Why Mobile Phones are Annoying

Bystanders rated mobile-phone conversations as dramatically more noticeable, intrusive, and annoying than conversations conducted face-to-face. While volume was an issue, hearing only half a discussion also seemed to up the irritation factor.

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

Why We Get No Respect, and What We Can Do About It

It's time interface designers, or whatever we're calling ourselves, get some respect. After 25 years of whining about it, I've finally realized we have only ourselves to blame. Take control. If you look at nothing else of mine this year, please read this, act on it, and pass it on.

Tognazzini, Bruce. Nielsen Norman Group (2003). Articles>User Interface>Professionalism

Windowing the World of Online Information  

Designing online information requires an understanding of user interface design, screen design and hypertext technologies. Multi-window environments have quickly become the standard within user interfaces and so this paper explores the application of multi-window systems to online information by reviewing the research and some of the current applications of multi-window online information.

Berry, Robert R. and Michelle Corbin Nichols. STC Proceedings (1995). Design>Web Design>User Interface

Wizards  

Allen describes the uses, benefits, and drawbacks of 'wizards'--utilities that help users perform particular tasks.

Allen, Kristen. Intercom (2000). Design>User Interface>Wizards

Working XML: Use Eclipse to build a user interface for XM

Anyone familiar with XM -- the low-cost, open-source content management solution based on XSLT -- knows that for all its good points, it still lacks a decent user interface. In this article, columnist Benoï¿t Marchal uses the Eclipse platform's open universal framework to build a user interface for XM.

Marchal, Benoit. IBM (2002). Design>User Interface>Software>XML

Writer as Designer: Building Quality into the Design  

Provides background for writers beginning to work in design and an introduction to practical methods to build quality into the design of software, forms (whether paper or online), and highly detailed processes used by diverse users. These methods support both macro and micro control of highly detailed products throughout the iterative stages of design. The workshop includes exercises and covers essential background, such as how to determine what is quality for your company and why design fails. The workshop deals with requirements for success, including the importance of standards, and with application of the methods to design specifications, user documentation, and testing. The workshop materials also include examples of the method applied to a commonly available commercial product.

Bibus, Connie M. 'C.J.' and William D. Gearhart. STC Proceedings (1996). Design>User Interface>Usability

Writing at the User Interstices

The most coveted writing assignment in the computer industry is the overview of an integrated software package. It calls for careful pacing, creative metaphor, and lavish graphics, all integrated with the highest skill. Here stands the pinnacle of a career, to be 'writing at the user interface.'

Oram, Andrew. Boston Broadside (1990). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>User Interface

XML在用户界面(User Interface)中的应用

我们可以使用多种方法，通过XML描述用户界面。事实上，XML是在HTML的基础上成长起来的，而HTML则是一种当前流行的面向网络的用户界面。有了XML，你就可以使用用许多方便快捷的技巧创建有用的和可用的用户界面。

ZDNet (2002). (Chinese) Design>User Interface>XML

Yahoo! Mail: Simplicity Holds Up Over Time

In many respects, email is the ideal web application: it's an application that people often need access to when they’re away from their 'home' environment, and the core user tasks (reading and writing) are easily accommodated with standard HTML interface elements.

Garrett, Jesse James. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Design>Web Design>User Interface>User Centered Design

Your Design Is Infringing On My Patent: The Case Against User Interface and Interaction Model Patents and Intellectual Property

Companies often file for and the US government actually grants patents for user interface and interaction design 'innovations' that are either strikingly obvious or have appeared before in other systems.

Sherman, Paul J. UXmatters (2007). Articles>Intellectual Property>Patents>User Interface

Your New Excuse to Get an Xbox: How UX Professionals Can Learn from Video Game Design

Games are fun, addictive, beautiful, and immersive. Websites, for the most part, are not. Take a moment and think about what video games look like, what they sound like, the way you can move on the screen, what “you” can be. Think of how you feel when you play and who you play with. Consider the launch of Halo 3 on Xbox 360, with unprecedented graphics, sound, and interactivity that Time.com called “refined to the point where it delivers only pure unadulterated gaming bliss.”

Northrop, Mia. Boxes and Arrows (2008). Articles>User Experience>User Interface

Отработка Возражений Против Дизайна Пользовательского Интерфейса

У эргономиста могут возникнуть трудности в отстаивании своих позиций. Иногда сложно определить интересы всех участников обсуждения и найти сильную аргументацию для парирования возражений коллег. Задачей данной статьи является подготовка к ведению деловых бесед по вопросам проектирования и разработки пользовательского интерфейса. Представленный материал поможет добиться понимания и принятия позиции эргономиста в проекте при отстаивании интересов пользователя.

Andreev, Viktor. Usability.ru (2002). (Russian) Articles>Usability>User Interface

Zebra Striping: More Data for the Case

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.

Enders, Jessica. List Apart, A (2008). Articles>Web Design>Human Computer Interaction>User Interface

The Thirteen Greatest Error Messages of All Time

They're rarely helpful. Actually, they usually add insult to injury. But what would computing be without 'em? Herewith, a tribute to a baker's dozen of the best (or is that worst?).

McCracken, Harry. Technologizer (2008). Humor>Human Computer Interaction>User Interface>History

Transforming Taiwan Aboriginal Cultural Features into Modern Product Design: A Case Study of a Cross-Cultural Product Design Model

With their beautiful and primitive visual arts and crafts, Taiwan’s aboriginal cultures offer great potential for enhancing design value and becoming recognized in the global market. Evidence shows very high prospects for Taiwan’s local cultures to become crucial cultural elements in future design applications. The purpose of this paper is to explore the meaning of cultural objects from Taiwan’s aboriginal cultures and to extract their cultural features. The paper attempts to illustrate how, by enhancing the original meaning and images of these cultural features and by taking advantage of new production technologies, they can be transformed into modern products that meet the needs of the contemporary consumer market.

Lin, Rung-Tai. uiGarden (2008). Articles>User Interface>International

Emotion and Voice User Interfaces

When you hear the term voice user interface (VUI), what comes to mind? Most likely, memories of an interactive voice response system (IVR) for customer service arise. IVRs are certainly not going away. For many companies, they remain the foremost contact point with customers. But voice user interfaces are more than just IVRs. In fact, VUIs have tremendous potential for enhancing the experience of any mobile phone user. As the use of mobile devices and applications proliferates internationally, understanding how to integrate, or mash up, graphic user interfaces (GUI) and VUIs is becoming critically important.

Clayton, Darnell and Colleen Jones. UXmatters (2008). Articles>User Interface>Emotions>Voice

Fun with Overflows

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.

Sharp, Remy. jQuery for Designers (2008). Articles>Web Design>User Interface>Ajax

Toward a More Human Interface Device: Integrating the Virtual and Physical

As UX professionals, we often take for granted the fact that our users will be dealing with a keyboard, mouse or track pad, and monitor. We think about users’ physical relationship with their digital devices very selectively, if at all. But, as we explore new human interface devices and incorporate new interactions into our designs, we have the opportunity to create deep connections between users and their technology.

Follett, Jonathan. UXmatters (2008). Articles>User Interface>Human Computer Interaction

Creative User Interfaces in Modern Web Design

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.

Smashing (2008). Design>Web Design>User Interface

The Effect of Input Device on Video Game Performance

First-person shooter (FPS) games have become increasingly popular, and the player’s ability to accurately control their weapon is very important in these games. This study assesses players’ accuracy on eliminating targets in the FPS game Star Wars Battlefront II using three different input devices (mouse, Playstation 2 controller, and joystick) with two different rifle types (sniper and blaster rifle). No significant performance differences were found between input devices although subjectively participants believed they peformed the worst with the joystick.

Lenz, Kelsi. Usability News (2008). Articles>User Interface>Human Computer Interaction>Academic

Error Message Gallery

A collection of humourous error messages and dialogue boxes that you can add to by making your own.

Atom Smasher. Humor>User Interface>Help>Microsoft Windows

Hidden Settings in Word

If you've been having trouble with Word lately, this could be the reason why!

Craig's Joke Images (2004). Humor>Word Processing>User Interface>Microsoft Word

Where Visual Literacy and Interface Design Meet

Scientists tell us that visual communication is natural human behaviour which all normally sighted persons engage in every day and take for granted, yet it is the product of a complex human intelligence that is very poorly understood.

Hugo, Jacques. Usability News (2005). Articles>User Interface>Visual Rhetoric

Clean, Cutting-Edge UI Design Cuts McAfee's Support Calls by 90%

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.

Hadley, Bruce. SoftwareCEO (2004). Articles>Web Design>User Interface