Strategies of Influence for Interaction Designers

Unless you have the power to make business and development decisions for your project, some of your energy will be spent influencing those who do. Experienced usability engineers or interaction designers may have limited skill in influence, despite how significantly it can effect their ability to contribute to projects. It’s the smartest and most effective designers that work to understand the human to human interaction within their project teams, as part of their work towards better human to computer interaction.

Berkun, Scott. UIWeb (2001). Design>Web Design>Interaction Design>Multimedia

Suckerfish Dropdowns

Teach your smart little menus to do the DHTML dropdown dance without sacrificing semantics, accessibility, or standards compliance or writing clunky code.

Griffiths, Patrick. List Apart, A (2003). Design>Web Design>DHTML>Interaction Design

De Terreur van Skip Intro

Wie zich onder de eerste lichting world wide web-surfers bevond rond 1994, toen de eerste NetScape-browser de Mosaic-browser vervangen had, kan zich waarschijnlijk herinneren dat webpagina's uit niet veel meer bestonden dan tekst met hyperlinks en een lullig patroontje als achtergrond. Er werd nauwlijks gebruik gemaakt van visuele elementen. Helaas kwam daar snel een eind aan.

Massee, Door Laurens. de Lijst (2002). (Dutch) Design>Web Design>Interaction Design>Flash

Text in Motion With the Wiggler

When you start using After Effects, there will come a time when you look at the presets and think, 'Gosh, I am bored with these.' That will be the point where you discover Adobe has a wonderful sense of humor and you start using the Wiggler. In the text options, on the timeline, the Wiggly selector can be added to a chunk of text to randomize the values of any of the properties associated with that group. That description may sound rather formal, but when it comes to adding effects, randomness can lead to some happy surprises. Essentially you can have text bend, move, blur, spin, and so on by simply giving it some parameters for the effect.

Green, Tom. Community MX (2006). Design>Web Design>Interaction Design>Flash

Top Ten Mistakes of Web Management

Web design and development involves three levels: web management; interaction design (navigation support, homepage layout, templates, search, etc.); content design (the actual writing on the pages, as well as the design of any other media types used to communicate content as opposed to site interaction). Just as in a hamburger, the middle layer is the most tasty and attracts the most attention, including much of my own work on Web usability. I have come to realize that the outer two layers are more important in many ways: users only care about content (in other words, no, the medium is not the message; the message is the message) and the usability of a website is more a function of how it is managed than of how good its designers are. Content will be the topic of many other columns; here I address some classic mistakes in managing the design of a website.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1997). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>Interaction Design

Traces of Previous Use: The Communicational Possibilities of Interaction Histories

In the digital environment, human presence leaves no trace; every user of an electronic collection is in effect an isolated user. Some researchers in computer interface design have suggested that a useful strategy for reducing this isolation might be to provide a means for a collection to retain an interaction history. If the system creates and makes accessible a record of activity, subsequent users may be able to derive meaning from the record. One well-known implementation of this strategy is in the amazon.com lists of books that were also bought by people who bought the book currently shown. This strategy holds promise for a wider implementation, and is particularly promising as a tool for interfaces designed for information browsing, where user structuring of the items represented can be a significant indication of how they have interpreted the collection. Issues include the role of intention in communication – clearly purchasers at amazon.com are not buying books primarily to create a message for subsequent users – and the significant effects of presuppositions in any communication process – subsequent users must assume that previous buyers were not collecting a set of "worst books" on the topic. Drawing on previous research on interaction histories, as well as Suchman's ideas on situated activity and the phenomenological approach to interface design proposed by Winograd and Flores, this paper examines the means by which interaction histories might be designed specifically to play a role as a communication tool between users of full-prospect browsing interfaces to electronic document collections.

Ruecker, Stan. University of Alberta (2003). Design>Web Design>Personalization>Interaction Design

Use Cases and Interaction Design

Use cases are widely used in large projects to capture the functional requirements of software systems. In the hands of interaction designers, use cases can serve as a powerful tool for brainstorming workflows and bridging the gaps between design and development.

GUUUI (2004). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>Interaction Design

Use Inverted Colors to Highlight Active Link

It is often difficult to find the cursor when a web site is navigated using the keyboard. Where is the active link? With CSS the author of a web page can adjust how the active link is visualized. Inverted colors are the best way to highlight the active link.

Tverskov, Jesper. Smack the Mouse (2006). Design>Web Design>Interaction Design>CSS

Using Ajax  

Put a new shine on your web applications. Tired of clunky web interfaces and waiting around for a page to reload? Well, it’s about time to give your web apps that pine-scented desktop application feel. What are we talking about? Just the newest thing to hit the Web: Ajax—asynchronous JavaScript and XML—and your ticket to building rich Internet applicationsthat are more interactive,responsive, and easy to use. So, grab your trial-size Ajax,included with every copy of Head Rush Ajax:we’re about to put some polish on your web apps.

McLaughlin, Brett D. O'Reilly and Associates (2006). Design>Web Design>Interaction Design>Ajax

Using JavaScript to Develop Interactive Self-Assessments  

Interactive self-assessments are effective tools for a variety of audiences; from determining one’s Myers- Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) or personality characteristics to self-scoring quizzes of all types for online training. Many Web sites contain such selfassessments that help customers select from among other offerings the type of product or service that meets their requirements. The strategic design and development of interactive self-assessments can also help steer customers to your specific product line or service, or even help them make the decision to buy or award a contract. This paper looks at the effectiveness of self-assessments as a business tool and the use of JavaScript for supporting the interactive elements.

Le Vie, Donald S., Jr. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Web Design>Interaction Design>JavaScript

Using Tables and DHTML for Menus

Dynamic HTML can be used inventively in many ways. Here's a simple way in which tables and DHTML can be used together to provide a menu function. The technique may be used in a frameset, but to keep things simple, we are going to use the table to control 'targets' in an inline frame (or IFRAME).

Self, Tony. HyperWrite (2005). Design>Web Design>Interaction Design>DHTML

Visio - The Interaction Designer's Nail Gun

The reason why Visio is the favourite prototyping tool of many interaction designers is because of its ready-made interface objects, you can drag-and-drop onto pages and its ability to link pages together and export them as web pages. But what distinguishes Visio from other prototyping tools is its use of layered backgrounds.

Olsen, Henrik. GUUUI (2002). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Interaction Design

Want to know what’s RED HOT? Adobe Flex

I am not going to insult your intellence and try to teach you how to use Adobe Flex because frankly, I am just learning. Over the past few months, every major project and intitiative I’ve heard about has components built using Adobe Flex. With the emergence of Flash as a usable technology and ActionScript as a top notch coding language, Adobe Flex has quickly become the hottest new tool in ubertrendy web development circles.

Robbins, Kyle. ReEncoded (2008). Articles>Web Design>Flash>Interaction Design

WAP and Accountability: Shortcomings of the Mobile Internet as an Interactional Problem  

Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is designed to allow access to the Internet on a mobile phone. Attempts to explain its limited success have focused on attitudinal and cognitive reasons for non-use, finding that although people recognize the benefits of WAP, issues like lack of content, privacy concerns, and reference group behavior account for non-use. Such explanations have also been incomplete in that they have not addressed problems related to actual use and interaction with the technology. Our article studies the use of WAP as situated action. We focus on how users make sense of WAP pages and how they disambiguate in situ the responses from the service, i.e., new pages and new menus. Our method of transcribing videos of WAP use following the conventions of conversation analysis offers a cost-effective tool for understanding user interaction with technology and provides useful implications for design.

Koskinen, Ilpo, Petteri Repo and Kaarina Hyvönen. Journal of Usability Studies (2006). Design>Web Design>Wireless Web>Interaction Design

We Got Sick of Hearing About Design and China, So we Got on a Plane and Went There

There has certainly been a great deal of speculation lately regarding the real or perceived rise of Chinese industrial design. We say 'perceived rise' to emphasize that their impending world domination in this field is not a foregone conclusion, despite the frequent flurries of listserve chatter and design-conference panel discussions supporting such a notion.

Tharp, Bruce M. and Stephanie Munson. uiGarden (2006). Design>Web Design>Interaction Design>China

Web 2.0 - Nothing New?

Web 2.0 defines a second phase of development of websites, its architecture and its functionality.

Information Architects Japan (2006). Design>Web Design>Interaction Design

Web 3.0

To you who are toiling over an AJAX- and Ruby-powered social software product, good luck, God bless, and have fun. Remember that 20 other people are working on the same idea.

Zeldman, Jeffrey. List Apart, A (2006). Design>Web Design>Interaction Design>Ajax

Web Credibility Destroyers

When users visit your web site, their immediate impression of its credibility is based on appearance, colors, text fonts. Then, as they explore your site, other factors contribute to its credibility impact. Lose users here, and they probably will never return.

Streight, Steven. Blogger.com (2004). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Interaction Design

Web Interactivity: Connecting People and Knowledge

We humans are wired to seek interaction with other people. Complex language and reasoning powers support your interactive nature. Your brain can retrieve and store unlimited amounts of information from everyday interactions and use that information to think, analyze, and solve complex problems.

Girolami, Frank. Between the Lines (2007). Articles>Web Design>Interaction Design>User Centered Design

Well-Behaved DHTML: A Case Study

It’s no secret that over the last few years DHTML has been used almost exclusively for evil purposes. Users associate the technology with intrusive advertisements and error-prone pages, while developers associate it with browser detection and hideous hacks.

Boodman, Aaron. SitePoint (2003). Design>Web Design>Interaction Design>DHTML

What Does 'Rich' Mean?

Amid the current hype of Web 2.0, rich has become the de facto buzzword suggesting fresh, sexy digital products, often marked by glossy buttons with AJAX-driven behaviors. But what does rich mean to a UI (user interface) designer who wants to craft intelligent, compelling, and memorable interactions? Given current digital and technological trends, today's UI designers must deepen their understanding of richness. Such an effort will strengthen designers' vocabularies (adding legitimacy and weight to client discussions), and enable designers to temper judgment when it comes to applying rich capabilities.

Gajendar, Uday. Boxes and Arrows (2007). Articles>Web Design>Interaction Design

What is Interaction Design, and What Does It Mean to Information Designers?

Where did the term interaction design come from? What exactly does it mean? And what do the people who call themselves interaction designers actually do?

Marion, Craig. Verizon (1999). Design>Web Design>Interaction Design

What's Wrong with (Almost) All Web Sites

The vast majority of web sites commit usability and design violations that make it hard for users to find relevant content and functions. These problems are not difficult to diagnose or remedy. How many of these "user crimes" is your web site guilty of committing?

Streight, Steven. Blogger.com (2004). Articles>Web Design>User Interface>Interaction Design

Winning Considerations for Interactive Content

User interface designers have more interactive options than ever for presenting content. So, we can make meaningful strides toward offering users the right content in the right place, at the right time, in the right amount. However, these rich options for interactively presenting content also come with a challenge.

Jones, Colleen. UXmatters (2008). Articles>Web Design>Interaction Design

XML in the Browser: Submitting Forms using AJAX

AJAX opens up enormous possibilities for Web applications simply by allowing HTTP requests to be made in the background asynchronously (while other scripts on the page run and other user activity continues).

Root, Chris. Dev Articles (2005). Design>Web Design>Interaction Design>Ajax