7 posts tagged “experience”

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Web Development, part san

Jul 25, 2008
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I know I can come up with something and it shall be launched! In the meantime, check out this new design I made. At some point I should actually put some content into the design, but I enjoy this. This one is called Plenatude.

It's not nearly as complete as the others, but I like the colored rays. I think I'll build on this one and get back to you. Here's another view without the navigation links, you can see the rays better.

I also made a "People's Software Manifesto". This should count as content.

Everything is feedback

Apr 15, 2008
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Just think for a moment about any single object that you encounter on a day to day basis. Pressing keys on a keyboard, turning the wheel in a car, opening a door, trying to open a locked door, tying your shoes, hitting a ball with a paddle, drawing on a whiteboard - literally everything you've ever touched for your entire life has given some form of feedback that allows you to associate action with reaction. Typing on a keyboard works for us because first) we don't need to look and second) we get instant feedback both visually with a character and physically with the key we press down as it immediately pops back up.

http://www.littlepc.com/images/oem_114_kyb.jpg

In user interfaces, since Windows operating systems have rolled out several editions now, supposed standards in interaction have been acquired over time. The cursor has become a very important tool for interaction as it relates to its visual context. The difference between the cursor as a pointer and a cursor as a hand could mean the difference between moving and clicking. There are certain controls that have been acquired into user interfaces for standard interactions. For instance, buttons, radiobuttons, comboboxes, listboxes and checkboxes. Toolkits enable us to build interfaces fast but they can limit the possibilities in excellent interaction design for our users, but that's another post.

Feedback, on the other hand is about ensuring that literally anything I do with the interface at hand will react with some form of change in the interface. In user interfaces this could mean, pressing down on input devices, moving devices around, performing gestures, changing context or focus of tasks - literally anything. The absolute worst thing you could do to your users is not respond to their input. The user always, and I mean always, needs to see the change instantaneously - even if the job isn't done yet.

Making things obvious

Apr 15, 2008
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Interaction design not only requires a bundle of testing but it requires a lot of personal experience. As a developer, it would be incredibly difficult to design a product without any familiarity to the end result. Without personal experience to the end product, emotional attachment will be bias in favor of ease of development. As an interaction designer it is important to remember that product experience to users, no matter what the product, count on tasks being obvious.

Taking a quick glance at the two remotes above, what tasks can you determine will be obvious to complete. Let's suppose that the person will be watching TV in the dark. Without being able to look at the remote, will it be easy to figure out what buttons to press? The remote on the right uses differing shapes, placement and space around the buttons to distinguish tasks from one another. The user will be able to learn how to use the remote during daylight or under the light. Familiarity with the product soon begets the obvious nature to complete tasks.

Of course, on the left, lights allow the user to see which button is which and how to complete a task like changing the channel. However, due to the number of buttons and the few spacing there is between them - the user will have to look at their remote every time they want to use it.

Obvious interaction is not so obvious when it of course depends on perspective. Anyone on a team will have a differing perspective of obvious interaction when they are looking at the same product. However, the key point in making things obvious is about taking away prerequisites. So for instance, in the remote example lighting was taken away. Without looking at the remote which is easier? How often will the user need to relearn the interface? How long will it take to learn the interface the first time? These are a few important questions when thinking about obvious interaction.

A prose on software

Apr 12, 2008
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I decided to write a quick prose on interaction design and software. It's simple, but I think it gets the point across.

Since the dawn of time we have learned to progress by
connecting and building off of the world around us. We
have learned how to communicate, explore and create
through example, experimentation and evolution. Yet,
in a world becoming more and more dependent on IT,
we are only beginning to understand the many ways to
interact with the content around us.
This is our journey. Our passion is software.
- Thomas Holloway

Office Labs: Future of personal health

Apr 12, 2008
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Office Labs: Future of personal health concept

I Command You

Apr 12, 2008
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The old days of command line interfaces seem scarce, frightening and even gone in places in this gui driven world of ours. Although, there are aspects of the command world that show itself as subtle advancements in good interface design. Take for instance Gmail and it's interface below.

http://blog.rememberthemilk.com/img/gmail/ss_gmail.png

Gmail, adds a few shortcut keys to navigate around the site. Use K to move up and J to move down in the list of e-mails. Hit O to open an e-mail, X to select it, # to delete it. These are subtle additions that can make a great interface even better to use. Another great example - Microsoft's Visual Studio.

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We underestimate our ability to take advantage of the keyboard in most applications today. Keyboard commands often get supplemented by menus, buttons and other pieces of user interface that typically will break our train of thought. Can you imagine what it would be like if we wanted to know a method for a class in some object in Visual Studio without intellisense? Imagine how much pain we would go through if when we wanted to go to a website we had to choose from a listbox instead of typing in a url to one or searching for it.

This is why it's important to understand that users do know what they're doing and that commands aren't always the worst of things. We were always used to them in the old days, there should be no reason why they shouldn't continue to enrich our experiences today.

Silverlight Mix Video

Apr 9, 2008
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While this video is substantially old, it is certainly a good one to watch. Tim Sneath talks about a lot of the different aspects of Silverlight, it's capabilities, performance aspects, bits and pieces about the lightweight embed CLR. Not only that, he makes a few great points on web experience and providing a platform that takes advantage of client processing power, with multi-threaded multi-core computing, in shifts with fundamental changes in software platforms.