Design
Ligature, Loop & Stem Poster
By Bryony
This poster is absolutely brilliant. The letterpress quality, typography lesson and attention to detail are inspiring.
Implementation Model vs. Mental Model
Last week I wrote a post which generalized that programmers do not create great user interfaces. It stirred up some pretty intense debate. A few people even emailed me insulted.
I certainly didn’t intend to insult anyone, but it proves that this problem isn’t going away soon. Proper procedures won’t be put in place until programmers are self-aware.
Consumers don’t think about how things work on the inside. Your interface should function as a magic box. Push a button and something predictable happens.
The brake pedal on your car is a great example. Someone who doesn’t understand how brakes work may envision the pedal pushing a lever which exerts sideways pressure on the wheels, causing the car to slow. Their mental model says that pushing this button causes the car to slow down.
The real implementation model of a brake system is far more complex. That complexity shouldn’t translate into the interface.
Alan Cooper, in his book About Face 3, states:
User interfaces and interactions designed by engineers, who know precisely how software works, quite often lead to a represented model that is very consistent with its implementation model. To the engineers, such models are logical, truthful, and accurate; unfortunately, they are not very intelligent or effective for users. The majority of users don’t much care how a program is actually implemented.
Why you should keep programmers away from your GUI.
Programmers generally do not design great user interfaces. I do not mean to cast aspersions in their direction. If anything, it’s a discredit to the project manager who insisted the UI is part of their responsibility. It shouldn’t be – it should be the job of a dedicated designer.
Programmers don’t understand the Mental Models of their consumers. They are so entrenched in the geeky details, that they can’t step back and look at the product through their customers eyes.
A user interface does not need to reveal the inner workings of the product. Rather, the user interface should expose feedback about the actions that the person expects to happen.
For example, a landline telephone uses a very different protocol for transmitting voice than a cellular telephone does. To the consumer, these are variants on the same product. They exist for the same purpose. However, many programmers would consider these to be entirely different products.
It’s important for designers to be involved in deciding what features should be implemented, as well as deciding how the interaction will work, before any technical plans/code are put in place. Otherwise, you may end up with a website indistinguishable from online-banking websites.
Apple Faces Patent Case Regarding iTunes Store
Apple Computer, and it’s co-defendants Microsoft, Napster and Rhapsody are being sued by Sharing Sound LLC, who holds the rights to a patent for web based music stores. A similar suit has been filed against Amazon, Netflix, Wal-Mart, GameStop and Barnes & Noble.
Abstract from Patent 6,233,682:
The system and method permit the purchase of audio music files over the Internet. The PC user logs onto the vendor’s web site and browses the songs available for purchase. The songs can be arranged by artist, music style, etc., as mentioned above. Further, the vendor can provide suggestions on the web site, directing the PC user to songs that might be desirable, based on that PC user’s previous purchases, her indicated preferences, popularity of the songs, paid advertising and the like. If interested in a song, the PC user has the option of clicking on a song to “pre-listen” to it–hearing a 20-second clip, for example. [...]
As is true of many software patents, this is just bogus. They’ve patented the traditional ecommerce workflow, specifically targeting the music industry. The patent was filed in 2000, one year prior to iTunes premier.
If I had the rights to a similar patent in the t-shirt niche, you couldn’t open a t-shirt website without infringement. You couldn’t organize by brand or designer. You couldn’t recommend other products to upsell based on shopping habits. Heck, you couldn’t even show a preview image of the design on the front.
After a little research, I couldn’t determine exactly what business Sharing Sound, LLC is in. I’m assuming they are in the business of litigation.
Introducing the “Divergence” Omnifocus Theme
UPDATE: This is an old version of my Divergence OmniFocus theme. Read about the new version at MadeForPeople.
Omnifocus has been my GTD trusted system for over a year now. It’s power and flexibility is awesome, but the look and feel leaves something to be desired. Things by CulturedCode has been taunting me with it’s superb design.
Visual design is not just about look and feel. It’s about using visual elements to emphasize the meaning of the content. I haven’t found themes which really pay attention to this detail as well as I would like.
So, as any obsessive designer would do, I created my own.
Can you argue with Flash’s market share?
Market share is not a good way to advocate bad design practices. Adobe claims a 99% market share, although John Gruber points out that their survey was a bit misleading:
Adobe’s own statistics on Flash’s market penetration claim 99 percent penetration as of last month. That’s because, according to their survey methodology, they’re only counting “PCs” — which ignores the entire sort of devices which have brought about this debate. Adobe is arguing that Flash is installed on 99 percent of all web browsers that support Flash, not 99 percent of all web browsers.
If you wanted to build an application to reach the masses, which of these options would you pick?
Color Contrast in Web Typography
Last year I wrote a list of 50 tips for a more user friendly website. One of these tips has caused controversy off of the blog, as well as prompted a number of emails asking for clarification.
#23 – Use dark gray text instead of black text on a white background;
My intention here was to point out that a subtle lightening of your black text on a white background actually helps improve legibility. True black text on a true white background is too high of a contrast for everyday reading. Subtlety is key.
Top 10 Tools for Designing Intelligent User Interfaces
Building intelligent user interfaces is not about tools, it’s about processes. In my experience, the best tools are the ones that encourage me to think and encourage me to design iteratively. My goal is to build between 5 and 20 low fidelity concepts, test them on real people and use the feedback to improve on the design.
I use the following “tools” everyday without fail, and I could not run my business without them. I’ve listed the most important tools first.
WARNING: If you are here looking for the latest in cool technology, this is not the place for you.
Why wireframes belong to the past
David Gonzalez poses an interesting proposition to eliminate low-fidelity wireframes. I disagree.
Low-fidelity wireframing is most important part of my design process. I don’t mean low-fidelity in the sense of Balsamiq Mockups, but rather paper and marker wireframes.
Designers rarely get the design right the first time, second time, and as it is often in my case, the 19th time. For that reason, I want to keep the cost of change as low as possible. Few things are cheaper than low-fidelity wireframes that you can crumple up and resketch quickly.
Once the low-fidelity is good, we get real and don’t typically create high-fidelity wireframes at all.
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Latest Comments
- George → “ also make sure that the non www version is always redirected to the www version of the website.…”
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- Adobe → “ The problems you are talking about are not Flash issues they are design issues . The problem is not Flash, the problem is that there are very few real designers around anymore. As for the plug in every browser for every platform save iOS has it installed when you download it. I am amazed how…”
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