Best interface: NO interface

You MUST read this article from Cooper journal – The best interface is no interface. It helps you think about many important things we’ve learned in this course. Principle 1 illustrates how use cases are used. Principle 2 is all about excise.

In general, being able to design a “no interface” requires designers to know users intimately – therefore, it points to the need for personas, scenarios, and use cases.

HT to Jennifer B. (@JustRose) for tweeting this article. The best way to learn is from and with each other.

What did you think about that article? Did it help you make connections to how course concepts are useful? Like what? Did it raise more questions? Please let me know in the comments.

Importance of user research: case study

See this case study about the importance of doing user research (in this case, interviews and observations) in order to develop the user experience for a digital wedding planning tool.

Do you like to see these kind of examples about how professionals use the techniques we learn about in class? Let me know by commenting, rating, or liking.

Dr. V

Readings: Heuristic evaluation

Just in case you have trouble opening the links from the syllabus, here are the two readings for Monday April 2:

1. Heuristic evaluation
2. 10 usability heuristics

 

Book recommendation: Pervasive Information Architecture

I noticed in your self-descriptions the other day that many of you are interested in developing cross-platform products. For those of you (but not only those), here is a book that may be useful: Pervasive Information Architecture: Designing Cross-Channel User Experiences – it is about organizing information and creating good user experiences across platforms. Check out the book’s website and read excerpts (and a free chapter) there.

Memory & interface design

Remember we talked about memory not long ago in class?

Here is a post from UX Booth that gives practical advice about how to apply what we know about human memory to interface design.

What is your favorite tip? What other tips can you come up with? Do you have examples of interfaces that tax your memory (or do a good job not taxing it?) – save them for a Show & Tell!

P.S.

Have you taken Alex’s survey? Please remember to check your email for more info if you would like to help.

Dr. V

Visual Perception: Gestalt principles; Color blindness

Here is a nice explanation of the Gestalt principles of visual perception. Also, spend some time looking at these optical illusions and paradoxes (they’re fun) – and try to understand why it is that we seem to mis-perceive what we see?

Color Blindness is an important aspect of visual perception. As you know, not all people perceive all colors. It’s hard to guess how color blind people will perceive your interface – but this site really helps you out. You can paste in your URL and it will show you what your site looks like to people with various types of color blindness.

One thing to keep in mind, however, is that relying on color alone to communicate is a big no-no in interface design. Color needs to be supplemented with more information. For example, you can’t have just a red button and a green button having different functions. Some people will perceive them identically! You should add written labels to the buttons to have another way of distinguishing between them in addition to color.

Readings and Resources: GUI history

Please take a look at this collection of readings and resources related to the history of the Graphic User Interface. Please read the Ars Technica article, and check out the other resources and videos as well.

CSS3 vs. CSS

From Smashing Magazine.

“I believe in the power, speed and “update-ability” of CSS3. Not having to load background images as structural enhancements (such as PNGs for rounded corners and gradients) can save time in production (i.e. billable hours) and loading (i.e. page speed). At our company, we’ve happily been using CSS3 on client websites for over a year now, and I find that implementing many of these properties right now is the most sensible way to build websites.

Until today, all of that was based on an assumption: that I can produce a pixel-perfect Web page with CSS3 quicker than I can with older image-based CSS methods, and that the CSS3 page will load faster, with a smaller overall file size and fewer HTTP requests. As a single use case experiment, I decided to design and code a Web page and add visual enhancements twice: once with CSS3, and a second time using background images sliced directly from the PSD. I timed myself each round that I added the enhancements, and when finished, I used Pingdom to measure the loading times.” … See entire article for code implementation details.

Read this post? Let me know by commenting, liking, or rating.

Dr. V

Online Portfolios

I came across this blog post about online portfolios for graphic designers. It has great advice, and a gallery of great examples. Since your final project will be to create your own online portfolio, I thought this would be very useful. Please read.

Ethnography in User Research

As a supplement to your class reading about user research (BGW chapter 3), please see this article about the use of ethnography to improve the usability of photocopiers and their user interfaces, from UX Magazine.

If you do not already, I recommend you read UX Magazine on a regular basis.

Please read this before class on Wednesday Feb 2, assuming we have class then – if not, before class the following Monday.