What’s a better way to refer to an Intranet site?
I’ve found most of our users are totally unaware of the term, though it’s plastered on the front page of our Intranet site and the desktop icon they use to get to the site is labeled “(Company) Intranet”.
In fact many users I’ve met have …
How should large table columns be handled on a responsive design?
Related to This Question, I’m interested in what I should do with a responsive design theme where the users have control over the columns which are displayed in a tabular, data rich page. Users are able to manipulate which columns are disp…
Are grayscale buttons with icons usable and effective?
The image here is
old gmail
new gmail, when no mail is selected
new gmail, when mail is selected
new delicious
To me, the buttons are unlabeled and tough to discover.
I don’t believe the icons do a good enough job to make labels r…
Could gamification of training database work in a manufacturing environment?
I made a WPF app which contains and shows lots of training resources. The thing is, people aren’t very motivated to just open something and start reading/learning.
Does anyone have experience with this kind of application of…
What company’s UIs are at the forefront of design, and why?
Mark BurtonPath 2.0 has changed the way people think about social networking on mobile devices forever. It will be exciting to see what the team does from here.See how a sample Path menu was made in CSS3 here (pretty amazing): http://lab.victorcoulon….
Alternative term to "Blacklist" and "Whitelist"
In short, my company is developing a management tool for managing SIM cards. One of the features of the tool is to block the SIM card if it’s put into a none allowed device by device IMEI validation.
The feature for this was mocked up us…
When is it appropriate to autoplay music or video on a web site?
Never! If your website doesn’t encourage people to click play on the video then you need to rethink your strategy. People now expect the option to opt-in, i.e click play on your video rather then have it play automatically for them.
What is a “UX Unicorn”?
Let’s get this straight. A UX unicorn is a mythical object. A UX unicorn can solve not just an unusable interface, but also, poor strategy decisions, lack of management vision, an under resourced development team, a woefully inadequate budget, and a complete lack of design thinking.
UX unicorns don’t exist, but this does not stop product managers from their eternal quest to find a magical solution for problems.
However, if you are determined to find a UX unicorn, here are some places to look. UX unicorns tend to live in the misty mountains next to the Portal of Unlimited Creative Freedom. UX Unicorns can also be lured into your cube farm with Large Pots of Gold and Bonuses of Unusual Size.
How can I get good at visual and interaction design?
First things first: it is a mistake to constrain the word “design” to only “making things look pretty”. That aspect is actually the least important, in my opinion.
Design is about understanding problems. When you understand a problem fully, the solution nearly always becomes obvious.
The road to becoming a good designer is the same path as becoming good at anything else: practice, practice, practice.
Give yourself design problems, both simple and complex. Think about re-solving things you encounter every day: Stop lights. Cross walk markings. Microwave oven panels. Automated teller machines. Point of sale credit card machines. Paperclips.
All around you are real-world problems that have designed solutions. Study these problems and their solutions. Research why certain decisions were made (why are stop signs red?). Come up with better ones.
Build better mouse traps, as it were.
Pay attention to details, especially with well-designed objects and systems. A great thing to study is the interiors of aircraft. Why are things locked in certain ways? Why are the cabinets sized specifically?
Understand simplicity and ease-of-use. Why do police officers carry their gear in certain ways? What is the value of having the communications nodule mounted on the shoulder? Why are sidearms never slung for cross-draw? Police and military equipment is usually top-notch for simplicity and easy of use (consider explosive charges, stamped with “THIS SIDE TOWARDS ENEMY”).
When you start to understand the problems, you understand the solutions. And you can make better ones. And, most importantly, you will be able to communicate your designs.
Practice, practice, practice.
Practice your tools. Learn Photoshop, or Illustrator, or whatever. Learn color theory and psychology.
Learn when to innovate and when to imitate. Be comfortable with stealing ideas and having your own ideas stolen.
Practice, practice, practice.
And then you will be good.
Alternatives to MDI layout?
As WPF has no built-in MDI support I was looking around for alternatives for a rather large graphical work oriented application. The application will have a lot of different widgets, and for a lot of those the usable area will be different…