I didn't understand Fitt's Law as well as I thought
"Visualizing Fitt's Law" reviews a basic principle of UI design:
- "Basically ... the time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target."
- "Although the basic message is obvious (big things are easier to select) it is the precise mathematical characterization that is exciting ... small increases in size for small objects make it much easier to select them (whereas small increases in size for big objects don’t make that much difference). And the same applies for changes in target distance."
Ben Chun's got a new blog on his experiences teaching computer skills to high school students.
Where user experience comes last
Let's say I want an MSDN subscription. I don't, but somebody might.
Yeeeech.
- Ok, the MSDN site is easy enough to find.
- Ok, on the nav bar up top I see a link to MSDN Subscriptions. So far so good.
- What the hell? Where's the "sign up" button? "Existing subscriptions" ... "Associate your subscription with your Passport" ... ah ok. "Don’t have a MSDN Subscription? Learn more here." Nice how well they hid that.
- Good fuck, what is this! Well, maybe Explore Purchasing Options.
- Best page yet! A big shiny button that says "Buy & Ship"! I'm in the home stretch.
- Oh. This is ugly. And not what I want. Let's go back a step ... right, I wanted the small-text link Buy or renew MSDN Subscriptions directly from Microsoft.
- And we're in ... to a site with a completely different look and feel. But looks like I'm in the right place.
Yeeeech.
Measuring visual clutter
From BoingBoing:
MIT researchers have designed a software tool that measures "visual clutter". According to the scientists, the system could someday help designers create better displays, maps, and data visualizations and steer our attention in various ways. The prototype tool, written in MATLAB, is freely available.
Yet Another List of Stuff. Lots of pretty pictures though, which are obviously useful here. (via MeFi)
Mostly basic principles of survey design, so applicable beyond software. Plenty of useful nuts and bolts stuff.
Microformats
Human-focused, machine-parseable formats. When I first saw it I immediately thought "textile & markdown!" but those aren't mentioned at all.
My interest in Textile and Markdown stems from a desire for a rich editing experience that degrades gracefully to plain text. (Basically, I want a slick outliner when I'm at a PC, and a usable text file on my phone or other limited-capabilities client.)
Human-focused, machine-parseable formats. When I first saw it I immediately thought "textile & markdown!" but those aren't mentioned at all.
My interest in Textile and Markdown stems from a desire for a rich editing experience that degrades gracefully to plain text. (Basically, I want a slick outliner when I'm at a PC, and a usable text file on my phone or other limited-capabilities client.)
the elements of user experience
Us consultants love these one-slide frameworks. Isn't that right, Eric?
Us consultants love these one-slide frameworks. Isn't that right, Eric?
we love you, yes you
Mean Valentine's Day cards.
Mean Valentine's Day cards.
User Interface Engineering -- "Seductive Design for Web Sites"
- Give users what they want.
- Give them (ideally related) other suggestions while they're sated and digesting.
Designing Visual Interfaces: Communication Oriented Techniques
"Ironically, many designers of graphical user interfaces are not always aware of the fundamental design rules and techniques that are applied routinely by other practitioners of communication-oriented visual design -- techniques that can be used to enhance the visual quality of GUIs, data displays, and multimedia documents."
"Ironically, many designers of graphical user interfaces are not always aware of the fundamental design rules and techniques that are applied routinely by other practitioners of communication-oriented visual design -- techniques that can be used to enhance the visual quality of GUIs, data displays, and multimedia documents."
RuleSpaces
"Imagine the web as a continuum..[of] idioms of user-experience." Yes, content starts about 63 slides in. Fun stuff though.
Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker on why paper is important for knowledge work. Of course, if we get e-paper, things get way weirder. Hope hope hope.
Peter Merholz replies.
Peter Merholz replies.
