Components, Patterns, and Frameworks! Oh My!

In our research, we've found that teams that build out a re-use strategy see tangible benefits: They are more likely to get a completed design sooner, with all the little nuances and details that make for a great experience. Their designs are more likely to meet users expectations by behaving consistently across the entire functionality. Plus, the teams iterate faster (always a good thing), giving them a chance to play with the design while it's still malleable.

Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2009). Articles>Project Management>Collaboration>Methods

Great Designs Should Be Experienced and Not Seen

When things are going well in a design, we don't pay attention to them. We only pay attention to things that bother us. The same is true with online designs. We attend to things that aren't working far more than we attend to things that are. When the online experience frustrates us, we pay attention to its details, often because we're trying to figure out some way to outsmart it.

Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2009). Articles>Web Design>User Experience>User Interface

Designing for Faceted Search

Faceted search, or guided navigation, has become the de facto standard for e-commerce and product-related websites, from big box stores to product review sites. But e-commerce sites aren’t the only ones joining the facets club. Other content-heavy sites such as media publishers (e.g. Financial Times: ft.com), libraries (e.g. NCSU Libraries: lib.ncsu.edu/), and even non-profits (e.g. Urban Land Institute: uli.org) are tapping into faceted search to make their often broad-range of content more findable. Essentially, faceted search has become so ubiquitous that users are not only getting used to it, they are coming to expect it.

Lemieux, Stephanie. User Interface Engineering (2009). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>Search

Hunkering: Putting Disorientation into the Design Process

After talking to several dozen craftspeople about why they hunker, we think we have a pretty good idea what's happening here. As they're building their design, they have a solid picture in their mind of what they are creating. However, when they put the physical pieces into the basic form, things aren't quite right. In essence, it's disorienting. Once the craftsperson has disoriented themself, they go through a process of reconciliation. Either the work-in-progress needs correction or the design in their head needs adjustment.

Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2009). Articles>Project Management>Methods

Harnessing the Power of Annotations -- An Interview with Dan Brown

Annotations come in all shapes and sizes depending on the artifact and the intent of the document. People are probably most familiar with wireframe annotations, where the author calls out areas of the screen to describe functionality not immediately discernible from the picture alone.

Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2009). Articles>Interviews>Visual Rhetoric>Technical Illustration

In Which a Concept Model Makes Me Giddy

Concept models aren't for everyone. When I show fellow designers these artifacts, I sometimes get "You show that to clients?" Like any deliverable, there's a time and a place for concept models. If you're anything like me, however, you think visually. Even if your models don't see the light of day, a good model can help you get a better grip on the problem, or lay some groundwork for your designs.

Brown, Dan. User Interface Engineering (2009). Articles>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Sitemaps

Web Anatomy: Introducing Interaction Design Frameworks

If we simply look at what's already working well, and why, we can give ourselves two things we desperately need: a starting point for the design, and insight into to how to create better-stronger-faster interactions that are just as easy to use as the old classics.

Hoekman, Robert, Jr. User Interface Engineering (2009). Articles>User Experience>Interaction Design>Planning

The Web as a Conversation

Writing toward personas can help produce a successful form of content creation. Of course the next step after writing is to test the content with your customers to see if it indeed answers their questions. But there’s an important next step, especially if you’re a larger organization. You must work cross-silos to make sure different departments are not having contradictory conversations with the same customers. You also have to ensure that all the information on your site is current. If one department updates data, they all must still agree!

Spool, Jared M. and Janice C. 'Ginny' Redish. User Interface Engineering (2009). Articles>Interviews>Web Design>Personas

Moderating with Multiple Personalities: Three Roles for Facilitating Usability Tests

Usability tests are a core design tool and, when done well, they deliver tremendous insights to the team. However, when a usability test is done poorly, it can be a disaster for everyone involved. An important key to their success is the work of a great moderator.

Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2009). Articles>Usability>Testing>Methods

Visual Design for the Non-Designer

What can a non-designer do to harness the power of visual design without calling professional help? Quite a lot, says internationally-regarded visual designer Dan Rubin. We called Dan to talk about what design techniques are accessible to mere mortals.

Spool, Jared M. and Dan Rubin. User Interface Engineering (2009). Articles>Graphic Design>Visual Rhetoric>Podcasts

Information Architecture Essentials

What happens when, one day, you’re asked into the boss’s office and they drop “the web site” and “information architecture” into your lap? Regardless of your experience, where do you begin? Donna says your first question should be, “Why do we bother to have a web site in the first place?” “What’s its purpose?” She says if you don’t get this out of the way first, you’ll run up against it when you’re further along the trail and it won’t be easy to deal with.

Spool, Jared M. and Donna Spencer. User Interface Engineering (2009). Articles>Information Design>Web Design>Podcasts

Breaking Up Large Documents for the Web - Part 1

To present content on the web in the amount that most people want: think “topic,” not “book”; break large documents into topics and subtopics.

Redish, Janice C. 'Ginny'. User Interface Engineering (2009). Articles>Web Design>Information Design

Breaking Up Large Documents for the Web - Part 2

One page or separate pages? When faced with that decision, ask yourself these questions: How much do people want in one visit? How connected is the information? Am I overloading my site visitors? How long is the web page? What’s the download time? Will people want to print? How much will they want to print?

Redish, Janice C. 'Ginny'. User Interface Engineering (2009). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>Writing

Personas and Goal-Directed Design: An Interview with Kim Goodwin 

We use personas because they are powerful design, measurement, and communication tools. We use them in design to help us avoid the elastic user problem--where "the user" is a total novice one minute and a technophile the next--as well as self-referential design, because designers are seldom representative of a product's target audience. Personas also help cut through assumptions that certain tasks are necessary; if a task doesn't directly help accomplish a goal, we can try to eliminate it.

Klee, Matthew. User Interface Engineering (2001). Articles>Interviews>User Centered Design>Personas