“I’m calling these hypotheses instead of laws because they have yet to be proven out through rigrous scientific study and critique. I’ve developed them merely from anecdotes and examples. However if these hypotheses survive the harsh critiques of PhDs with larger brains (and attention spans) who subject such assertions to sufficient controlled (reproduceable) experiments, then perhaps future generations may see fit to call them ‘laws’.” (Thanks Daring Fireball!)
More and less: Designing for high-stakes decisions
“Expanding the number of options often comes at the cost of finding solutions. Nowhere is this trend more evident than online—and the stakes have never been higher. Increasingly, our most significant decisions—such as whether or not to have a medical procedure or how to best to plan for retirement—are being made using web-based applications. As it turns out, many are poorly suited to helping us sort through the ever-growing range of possibilities. So why do these interfaces so often fail us when we need them most? And what unique challenges are there in designing systems that help us make high-stakes decisions?”
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This Is What Happens When You Let Developers Create UI
“Deep down inside every software developer, there’s a budding graphic designer waiting to get out. And if you let that happen, you’re in trouble. Or at least your users will be, anyway…”
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Where Where Where do I go to learn [interface design]?
[10:36] styloid: BTW have you seen any excellent interface guideline documents on line?
[10:37] styloid: mostly for assisting a very green IA/UE team
[10:39] christina_wodtke: yahoo’s pattern language library rocks
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Poynter’s Complete Waste of Time
“The Poynter Institute is about to launch the research phase of its run-up to launching version 4.0 of its perennially popular game, The Poynter Institute’s Complete Waste of Time. Many of you may know it by its more common name, the EyeTrack study. It’s a game where knowledge is fun! — knowledge of utterly useless, anecdotal and irresponsibly non-applicable trivia about the viewing habits of website visitors. Let’s play along.”
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Icon Analysis: Evaluating Low Spatial Frequency Compositions
“An icon search task that lasts longer than anticipated can result in user annoyance or even premature abandonment.”
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A Conversation with Steven Johnson, Part 1
“In this first part of his conversation with Adaptive Path’s Jesse James Garrett, bestselling author Steven Johnson talks about his 1997 book Interface Culture and how his thinking on the design of interactive media has evolved since then. Steven Johnson’s keynote kicks off Day One of User Experience Week 2006, August 14-17 in Washington, D.C.”
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Tufte Story: AnswerBook
“A long, long time ago, my friend Eric Bergman and I were working on the UI for Sun AnswerBook, which was a CD-based predecessor to docs.sun.com. AnswerBook Screen.Sun had invited Edward Tufte in to teach a session in our Boston office about the Grand Vistas of Information Architecture or something. After the class, we lured him into our usability lab to look at the user interface for Answerbook, of which were were very proud.” (Thanks kottke.org!)
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Scrolling and Scrollbars
“Despite posing well-known risks, websites continue to feature poorly designed scrollbars. Among the ongoing problems that result are frustrated users, accessibility challenges, and missed content.”
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Yellow Fade Technique
“The guys over at 37 Signals posted a link to their article on the Yellow Fade Technique again. Much like the first time, I was disapointed that they didn’t provide any code samples. So, for all of you out there that would like to implement something like this, I have put together a sample of how to do so.”
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