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James Kalbach succeeds in bringing together the fundamental components that determine great, and not-so-great, user interfaces. The UI itself must always be respected and the author illustrates exactly why in the journey the book takes us on. What the book does is show how this can be achieved, from the past, notably from the present and into the future. The illustrations are in colour (critically important for any design book) and give clarity to the text’s important insights. (more…) |
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The most popular post on this blog is about concept models and recently Dan Brown talked at the IXDA conference on the subject. He effectively walks through the chapter of his book, giving an in-depth talk on what they are and why you should use them. Its 37 minutes but well worth it, here. |
| I have used concept models for a year on 7 large projects and I personally think they are the most valuable design deliverable. Basically its because all other steps in designing a site fall out from this in-depth analysis.
Some interesting points of note from the talk were about collaboration and buy-in, which are so key to the success of any project. |
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Persuasion Architecture has been around for years, Bryan Eisenberg (and his brother Jeffrey) founded the term and has been successfully establishing it as a concept and a measurable process. However, in a recent post, he states that after 7 years we still must be aware of usability and optimising the user experience. Regardless of the passage of time, sites still struggle to be successful. (more…) |
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The challenge that faces any design project that uses wireframes is that they can easily be snapshots in time and become static. As soon as they are printed or circulated around a stakeholder group they become a moment in the site development’s life cycle. They often can be made redundant due to forces outside of the design project. This can be a potential point of weakness for this valuable deliverable. |
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These serve so many different elements to a website design. To not use them seems a bad mistake. Initially they can help overcome issues about how an element may work on the site. More importantly they clarify the purpose of every element that appears on the page and states the user interaction. |
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The powerful thing about the wire frame is that it removes many emotive aspects of design that will cause division amongst clients. There are no uses of branding , colours or elements of graphic interest on a good wire frame. When they are stripped back to absolute functional essentials it is much easier to explain exactly why key elements are placed in certain areas on the page. |
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This was not so much a redesign, or even a relaunch, but more of a resurrection of a site that had become tired, old and ineffective. Its many shortcomings were highlighted with the onslaught of the new generation of sites from competitors that used user-generated content and a more social networking approach to their presentation layer. As this site represented the best of computer related business journalism, it was apt that it should be the company’s first site that underwent a complete overhaul from the ground up. |
Just had a look at the Mac section on Apple’ site and the new slider widget at the top of the page that helps a user see all the products.
This makes me laugh a bit as it seems to be a throw back to the time of frames and horizontal scroll bars.
Wonder why we don’t see horizontal scroll bars on web pages? Oh yes because they go against user screen use, ie although the eye scans down a page and across the screen it somehow feels awkward to do the same with the mouse.
Thanks to David Malouf for making me aware that successful companies with years of design experiences still get things wrong….weird.
After reading this article http://www.peterme.com/?p=536 I was somewhat saddened and the also transported back to a time 7 years ago when I was a lowly web designer working for an information architect who headed up our design team.
She was of the opinion that the surface design was all we were good for, our thoughts concerning interaction of the user with the interface was little more than icing on the cake that she had lovingly baked. She was frustrating, she ring-fenced her domain, no colleague or client could get into her information utopia. Don´t get me wrong, we respected and admired her courage and stubbornness. She usually got her way but she never got user centred design.
Back in the room….yes 7 years on and the old problems seem to still be there. There appears to be a disconnect in IA from a UCD approach. Even in the Polar Bear book we have overtones of how UCD is the poor relation to information organisation. I would like to propose we drop this outlook and the reasons are clear. As more people with different ideas contribute to the information mix we will have to embrace the user, put them at the centre of everything we do and allow their behaviour to permeate through our taxonomies. Let our taxonomies become Persona led and multi-faceted.
Just as IA is reaching its highest point it is in danger of falling flat on its face. I emplore it as a discipline to embrace interaction and interface design. Collaboration is the key to its success as we are on the threshold of implementing processes that are solid and enduring.Tweet
As a designer you want it to look good, the user wants it to work. Is there a happy compromise? Often simplicity is the answer – strip it back to the skeleton and only build in the minimum gloss and sheen. A brand colour, logo and all the whistles and bells – including badly written copy and too many content types will overwhelm and confuse a user.
Without strong direction aligned with the needs of the user, a design will not hit its mark. There is so much in making a good design great. Often it is the research that spurs evidence based decisions and this will do much of the thinking and win most of the arguements about placement of content or interface elements. By being stubborn and telling the right people constantly can change minds. Just ensure you have the evidence to back up your arguements!Tweet
