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2D design
Two-dimensional design. That's the traditional phrase to describe what you need to practice. In the digital world, interface design means roughly the same thing as 2d design. If you can think of a screwdriver handle as being a simple yet functional interface (interhand?), you can see your challenge as an information designer. You must also be part artist, part commercial product designer, part psychologist, and part guide or teacher. A little geek doesn't hurt, either.
traditional computer monitor interface ...
puzzling, unclear images <----> attractive images at the service of content and purpose
puzzling, unclear graphics, inappropriate typefaces, misspelled words <----> attractive graphics at the service of user-friendly orientation and navigation
gratuitous images <----> integrated images
gratuitous wizbang <----> integrated wizbang
tip | Turn off the images in your browser to learn how much the page depends on your visuals. If you use a style sheet, disable it, too.
A user interface is well-designed when the program behaves
exactly how the user thought it would.
-- Joel Spolsky
From the beginning of the digital development process, you start asking yourself how the project is going to look on the screen.
How does
it look?
How will users know
where they are?
How will they know where
to go?
How intrusive will the
navigation system be?
How explicit do users
need the directions to be for getting around?
You may sketch out some ideas. Finally, you have the project's target audience, their tasks, and the hypertext structure. You're confident about the most attractive and effective overall look and feel. You're now ready to commit to the specific look, feel, and contents of each screen.
First, select the measurement methods and standards that you will use to improve your design. As a human-centered designer, how will you be able to tell whether the interface works?
Is it
easy for those in the target audience to learn?
Is it easy to understand
after they've learned it?
Is it efficient? Does it
help them do what they need to do after they've used it awhile?
We have an ancient tradition of hands-on apprenticeship to guide and support novices in the context of authentic work. Paper-based documents can guide and support to some extent. But what about networked computers? How can the digital document go beyond paper to begin to play a good mentor's varied roles: inform, train, guide, support, and inspire?
A well-crafted interface is essential. This is especially true when the interface serves difficult cognitive tasks such as problem-solving and decision-making.
It may be best for you to learn by doing. If so, get to it. However, when you want a more abstract and theoretical approach to design, I recommend "State of the Art Review on Hypermedia Issues and Applications", a 1994 document by V. Balasubramanian of Rutgers University. The fourth chapter, User Interface Issues, and the eighth, A Systematic Approach to User Interface Design for a Hypertext Framework, are especially relevant.
The Centre for Sustainable Design
discussion and research on eco-design and broader sustainability considerations in product and service development. This is achieved through training, workshops, conferences, research, consultancy, publications, and the Internet. The Centre also acts as an information clearing house and a focus for innovative thinking on sustainable products and services. The Centre is an internationally recognised centre of excellence.
Alan Cooper published a popular and influential book a few years ago called About Face. It challenges many of the principles taught by the leading guides such as the ones below. At his corporate web site, Cooper has a manifesto. If you read it and find that it speaks to you, try the case studies as well as these columns he wrote for a magazine in the mid-90's
The Perils
of Prototyping
Prototyping tools distract the designer from being an advocate for the user.
Ban the Bomb
Programs should not have error messages. None. Not a single one. Ever.
Your
Program's Posture
Consider the purpose of your program before taking an interface stance.
Get a Memory
Create productive software by predicting what users will do next.
Digital Soup
We need to refocus on the retrieval, not the storage, of information.
In English class, you may have learned about these critters: juxtaposing two things to reveal new features of each. A sporting contest described in terms of war can tell us something about male roles. War described in terms of a sporting contest can tell us something about the conscience of the generals. To make the connection, you have to understand both sports and war. What you're actually communicating is something about men. Slippery stuff.
Ricci Street is a metaphor.
In the computer world, however, we use metaphors differently. We apply what we know, for example, desktops and windows, to what we don't know, how a piece of computer software works.
In "Beyond the Interface Metaphor," Ken Mohnkern, an interaction designer with the web division of a marketing and advertising firm Blattner Brunner in Pittsburgh, explains both why computers are as easy to use as they are but still so doggone hard to use that they make us feel stupid. Up until now, you've been a user. Now, you're going to be designing a web, or a "system", as Mohnkern refers to it here.
I'd recommend highly that at least one person on your team read the whole article and that you give great thought to how you will use visual metaphors in your design.
Alan Cooper has another take on The Myth of Metaphor.
Often prescribed as a panacea to interface ills, metaphors aren't all they're cracked up to be.
When designing a system, designers develop a conceptual model of it, called the "design model." The development of this model is based on a particular set of users, a particular context of use. It includes things like what features perform what tasks, the navigational structure of the system, and how the parts of the system relate to one another.
As a person uses the system, they form a "user model;" they develop their own concept of what the system's structure is and how it works, based on their experience with the system. Sometimes the user model is an accurate model of the system, sometimes it is not. The designers' goal is to communicate the design model to the user. Their only means of communication, though, is the system image itself. If a system is successfully designed, then the user model will be equivalent to the design model.
Obviously,
this communication is critical. It occurs as the user experiences a system's
look and feel - its metaphor. It is important to realize that the user forms a
user model whether or not the designers have made a conscious effort to
communicate the design model to them. So there must be an intentional effort
made to create and communicate a design model; otherwise, we cannot expect users
to understand and use a designed system effectively.
In my experience, learning a new piece of software is often called "getting it". We either get it right away or we get it at great pain and thus, often, not at all. The "it" to get, then, is the designer's model. Now that you're the designer, how can you help your customer get it?
One way is to not try to make it usable by everyone, or even lots of people. Choose a test user or two as representative as possible of your target audience. Make it usable by them.
tip | Watch silently while two people try to click through your site, one an inexperienced web user, the other an experienced web user.
File cabinets and human minds are information-storage
systems. We could model computerized information-storage on the mind instead of
the file cabinet if we wanted to.
-- David Gelertner
The Next
Computer Interface
by Claire Tristram
MIT Technology Review, December 2001
The desktop metaphor was a brilliant innovation—30 years
ago. Now it's an unmanageable mess, and the search is on for a better way to
handle information.
"The desktop is dead," declares David Gelernter. Gelernter is
referring to the "desktop metaphor"—the term frequently used for the
hierarchical system of files, folders and icons that we use to manage
information stored on our home or office computers. At the annual gathering of
technophiles at TechXNY/PC Expo 2001 in New York last June, he told the rapt
crowd attending his keynote speech that the desktop metaphor is nothing more
than virtual Tupperware.
Check it out:
Integrated information management software that works the way people think — organizing your information by content and time.
Inxight's portfolio of products, based on patented and proprietary technology, employs highly visual methods for navigation and enables automatic summarization, tagging, annotation and categorization of textual electronic content.
Microsoft's Task Gallery
This prototype user interface expands the desktop into
an entire office with an unlimited number of desktops. The screen becomes a long
gallery with paintings on the walls that represent different tasks, and the user
moves quickly and easily from one to another with a simple series of mouse and
keyboard commands. We tried to make the illusion appeal to the lessons in
navigating physical space that we learned as children, so that people would “get”
the system intuitively without having to learn or adjust to it. The less people
have to think about how to work their computer, the more mental energy they have
left for their real work.
World's First
Video-Capable Flexible Plastic LCD Display
press release, June 5, 2001
AV Video Multimedia Producer
The first flexible plastic thin-film transistor liquid
crystal display (TFT LCD) ... can show video content. ...
"With this technology it's possible that one day you'll carry around a
computer display rolled up into a pen," said Michael Kane, Distinguished
Member of Technical Staff at Sarnoff. "You could show multimedia
presentations on a paper-thin display that follows the contours of a curved
wall, or fits easily into a streamlined cell phone or other portable
device."
How It Works: Retinal Displays
Adds a Second Data Layer
by Matt Lake
New York Times, April 26, 2001 (free reg required; click on Painting an Image in
the Eye)
IBM
Introduces World's Highest-Resolution Computer Monitor
press release, June 2002
At a starting price of $22,000 ...
Medicine -- Physicians will be able to view digitally
photographed X-rays ... sent online to specialists around the world for instant
feedback and counsel.
Finance -- The T220's small-footprint yet large-screen is ideal for a
trading desk, which often holds up to six monitors displaying an array of highly
detailed data, from financial indicators and trading volume to cable news
networks and e-mail with customers and other traders.
Automotive -- Crisp digital images can replace hand-built design models
for all the different parts of the car, allowing for instant changes and
speedier development.
Weather Forecasting -- Large printed satellite maps and photographs can
be replaced with photo-quality digital images, allowing meteorologists to
quickly interpret weather patterns and instantly share them with colleagues
around the world.
Design -- Designers ranging from publishing, fashion, furniture, home
building and beyond can view photo-quality images and detailed information
easier and faster than with paper layouts.
4th International Conference and Exhibition on Generative Art
Voice
Recognition Industry Poised for Revolution
by Robyn Greenspan
Internet.com's CyberAtlas, June 28, 2002
If the predictions are correct, more people are going to be talking. Datamonitor is forecasting the voice business market to return to positive growth during the second half of 2002 and grow quickly through 2007 where the whole market (including platforms, enabling software, applications, and services) will be worth $4.33 billion.
What makes a SMART Board touch sensitive?
The Board surface consists of two sheets of resistive material separated by a small air gap. When you press on the Board with your finger or with a tool from the SMART Pen Tray, you close the air gap and thus register a contact point. This contact point's coordinates are sent to the computer.
Mass Multimedia's TouchScreens.com
Comparing Touch Technologies
There are several types of touch screen technologies that are available. All of the touch screens that we offer can be used in a variety of applications, though each type has advantages and disadvantages that make them better or worse for certain uses. Please see below for an introduction to each type of screen, and for the advantages / disadvantages of each type.
Econo Touch's Touch Screens & Kiosk Accessories
Resistive Technology -
Mechanical and Optical Specs
Resistive is ideal for dirty, wet or greasy environments like Restaurants, Bars, Point of Sale, Medical, Process control and Instrumentation. Works with finger, gloved hand, stylus activation, nails, or any type of Pressure. (Refer to it as Pressure Sensitive).
Amateur Web
Sites - the Top Ten Signs
by Charlie Morris
Web Developers Journal, October 6, 1999
So you're a beginning Webmaster. You don't have to advertise the fact. If you're a dog, nobody will know, but if you're an amateur, everyone will know - at least if you pull any of the boners listed here. If your experience of the Web is limited, you may not realize that something that looks neato to you may strike more experienced Net denizens as passé, trite, amateurish, annoying, or worst of all - deprecated!
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