#26905
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。
Hanington, Bruce. uiGarden (2006). (Chinese) Articles>Web Design>User Interface
#26374
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.
evolt (2002). Articles>Web Design>User Interface>Web Browsers
#29954
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.
Herrington, Jack D. IBM (2007). Design>Web Design>User Interface>Ajax
#20996
This site offers a unique approach to contextual navigation, and one that has gotten the attention of many reviewers. From the site: 'ArtandCulture.com is a dynamic destination that delivers unique access to the best arts and cultural content and related products available on the web today....focused on creating the context that makes information truly meaningful.' In this review, I'll focus on some of the interesting navigation strategies the site presents.
Danzico, Liz. Bobulate (2003). Design>Web Design>User Interface>DHTML
#18579
Beating the Rap on User Interface Standards 
When your manager asked (told) you to write a user interface (UI) design standard, was it a no-win proposition? Apparently many developers feel that way.
Schaffer, Eric M. Human Factors International (1996). Design>Web Design>User Interface
#23071
Best Practices and Future Visions for Search User Interfaces: Position Paper 
The author argues that progress in search requires vigorous inquiry into how search can be embedded into application environments such as those for decision-making, personal information collecting, and designing.
Hendry, David G. Earthlink (2003). Design>Web Design>User Interface>Search
#21724
The Big Dig: Mining Nuggets of Value
It is difficult to apply the lessons learned from e-commerce search interfaces to more complex ones, such as those for libraries or technical material. This article provides a guide to tailoring search interfaces to users with a persona-based approach.
McDaniel, Scott M. User Experience (2002). Design>Web Design>User Interface>Search
#30665
Building the Front End: Craft Intelligent and Intuitive Front Ends for Ajax Applications
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.
McLaughlin, Brett D. IBM (2007). Articles>Web Design>User Interface>Ajax
#28093
The Bull's-Eye: A Framework for Web Application User Interface Design Guidelines
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.
Beier, Betsy and Misha W. Vaughan. uiGarden (2006). Articles>Web Design>User Interface
#27549
Calling All Designers: Learn to Write!
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.
Powazek, Derek. List Apart, A (2006). Design>Web Design>User Interface>Writing
#25696
Complex Dynamic Lists: Your Order Please
Help your site’s visitors reach their goals quickly with a dynamic menu that takes its cue from the Mac OS X Finder.
Heilmann, Christian. List Apart, A (2005). Design>Web Design>User Interface>DHTML
#18677
Critical Thinking in Web/Interface Design Part 1
At the heart of design and engineering is critical thinking. The ability to separate what is worthwhile from what isn't is the hallmark of the best in many fields, from film directors to project managers, programmers to designers.
Berkun, Scott. UIWeb (2001). Design>Web Design>User Interface
#18676
Critical Thinking in Web/Interface Design Part 2: Idea Generation
How do you cultivate good ideas? What process do you use? This issue discusses how critical thinking relates to generating and managing good ideas in design.
Berkun, Scott. UIWeb (2001). Design>Web Design>User Interface
#23263
Designing Better HTML Authoring Tools
A collection of proposed new tools and features for adding structure to the Web.
Hoffman, Michael. Hypertext Navigation. Articles>Web Design>User Interface>Software
#19288
Scalable interface design ensures that interface development takes account of the need to change over time, providing solutions that are flexible and thus 'future-proof' to some extent. Too often complex interface designs require a complete overhaul when even the smallest change is required in the functionality of the application or site in question. Building 'scalable' interfaces in the first place will save time and cost in the long term - and make coping with upgrades easier for your customers.
Quinn, Anthony. Frontend Infocentre (2001). Design>Web Design>User Interface
#29766
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.
McDaniel, Scott M. STC Proceedings (2004). Design>Web Design>User Interface>Search
#18968
Developing an effective framework for a large collection of linked documents involves: creating an efficient hierarchy of information; mapping task flows through the information hierarchy; determining the best depth for the information space; and creating nodes of appropriate length. These four tasks should be undertaken in order. Each one depends on the outcomes of preceding tasks. Because these elements are interdependent, however, several good solutions to the first two should be developed so that problems with site depth and node length can be addressed.
Kaplan, Nancy and Meg Heisse. University of Baltimore (1998). Design>Web Design>User Interface
#29964
Develop an Ajax-Based File Upload Portlet Using DWR
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.
Yang, Xiabo and Robert Allan. IBM (2007). Articles>Web Design>User Interface>Ajax
#26420
Developing Voice Interfaces for Legacy Web Applications
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.
Quiané, Jorge and Jorge Manjarrez. ACM Crossroads (2003). Design>Web Design>User Interface>Audio
#23323
Dynamically Conjuring Drop-Down Navigation
Got content? Got pages and pages of content? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could offer your readers a drop-down menu providing instant access to any page, without having to sit down and program the darned thing? By marrying a seemingly forgotten XHTML element to simple, drop-in JavaScript, Christian Heilmann shows how to do just that. There’s even a PHP backup for those whose browsers lack access to JavaScript. Turn on, tune in, drop-down.
Heilmann, Christian. List Apart, A (2004). Design>Web Design>User Interface>DHTML
#21430
Elephants in the Living Room: The Destructive Role of Denial in Web Design
Four of your fellow development team members, all trying to do their specific jobs to the best of their abilities, have the power to sink your best effort at interaction design. As an interaction designer, it is your job to see they don't do so. (If you are not an interaction designer, read on anyway; you may be surprised to learn that you may be part of the problem.)
Tognazzini, Bruce. Nielsen Norman Group (2000). Articles>Web Design>User Interface>Collaboration
#26456
The Explorer Bar: Unifying and Improving Web Navigation
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.
Berkun, Scott. ScottBerkun.com (2005). Design>Web Design>User Interface
#18945
Faucet Facets: Few Best Practices for Designing Multifaceted Navigation Systems
So often we assume that Web sites should be hierarchically organized. We talk about a 'home page' that offers 'top-level navigation' so that users can 'drill down' to the content. It's as if we're programmed to think top down. But what about information that isn't as easily structured this way? Sometimes, content has many attributes that have different importance to different users. A hierarchy assumes everyone approaches these attributes the same way, but that's often not the case.
Veen, Jeffrey. Adaptive Path (2002). Design>Web Design>User Interface
#18682
Fitts's User Interface Law Applied to the Web
Interface design is difficult in part because everything requires interpretation. A design that works for one task or one user might not be appropriate for another. In other types of engineering, like architecture or bridge building, designers can always rely on laws of physics and gravity to make designs work. There is at least one immutable rule for interface design that we know about, and it's called Fitts's Law. It can be applied to software interfaces as well as Web site design because it involves the way people interact with mouse or other pointing devices. Most GUI platforms have built-in common controls designed with Fitts's Law in mind. Many Web designers, however, have yet to recognize the powerful little facts that make this concept so useful.
Berkun, Scott. UIWeb (2000). Design>User Interface>Human Computer Interaction>Web Design
#25531
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.
Almqvist, Pär. List Apart, A (2000). Design>Web Design>User Interface
