Conventions are important. They emerge as the ‘way things are done’. As such, when we see a control on a device, we apply our previous knowledge of similar systems and make assumptions about what will happen when the control is activated. The more experience you have in a particular field, the more conventions you know. [...]
Earlier this week Jake Burghardt at Flashbulb Interaction emailed to tell me about his new eBook entitled: ”Working through Screens: 100 Ideas for Envisioning Powerful, Engaging, and Productive User Experiences in Knowledge Work”.
I’ve not had chance to read it all yet, but what I have read so far is very good, so I saw [...]
Sometimes it is necessary for us to integrate our software with another system in order to offer its features to our customers, in fact a new class of applications has emerged where separate systems are created from integrating other products – the ‘mashup’. Allowing a user to take advantage of another system from within your [...]
You’ve spent months working on your project and delivered it to the client. Initial feedback was positive, but they’ve spent a few days with it now and have asked if there is anything you can do to ‘make it more user friendly’. Ouch. It’s a bit late in the day to start any major restructuring. [...]
It has been a long time coming, but this morning brought about the correct alignment of the planets and I’ve finally got around to writing my links page! It’s not an exhaustive list of all the usability sites out there – just the ones I subscribe to. But, if you think I’m missing out on [...]
I love watching people who obviously don’t know much about computers. They are wonderfully pragmatic, and will find the simplest path – even if it isn’t the optimal choice. The other day on the train I saw a guy using Notepad to write a report (his hunt & peck typing gave him away too!). Notepad [...]
Forgiveness is an important feature of good design. You should help your users by minimising the impact of mistakes or, ideally, prevent them from happening at all.
One way you can make your interfaces more forgiving is by employing a ‘forcing function’ (aka confirmation). This technique makes the user verify that what they requested is [...]
I’ve added an Amazon store to the site today. There’s not a vast quantity of stuff in there, I could have just added to the store by Amazon category, but I’ve hand picked everything on there myself. Everything in there I’ve either read (or am in the process of reading!), so if you are interested [...]
I had a bit of an epiphany today about the way I title my posts to this blog. I think most of them are the wrong way up. I have been titling them based on the example – rather than the lesson that can be learnt from it. So unless anyone objects strongly (not sure [...]
I travelled to Leeds to visit a client on a Virgin Cross Country train last week. Above each pair of seats on the train is a small LED sign that says if the seat is reserved or not (see the picture – sorry about the quality it was taken on my phone in less than [...]
Subscribe in a reader
Follow me on Twitter!