September 14, 2010 at 09:55Review of fresh materials, August 2010
This material continues a series of monthly reviews of fresh articles on the topic of interfaces, new tools and collections of patterns, interesting cases and historical stories. From the tapes of several hundred thematic subscriptions, approximately 5% of the publications worth publishing are selected, which are interesting to share. Previous materials: April , May-June , July .
In Defense of A / B Testing
Paras Chopra wrote an excellent article in defense of the A / B testing method, which has recently been criticized by designers and designers. He refutes three main claims, which relate primarily to focusing on not the most effective changes.
Guidelines for Designing Data Tables
Connie Malamed, author of Visual Language for Designers, provides a series of table design tips. It describes the mental process of working with a table and talks about how to simplify the user’s passage through it.
Making User Interface Elements Difficult to Use By Intent
An article by Jacob Gube in which he talks about intentionally complicating the interface in cases where data loss and other unpleasant consequences are possible.
IBM's Making the Deal - Supporting Product Demos with User Assistance Mike Hughes describes how to optimize the product demo interface. He describes 4 characteristics in which the demonstration should be especially good - the value of the product and its visual display, attention to existing user problems, competitive advantages.
User Interface Stack Exchange
A new Q & A service dedicated to practical interface design issues. Here are collected popular questions and answers of practitioners to them.
Good Help is Hard to Find
The Lyle Mullican article describes several ways to present help information in web services. He divides the help into two types - integrated into the overall process and shown separately.
Guidelines for user friendly URI Design A
good reminder for creating friendly and readable URLs from Jacob Gillespie. The article talks about general principles and provides a series of useful tips.
Free Wireframing Kits, UI Design Kits, PDFs and Resources
One of the most ambitious collections of templates and stencils for designing and designing web services and mobile applications. Although more and more such collections have recently appeared, this article by Smashing Magazine is one of the most detailed and elaborated.
20 Free Web UI Element Kits and Stencils
Another collection of templates and stencils for engineering and design. Not much new, but may be useful.
Liquid Information Navigation - A New Paradigm?
James Kalbach of LexisNexis describes a gradually evolving trend in web interfaces - an analogue of the context menu of desktop applications. Although such menus have been periodically seen for several years, the article has put together a selection of such examples.
Dark Patterns - Black Hat, Anti-Usability Design Patterns
A collection of anti-design patterns that collects examples of how to do it. There are not so many examples yet, but the author of the site Harry Brignull is actively publishing in the professional community and is unlikely to abandon an interesting undertaking.
All Look Same? A Comparison of Experience Design and Service Design
Jodi Forlizzi compares user experience design and service design to understand how close these disciplines are. The article makes references to their history and the general process.
Learning from Our Challenge Piles An
excellent article by Michelle Gilmore, in which she shares her experience in solving problems that arise when working with a customer on engineering and design work. She describes 4 typical situations from her practice and talks about how a solution was found.
Case study - How we made an extra £ 14 million a year for a travel company
The story of how the website of the travel agency Sunshine Travel was redone and how this helped significantly increase conversion. The article describes the main changes and the process of working on a project.
Designing a Persuasive Video Game A well-
described case that talks about the process of creating an educational game. John Ferrara writes about the principles of game mechanics used and what they wanted to achieve using them.
Migrating a Corporate Intranet to SharePoint - A Case Study
Jen Hocko describes the process of migrating a corporate intranet site to the SharePoint platform and what tasks the designer solved in this process.
Emotional Design with ACT
An interesting Trevor van Gorp publication series in which he describes the psychological foundations of involving interfaces. He explores the evocative design and how you can create it.
Updating Our Understanding of Perception and Cognition
Excerpt from Jeff Johnson's book Designing with the Mind in Mind, in which he describes the processes of perception and cognition. An extremely useful reading that allows you to understand how it works and what the eye sees, how the process of reading and recognizing objects happens. The second part of the article is www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2010/08/updating-our-understanding-of-perception-and-cognition-part-ii.php .
What is a device?
Excerpt from Dan Saffer's future book, Designing Devices, in which he describes a brief history of devices. This is very useful for understanding how the interfaces have evolved.
5 Creepy Ways Video Games Are Trying to Get You Addicted A
detailed description of the 5 common principles of David Wong game mechanics that are used in many hit games. The article is especially good because it provides a lot of examples and references to research.
Recent links can also be tracked in the Friendfeed feed of User Experience .
Methods and Practices
In Defense of A / B Testing
Paras Chopra wrote an excellent article in defense of the A / B testing method, which has recently been criticized by designers and designers. He refutes three main claims, which relate primarily to focusing on not the most effective changes.
Guidelines for Designing Data Tables
Connie Malamed, author of Visual Language for Designers, provides a series of table design tips. It describes the mental process of working with a table and talks about how to simplify the user’s passage through it.
Making User Interface Elements Difficult to Use By Intent
An article by Jacob Gube in which he talks about intentionally complicating the interface in cases where data loss and other unpleasant consequences are possible.
IBM's Making the Deal - Supporting Product Demos with User Assistance Mike Hughes describes how to optimize the product demo interface. He describes 4 characteristics in which the demonstration should be especially good - the value of the product and its visual display, attention to existing user problems, competitive advantages.
User Interface Stack Exchange
A new Q & A service dedicated to practical interface design issues. Here are collected popular questions and answers of practitioners to them.
Good Help is Hard to Find
The Lyle Mullican article describes several ways to present help information in web services. He divides the help into two types - integrated into the overall process and shown separately.
Guidelines for user friendly URI Design A
good reminder for creating friendly and readable URLs from Jacob Gillespie. The article talks about general principles and provides a series of useful tips.
Instruments
Free Wireframing Kits, UI Design Kits, PDFs and Resources
One of the most ambitious collections of templates and stencils for designing and designing web services and mobile applications. Although more and more such collections have recently appeared, this article by Smashing Magazine is one of the most detailed and elaborated.
20 Free Web UI Element Kits and Stencils
Another collection of templates and stencils for engineering and design. Not much new, but may be useful.
Patterns
Liquid Information Navigation - A New Paradigm?
James Kalbach of LexisNexis describes a gradually evolving trend in web interfaces - an analogue of the context menu of desktop applications. Although such menus have been periodically seen for several years, the article has put together a selection of such examples.
Dark Patterns - Black Hat, Anti-Usability Design Patterns
A collection of anti-design patterns that collects examples of how to do it. There are not so many examples yet, but the author of the site Harry Brignull is actively publishing in the professional community and is unlikely to abandon an interesting undertaking.
Process
All Look Same? A Comparison of Experience Design and Service Design
Jodi Forlizzi compares user experience design and service design to understand how close these disciplines are. The article makes references to their history and the general process.
Learning from Our Challenge Piles An
excellent article by Michelle Gilmore, in which she shares her experience in solving problems that arise when working with a customer on engineering and design work. She describes 4 typical situations from her practice and talks about how a solution was found.
Cases
Case study - How we made an extra £ 14 million a year for a travel company
The story of how the website of the travel agency Sunshine Travel was redone and how this helped significantly increase conversion. The article describes the main changes and the process of working on a project.
Designing a Persuasive Video Game A well-
described case that talks about the process of creating an educational game. John Ferrara writes about the principles of game mechanics used and what they wanted to achieve using them.
Migrating a Corporate Intranet to SharePoint - A Case Study
Jen Hocko describes the process of migrating a corporate intranet site to the SharePoint platform and what tasks the designer solved in this process.
Theory
Emotional Design with ACT
An interesting Trevor van Gorp publication series in which he describes the psychological foundations of involving interfaces. He explores the evocative design and how you can create it.
Updating Our Understanding of Perception and Cognition
Excerpt from Jeff Johnson's book Designing with the Mind in Mind, in which he describes the processes of perception and cognition. An extremely useful reading that allows you to understand how it works and what the eye sees, how the process of reading and recognizing objects happens. The second part of the article is www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2010/08/updating-our-understanding-of-perception-and-cognition-part-ii.php .
History
What is a device?
Excerpt from Dan Saffer's future book, Designing Devices, in which he describes a brief history of devices. This is very useful for understanding how the interfaces have evolved.
Trends
5 Creepy Ways Video Games Are Trying to Get You Addicted A
detailed description of the 5 common principles of David Wong game mechanics that are used in many hit games. The article is especially good because it provides a lot of examples and references to research.
Recent links can also be tracked in the Friendfeed feed of User Experience .
