Notes"design patterns are solutions to recurring problems. By extension, UI design patterns are solutions to common user interface problems. This article goes over 10 interesting UI design patterns that you can use in your own projects. In fact, you may already be using them now without knowing it."Unfurl
Notes"With the power of the underlying Mozilla Gecko engine, Pencil turns your excellent Firefox 3 browser into a sketching tool with just a 400-kilobyte installation package. "Unfurl
NotesThis goes a long ways toward explaining why everything Google does is so damn ugly. "Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that. I’ve grown tired of debating such miniscule design decisions. There are more exciting design problems in this world to tackle."Unfurl
Notes"In general, using the browser’s run-time as a prototyping environment enables ridiculously fast rapid prototyping. There are no deployment steps to worry about, changes are reflected instantly, and all changes are dog-foodable from the get-go. Prototyping is also entirely decoupled and parallelizable: that’s especially powerful when you don’t have access to the site for which you are making a live-patch, the backend code is obtuse, or when you multiple have competing ideas for changes you’d like to make. We actually use the same technique for prototyping new behaviors for the the Ubiquity code repository."FeedEmbedUnfurl
Notes"You don’t really know a subject until you’ve had to teach it. In the same way, you don’t really understand your interface until you’ve written a manual explaining how to use it. It can be a frustrating experience. Take for example the two manuals for digital watch and analog watch. The section on setting a digital watch is over a page of dense, difficult explanation. The analog’s is a single sentence: “Pull crown and turn.”"FeedEmbedUnfurl
Notes"Poka-yoke (ポカヨケ, Poka-yoke?) (IPA: [poka joke]) is a Japanese term that means "fail-safing", "Foolproof" or "mistake-proofing" — avoiding (yokeru) inadvertent errors (poka)) is a behavior-shaping constraint, or a method of preventing errors by putting limits on how an operation can be performed in order to force the correct completion of the operation."FeedUnfurl
Notes"1. Padded block links 2. Typesetting buttons 3. Using contrast to manage focus 4. Using color to manage attention 5. White space indicates relationships 6. Letter spacing 7. Auto-focus on input 8. Custom input focus 9. Hover controls 10. Verbs in labels"FeedUnfurl
Notes"Science Fiction movies have been a source for speculation about the future of technology and human computer interaction. This paper presents a survey of different kinds of interaction designs in movies during the past decades and relates the techniques of the films to existing technologies and prototypes where possible. The interactions will be categorized with respect to their domain of real-life applications and also evaluated in regard to results of current research in human computer interaction."Unfurl
Notes"the core idea that should be upheld by companies like Apple should be about making things better and less often. Making things that will be able to evolve, be upgraded, be adaptable, hackable and more fun to use for longer so that as a customer I don’t think that I’m buying version 3.4 of something that will only be as good as it’s last press release. I want to buy “the” quintessential Apple product and cherish it for years, like people would cherish a vintage car."FeedEmbedUnfurl
NotesSo awesome. Rather than dividing up the page with a line per hour, there's a small clock in the center of the page that lets you write relative to radial time in open space. "Can be used as a notebook, or simple diary. Each page represents 12 hours, and can be divided as required."Unfurl
Notes"Ubiquity is a graphical keyboard user interface. But a lot of people are missing the graphical aspect of it. And that is precisely what makes Ubiquity different from a command line. Command icons help but previews have to be more visual, not just the plain text that you would normally expect from the terminal. I can’t emphasize enough the fact that previews must be graphical because after all, Ubiquity is a GUI."Unfurl
Notes"Of course, the huge design choice that isn't explained, the giant in the room, if you will, shows up in this illustration from the comic: ... I can't help but think that people will encounter some difficulties in using a browser that's taller than a man. The Fitts' Law hit alone seems worth a bit of rethinking on Google's part, at least without a lot of stretching."Unfurl
Notes"With its ever present LCD interface, the time can be read at a glance but can be further illuminated with sci-fi green LEDs at the touch of a button, bringing the display to life like a glowing radar screen."Unfurl
Notes"MMO servers are currently limited by technological sizes. But what does a server where you know everybody (even a little) look like? What if we limited group sizes for social, not technological reasons? ... We wouldn’t have these servers that resemble sprawling cities; we’d build villages, and hamlets, and travelling camps. And as they grew too big, or small groups within the community grew, they’d break off and move to places where there’s more space for them. In one sense, that’s a more natural metaphor for our users, and it’s a scale that makes sense for them. ... I like this idea that everything, fundamentally, happens at a group level."Unfurl
Notes"I have no idea why Yahoo took so long to beat the ugly out of delicious. I’m just glad they didn’t beat the good stuff out in the process."Unfurl
Notes"COLOURlovers gives the people who use color ... a place to check out a world of color, compare color palettes, submit news and comments, and read color related articles and interviews."Unfurl
Notes"I suggest that if you recognize and acknowledge that purpose in life can only be derived from an imaginary friend, by whatever name you call him, then I’m afraid you do not grasp what “reality” is."Unfurl
Notes"Gmail uses Ajax to accelerate common operations ... but its core look and feel remains very similar to that of a traditional web page. In my view, this is not a shortcoming; it’s a smart design decision."FeedEmbedUnfurl
Notes"Week Six: Full Dark Elf Conversion. Students will learn to take photos of sexy women and transform them into dark elves using a variety of tools including color overlays, cloning, the smudge tool and crippling social anxiety."Unfurl
Notes"Once you know how to design and manipulate the space outside, inside, and around your content, you’ll be able to give your readers a head start, position products more precisely, and perhaps even begin to see your own content in a new light."Unfurl
Notes"CSS-based liquid layout has proven successful during the reign of 800-pixel to 1024-pixel screens, but as we use a wider range of devices to access the web, we need more powerful and flexible ways of managing layout."Unfurl
Notes"We acquired an excellent image to convey friends reading annotations, and deployed it just now. Thanks Martin at Subetha for bearing with us while we found the replacement!"Unfurl
Notes"In this article, one button is the limitation on interaction. Using this limitation, the reader can then draw their own conclusions about how these ideas may be exploited on multi-button interaction systems."Unfurl
Notes"Inspired by Khoi Vinh’s post about using a background image of a grid for layout, and a subsequent post over at Smiley Cat about the same thing, I decided to knock up a quick Photoshop style Layout Grid Bookmarklet"Unfurl
Notes"As some of you know I got the chance to work with the super joyful people of Happy Cog on their project for Ma.gnolia, that keen social bookmarking application that more and more people are using."Unfurl
Notes"You know that one browser that has only a vague association with modern web standards? Yeah, Internet Explorer. Wouldn't it be great if it supported stuff like translucent PNGs?"Unfurl
Design Proposals
Poka-yoke - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
10 Useful Techniques To Improve Your User Interface Designs | How-To | Smashing Magazine
Cherish The AIR? Just because you can doesn't mean you should
cabel.name: On Wedding Design
