability, with the engineering and development process.

Berkun, Scott. UIWeb (1999). Design>Project Management>User Interface

The Sanctity of Elements, or Why You Shouldn't Be Double-Clicking in a TEXTAREA

All-too-frequently an external client or an internal manager or co-worker demands interface changes. They usurp the design process -- taking the decision-making away from the experts -- and deign the interface by dictum rather than traditional development processes, to the detriment of the product.

Hourihan, Meg. O'Reilly and Associates (2002). Design>Web Design>User Interface>Usability

Seeing the World in Symbols: Icons and the Evolving Language of Digital Wayfinding

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.

Follett, Jonathan. UXmatters (2006). Articles>Usability>User Interface>Graphic Design

Selection-Dependent Inputs

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.

Wroblewski, Luke. UXmatters (2007). Articles>Web Design>User Interface>Forms

Shortening the Cycle

How do we reduce time and costs and still achieve good results? Thirteen usability professionals joined forces in a workshop to develop answers to this question. The results are presented here in two parts: Four lists of recommendations in areas developed from specific issues. An inventory of techniques that have worked for the workshop participants in the past

Bugental, J.O. 'Joe' and Kristin Travis. Usability Professionals Association (2001). Design>User Interface>User Centered Design

Simplicity Is Highly Overrated

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.

Norman, Donald A. uiGarden (2007). Design>User Interface>User Centered Design>Minimalism

Small Multiples Within a User Interface

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.

Wroblewski, Luke. UXmatters (2005). Design>User Interface

Software Features and Changes Needed for Better Viewing

With Netscape, when you first load this page, none of the following links are marked as 'already seen'. IE is very bad on this point: when you load this page, all the links below (internal page A NAME links) are marked as 'already seen'. That is, Netscape tracks internal page jumps; IE doesn't recognize them; in its history tracking, it lumps together all the links for a page as being identical with the overall page as a destination. This is a great example of a basic feature that is very much needed.

Hoffman, Michael. Hypertext Navigation. Design>Web Design>User Interface>Web Browsers

Some Tips On Navigation

Creating navigation systems, and the information structures that underlie them, is obviously a central aspect of the development of any product or web interface. Although some users may prefer not to use navigation systems, or even ignore them entirely, for many they will be an invaluable means of discovering content or functionality. Getting these structures right is an important element in designing a successful interface. Unfortunately, getting them right isn't particularly easy. In some instances it can be, but usually there is no simple way to short-circuit the process of categorisation and presentation that constitutes a navigational system. However, in this short article we do attempt to provide some brief pointers. Although we focus on web navigation, many of these suggestions are equally relevant in software interface design and indeed other technologies.

Farrell, Tom. Frontend Infocentre (2001). Design>Web Design>User Interface

Spatial Interactive Visualization on Small Screen  

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.

Hakala, Tero, Juha Lehikoinen and Antti Aaltonen. Proceedings of the Conference on Human Computer Interaction (2005). Design>User Interface>Wireless Web