[IxDA Discuss] Max Number of answers in a poll
Hi there, Currently I have been analyzing the old e-learning system of a leading university in Istanbul and elicitating the requirements for a renovated version. I came up with a problem lately that none of the customers could specify the maximum number of answer that a poll in the portal should list. Any ideas? For a generic poll structure? Bengi Turgan *Bilende Istanbul* Project Manager www.bilende.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] Form Validation Messages - How much is needed?
I'd like to get some feedback on form validation. In my organization (major insurance company), it is necessary to validate the following fields: For existing and new customers: - first name (letters only) - last name (letters only) - address - city (only letters) - state - zip (only numbers) - email (correct format is: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) - phone (only numbers) and in some cases: - SSN - Date of birth The question we're struggling with is since most of these fields are very common, how much explanation is needed in the validation messages. For example, do we really need to say that a first name should only contain letters, or is it overkill? (We don't expect 50 Cent to be submitting any forms). The site is for consumers in the U.S., so we're not concerned about letters in postal codes, etc. Thanks. __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] [JOB]-Senior Interaction Designer-San Francisco-Traction-Contract 6 months plus
Senior Interaction Designer Traction (www.tractionco.com) is a San Francisco creative agency with a digital core. We are tenacious problem solvers that provide compelling interactive and direct marketing solutions that ignite brands and grow customer relationships. We are currently seeking an experienced, versatile and creative Interaction Designer to significantly improve the user experience and front-end design for a major financial client. The Interaction Designer will be an important member of a dedicated team of visual designers, interaction designers, writers and coders working on ongoing projects. These projects may include web pages, mobile pages, demos and user interfaces. In addition to thoughtful wireframe design, the Interaction Designer will also be responsible for developing and documenting front-end requirements as well as developing materials for usability testing. The successful candidate will be passionate about improving user experience and able to look beyond the front end to see the product as a whole. Although a thorough understanding of front-end implementation strategies is required, the position involves little or no development work other than to illustrate solutions and iterate requirements. Past work with financial clients is preferable but not essential. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES • Work with client in developing requirements for new features and applications • Develop the user interface for new features, including functionality of elements, layout, page relationships and logic, navigation, visual design and graphics • Enhance the visual appeal and usability of legacy features • Develop materials and take a leading role in usability testing • Help recruit and oversee up to 4 junior team members • Research and present innovative solutions to user interface problems • Iteratively develop requirements documentation, including wireframes, storyboards, and front-end functional specifications • Document the visual design and functionality of the user experience • Produce final documentation for use by developers and testers • Serve as agency representative with the client • Thrives in a highly collaborative environment REQUIREMENTS • Minimum 6 years agency experience • Proven ability to deliver outstanding design solutions for complex web features and applications • Comprehensive understanding of best practice approaches and solutions in user interface design • Demonstrated ability to quickly iterate through multiple concepts, designs and layouts, effectively incorporating feedback • Enthusiastic team player, effective collaborator with strong interpersonal skills • Excellent written and verbal communication skills • Microsoft Visio user TO APPLY Please e-mail your cover letter and resume to [EMAIL PROTECTED] When providing links to web sites you have worked on, please describe the scope of your work precisely. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] JOB-Senior Interaction Designer-San Francisco-Traction-Contract 6 months+
Senior Interaction Designer Traction (www.tractionco.com) is a San Francisco creative agency with a digital core. We are tenacious problem solvers that provide compelling interactive and direct marketing solutions that ignite brands and grow customer relationships. We are currently seeking an experienced, versatile and creative Interaction Designer to significantly improve the user experience and front-end design for a major financial client. The Interaction Designer will be an important member of a dedicated team of visual designers, interaction designers, writers and coders working on ongoing projects. These projects may include web pages, mobile pages, demos and user interfaces. In addition to thoughtful wireframe design, the Interaction Designer will also be responsible for developing and documenting front-end requirements as well as developing materials for usability testing. The successful candidate will be passionate about improving user experience and able to look beyond the front end to see the product as a whole. Although a thorough understanding of front-end implementation strategies is required, the position involves little or no development work other than to illustrate solutions and iterate requirements. Past work with financial clients is preferable but not essential. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES • Work with client in developing requirements for new features and applications • Develop the user interface for new features, including functionality of elements, layout, page relationships and logic, navigation, visual design and graphics • Enhance the visual appeal and usability of legacy features • Develop materials and take a leading role in usability testing • Help recruit and oversee up to 4 junior team members • Research and present innovative solutions to user interface problems • Iteratively develop requirements documentation, including wireframes, storyboards, and front-end functional specifications • Document the visual design and functionality of the user experience • Produce final documentation for use by developers and testers • Serve as agency representative with the client • Thrives in a highly collaborative environment REQUIREMENTS • Minimum 6 years agency experience • Proven ability to deliver outstanding design solutions for complex web features and applications • Comprehensive understanding of best practice approaches and solutions in user interface design • Demonstrated ability to quickly iterate through multiple concepts, designs and layouts, effectively incorporating feedback • Enthusiastic team player, effective collaborator with strong interpersonal skills • Excellent written and verbal communication skills • Microsoft Visio user TO APPLY Please e-mail your cover letter and resume to [EMAIL PROTECTED] When providing links to web sites you have worked on, please describe the scope of your work precisely. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Committing changes to a database
In some places, changes are committed as soon as you enter them, a bit like how Microsoft Access operates. In other places, the user has to specifically save to commit changes, like MYOB. The MYOB styles sounds like a case of the technology forcing the interface into something unintuitive; that is, because the underlying database uses transactions, with explicit commits, the UI also batches user operations and requires explicit commits. I sense that the emerging trend is to continuously store a user's changes but make it very easy for him to undo if he makes a mistake. The user doesn't need to think about saving or committing or being careful about his actions -- the data is always safe, and there's always a way out. From an implementation perspective, it's the hardest, but from a usability perspective, it's ideal. -Jonathan Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Don't listen to your customers.
Sorry I'm a bit late to this thread. Ignore if you want. I think people have forgotten where the idea of listen to your customers (or users) came from, though I think Dan Saffer's response in this thread came close to how I feel. The idea source, as I remember it, was the radical notion that (a) your customers/users know things you don't, and finding out those things can be valuable; and (b) the interaction between a company and a customer should more resemble a conversation or ongoing stream than one-off product sale(s). I strongly agree with these premises Under these basic assumptions, it seems trivially true that one ought to listen. One listens to gain knowledge one cannot get in other ways. One listens because a conversation where only one side speaks isn't really a conversation and the non-speaking side is likely to get bored or frustrated and walk away. Where this idea goes off the rails is when one narrows down the notion of listening to focus groups. Or when one interprets the idea I must listen to mean I must get design ideas from my customers. I strongly disagree with these consequents that some people seem to draw from the original premises. But just because we don't like the consequents doesn't mean the original premises are flawed. In the original post to this thread John Gibbard gave some quotes that indicate the notion of listening to customers has limits. It's not a cure-all. Granted. But we could just as easily say the same things about any IxD process or artifact (scenarios, personas, user tests, task hierarchies, etc). All of these have limitations and also have value. Just because listening to customers has its limits doesn't mean it has no value. Baby, bathwater, sploosh. Best, --Alan Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Limitations of twitter
Being the interaction designer at Twitter, I should probably jump in here ;-) First of all, thanks for taking the time to talk about our service - it's nice to work on something that encourages discussion, positive or otherwise. Before I get going, I should point out that I only joined the team in December, so although I can talk about early design decisions, I wasn't present for them. So, when we talk about limitations with regard to Twitter, it's good to also think about the constraints that we've built into the service. We've found that these constraints actually encourage use, so perhaps it helps to dive a little deeper into what a couple of the most important ones are and why. First, the 140 character limit. This was mainly to do with the origin of Twitter as a mobile service - it was originally designed to work with SMS. But this constraint is a very important one - it encourages people to update (because you don't feel like you have to sit for ages writing an enormous post like I find myself doing now) and it is responsible for the ambientness of the service (the updates you produce are easy to digest for the people who receive them), among other things. (This ambient nature of Twitter and other services is an area worthy of separate discussion - Leisa Reichelt coined the term ambient intimacy around a year ago, and talked at the Reboot conference around it - if you haven't seen it already, the slides and a blog entry are essential reading: http://www.disambiguity.com/reboot-90-ambient-intimacy/) Secondly, the question - what are you doing? - helps our users to frame the conversation. Of course, people are now quite happy to avoid answering the question at all, and use @ and direct messages as a way of communicating seamlessly across the devices which we support. But having the question there is a trigger for use - it means that a new user (or even someone who has been using the service for a while) never sits looking at a blank input box thinking of something to type - there is a prompt. And you can always answer what are you doing?, because you're always doing something, even if it is incredibly mundane (An aside: this is also the cause of many of the charges against Twitter - people assume that the conversations on Twitter are just responses to that question, and by extension are not interesting at all. As with most things, it makes a lot more sense once you start to use it.) Also, as David mentioned earlier, if there is a use which we don't cover with any of service touchpoints, then we have our API which people have already built some fantastic stuff on. And we're completely happy with this - our goal as a company is to become a global communications utility, the framework on top of which people exchange short messages between each other with whichever device they happen to be next to. We don't want to (and couldn't - we're still only a tiny company) build everything that we'd like to, which is why it's great when other people do. We have a million and one ideas for how we would like to improve the service, but my background (as a service designer) makes me always think of how the whole service works together rather than just a single touchpoint. So we'd always try to add features that make sense across all the ways people access and use our service (which are currently web, mobile web, SMS and IM). Also, as communication is our core offering - it's what we as a service are about - any feature we do add will always be related to that. As for the future: well, currently, my main concern has been tidying up a few things about how the web UI works (as we've been constrained for engineering resource to actually build new stuff), but I've also been working on some really exciting new features, which we hope to launch soon - some of them are perhaps more obvious than others. Finally, I should also say that I'm more than happy to continue this discussion privately or receive suggestions from anyone who'd like to offer them. There's plenty more to discuss, which I hopefully will be doing via various channels soon! Thanks, Ben . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=27964 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] How to design a useful FAQs page?
Hi All, We are in the process of redesign/redo/relaunch our main website grin.com, and I'll want to have something useful for our FAQ pages to decrease our support phone calls. I guess if you have a great FAQ pages the customers don't call you too much. Can you point to a really well designed and useful FAQ pages or some related article? Thanks in advance Take good care Jose E. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] [EVENT] Rethinking China Shanghai June 24-30, 2008
Join the Research without Borders team along with iXDA Shanghai and UPA China at Rethinking China! June 24-30, 2008 in Shanghai: Today's Chinese consumers are fueled by rising affluence, product choices, brand selection and new aspirations for the future. As China dives into Capitalism, how are the everyday lives of the Chinese people changing in the world’s fastest growing economy? Global consulting firm, Moving Target Research Group and the Research without Borders team; an International team of researchers, futurists, cultural interpreters and local market experts will be leading the Rethinking China! excursion to Shanghai, June 24-30, 2008, to experience first-hand how the future is unfolding in the New China in real-time. Rethinking China is an intensive deep-dive immersion into the evolving lifestyles, attitudes, behaviors and needs of today's Chinese consumers, explains Valerie Romley, director of the Rethinking Today's Emerging Markets series. Through a series of on-site, experiential and ethnographic visits, business leaders will get an intimate and in-depth look into China's emerging consumer culture. The small group format allows for unparalleled access into the lives of today's Chinese consumers via in- home visits, retail shop-alongs and man-on-the-street interviews to reveal real-time consumer-centric insights. The visits to local homes are an incredible opportunity to peek into the private life of consumers as they go about their daily life; going to school or work, shopping, cooking and even going out on the town. says Romley. On-site visits with local industry experts from Shanghai's leading innovation labs, design studios and advertising agencies, will deliver fresh insights into the emerging cultural trends, market opportunities and cross-cultural challenges of doing business in China. Who should attend? Rethinking China! is particularly valuable for those in charge of strategy, marketing, research and development, product design and user experience for their organization. Visit http://www.rethinkingchina.com or call Valerie Romley at 800-308-2899 extension 701. About Moving Target Research Group (MTRG): MTRG (http://www.movingtargetresearch.com) is a research consultancy that explores, translates and synthesizes consumer ideology into actionable intelligence in today's global marketplace. The Rethinking Today's Emerging Markets series delivers unparalleled culture-driven insights into today's emerging market consumers. Upcoming excursions open to the public include, Rethinking China, in Beijing October 14-20, 2008 http://www.movingtargetresearch.com/china_itinerary_beijing.html and Rethinking India November 11-17, 2008. Corporate market excursions are customized and designed to meet the specific goals of the organization or industry. Valerie Romley Chief Research Officer Moving Target Research Group Connecting Brands with Today's Transcultural Consumers Direct 415.282.1520 (GMT-08:00) Skype: movingtargetresearch Interested in learning about today's emerging markets first hand? Join us for a deep dive into the hearts and minds of the new consumers of the emerging markets; Rethinking the Emerging Markets! http://www.movingtargetresearch.com/immersions.html P Save a tree. Please don't print this e-mail unless necessary. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Muxtape.com's simple interface
Hi All! If anyone on the West Coast of the Continental US has an eye semi-cracked for a chance to be a major contributor to a stunningly down-to-earth start-up in Palo Alto, we have an opening for an incredible Interactive Designer / Art Director. Thanks! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=27981 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Form Validation Messages - How much is needed?
I would highlight the field that fails validation and I'd put the following message next to it: This doesn't look like a [first name|last name|city]. Maybe you made a spelling mistake? This should be OK for users that just accidentally pressed a number key when they were typing. Of course in some cases you will get users who deliberately attempt to enter junk in some of these fields, but I can't see why you should give them any more precise explanation. Just make sure that you cover all cases: names of people and cities sometimes have apostrophes, dashes, dots etc. and you should accept that. There's no better way to alienate your users from the beginning than to discard their name as they choose to spell it. Regards, Alex On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 9:28 PM, Don Habas [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'd like to get some feedback on form validation. In my organization (major insurance company), it is necessary to validate the following fields: For existing and new customers: - first name (letters only) - last name (letters only) - address - city (only letters) - state - zip (only numbers) - email (correct format is: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) - phone (only numbers) and in some cases: - SSN - Date of birth The question we're struggling with is since most of these fields are very common, how much explanation is needed in the validation messages. For example, do we really need to say that a first name should only contain letters, or is it overkill? (We don't expect 50 Cent to be submitting any forms). The site is for consumers in the U.S., so we're not concerned about letters in postal codes, etc. Thanks. __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Muxtape.com's simple interface
I love muxtape as well, but have a few critiques. 1) While having the text huge and simple makes it easy to read, making everything on the page clickable makes it extremely frustrating when trying to focus on the window without changing the song. 2) No volume control means I have to change the volume on the computer. I hate that, but that's one of the drawbacks of not using Flash. Things I love: 1) The AJAX netflix-type sorting method means easy mixing of songs. 2) The simple method of color customization with a hex code. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] How to design a useful FAQs page?
tank6b kirjoitti 11.4.2008 kello 12:05: Hi All, We are in the process of redesign/redo/relaunch our main website grin.com, and I'll want to have something useful for our FAQ pages to decrease our support phone calls. I guess if you have a great FAQ pages the customers don't call you too much. Hi Jose, After you've come up with the final FAQ, it's a good idea to re- evaluate your web pages against it. If people ask something frequently, put a vector to the knowledge right in the front page. There's often no need to state the question, just provide a link to the page that contains the answer. This doesn't replace the FAQ, but it adds another layer of good service to the visitors. The first 80 percent of customer calls can be eliminated if you know what your customers want to know. The next 80 percent can be eliminated with the FAQ. The next 80 percent can be reduced if you repeat the most frequent answers just next to the phone number. Ideally, you don't need the FAQ page(s). But in reality you of course do, because many people expect you to have them. Good luck! - Petteri -- Petteri Hiisilä palvelumuotoilija / Senior Interaction Designer iXDesign / +358505050123 / [EMAIL PROTECTED] Simple is better than complex. Complex is better than complicated. - Tim Peters Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] Job: Sr. Interaction Design. Loc: NYC. CO: Ariel Partners: Recruiter/ Full-time Employee or Contract long term ( 2-4 Years)
Senior Interaction Designer: Loc: NYC. CO:Ariel Partners LLC; Recruiter: Full-time Employee or Contract; long term ( 2-4 Years) This position is for immediate hire. The salary/rate and tax structure is open for the right resource able to make a long term commitment; i.e. Full-time or Long term consulting will be considered. This opportunity involves the development of a Web based product on a J2EE Websphere platform employing Web 2.0/ AJAX Technologies on the front end. The Product is an Enterprise Scale Time and Attendance Workforce Management System to help large client and its sub-agencies manage critical resources. Location: Highly accessible; near Penn Station in NYC. Description:Designing for leading edge interactive AJAX web (thin client, rich GUI or RIA), developing screens; work closely with business analysts, clients, and the UI development team. Application UI/ID/UX position, major deliverables are Hi-Fi prototype, which use fairly complex JavaScript; used by development as a spec and by management to foster client feedback, and to support inside sales. Intermediate JavaScript skills would be necessary for a candidate to be successful. Visual design, information architecture and interaction design. Help refine the technological concepts like XSL/Ajax; that power the application front-end. Work closely with development to ensure successful implementation of GUI specifications. Required Strengths: * Strong Application Design background, with heavy thin client/browser based applications, * Ability to design from written and verbal requirements. * Ability to facilitate collaborative requirements definition meetings from a user advocates position. * Hands on experience with fundamentals of design; Full SDLC experience from a UI POV, including: Abstract design, articulate logic flows as well as screen-flows; states and transitions. (Focused Exp. Required) * Lo-Fi to Hi-Fi hands-on Prototyping (Focused Exp. Required) * Field research, CI (Contextual Inquiry) * User Testing Experience This individual could have e-commerce experience but MUST have very strong Application Design Experience; (not limited to corporate web site or shopping web site design) Excellent written and oral communication skills; Excellent problem solving and analytical skills. Technical Skills Profile: Required: * JavaScript: (Intermediate to Advanced level); ability to hand code simple JS, and repurpose complex JS libraries. * DHTML, CSS, in a production environment: (Advanced) * Advanced Experience with Design applications DreamWeaver, Photoshop, Illustrator, Visio or similar tools exp. To do mockup web pages * AJAX - Familiarity: The candidate should be cognizant of the latest trends in UI, i.e. AJAX/Web 2.0. * Object Oriented Programming concepts Pluses: * EXT Framework, Dojo, Scriptaculous, as well as familiarity with XML are big pluses. * AJAX/Web 2.0 Experience: High-end interactive design experience incorporating AJAX Web 2.0 technologies * Experience with Product Development; Strongly preferred Detail Elaboration for Profile and Environment Technical Knowledge needed: * HTML -- Intermediate to Advanced knowledge -- Required * DHTML -- Intermediate to Advanced knowledge -- Required * CSS -- Intermediate to Advanced knowledge -- Required * JavaScript -- Intermediate to Advanced knowledge -- Required JS Frameworks: * Scriptacuous -- Knowledge of to Advanced knowledge -- Nice to have * EXT -- Knowledge of to Advanced knowledge -- Nice to have Design Experience Must Have: * Excellent conceptual design skills, be able to design on the fly. * Ability to take spoken and written requirements and create Interaction Designs and User Interfaces from these requirements. * Excellent layout skills. Know proper usage of white space, contrast, consistency, precedence, and gestalt principles. * Intermediate Graphics skills. Be able to make reasonable icons and knowledge to use colors correctly. * Ability to create optimal screen flows. * Taxonomy development. * Flow Chart development. * Web 2.0/Ajax design. * Design for Enterprise Web Applications. Prototyping(intermediate to expert level, required) * Whiteboard Prototyping * Paper Prototyping * HTML Prototyping * Lo-fi Prototyping * Mid-fi Prototyping * Hi-fi Prototyping Project Management, Presentation abilities and General Knowledge,(all skills are required at Senior level): Must Have: * Ability to present and discuss complex interactions, with and without prototypes, to a variety of stakeholders. * Guide discussions in order to achieve optimal UI and Usability. * Be the User Interface/ Interaction Design Expert. * Understand and work within dynamic timelines. * Be flexible with changing requirements and feedback. * Elicit and interpret requirements from stakeholders in order to achieve successful and optimal UI. * Have a sense of humor and don't take feedback personally. * Designing in full SDLC. * Basically be
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Muxtape.com's simple interface
All I can say is Wow!! I just started clicking around exploring and was amazed at everything. The only thing that took me a second to figure out how to do was start and pause a song. But, now that I know I will never forget. My two suggestions: 1) The color mash up on the front, some of the color contrast between boxes kind of hurts the eyes. 2) The color contrast between the text color and the color of the box makes it hard to read. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=27981 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Form Validation Messages - How much is needed?
On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 9:28 PM, Don Habas [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The question we're struggling with is since most of these fields are very common, how much explanation is needed in the validation message... On Apr 11, 2008, at 11:13 AM, Alexander Baxevanis wrote: I would highlight the field that fails validation and I'd put the following message next to it: This doesn't look like a [first name|last name|city]. Maybe you made a spelling mistake? I'd think the message should be as explicit as possible -- if validation failed because there was a number in the field, the error should say something like Sorry, numbers aren't allowed here - please try again. Alexander's approach is friendlier-sounding, but could leave users wondering why the data they entered didn't look like a first name. It seems more likely that the user would have accidentally entered invalid characters, and an explicit message would be more likely to help them identify what went wrong. Of course, you may still have issues with users such as this one mentioned by mathematician / songwriter / satirist Tom Lehrer: I am reminded at this point of a fellow I used to know who's name was Henry, only to give you an idea of what an individualist he was he spelt it HEN3RY. The 3 was silent, you see. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] How to design a useful FAQs page?
The first 80 percent of customer calls can be eliminated if you know what your customers want to know. The next 80 percent can be eliminated with the FAQ. The next 80 percent can be reduced if you repeat the most frequent answers just next to the phone number. You're bound to see results with a 240% improvement ;) Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Muxtape.com's simple interface
My observations... 1) I was curious how they do audio playback, so I dug through the source. While the UI is all HTML (and so elegantly simple), the audio playback is, in fact, flash. Volume control would be a nice touch, perhaps in the page header? 2) A non-scrolling page header might be nice too. If i scroll down, I lose the title/author of the mixtape. 3) Ironic: the UI is very iPhone-like, but since it uses flash, it won't work on an iPhone. 4) Off-topic: Flash with audio playback likes to occasionally hang my browser (Firefox, fairly old Fedora Core Linux) -- my sincere thank you, Google, for implementing auto-saving drafts in Gmail. You guys are awesome. On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 11:08 AM, Matthew Stephens [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 1) While having the text huge and simple makes it easy to read, making everything on the page clickable makes it extremely frustrating when trying to focus on the window without changing the song. 2) No volume control means I have to change the volume on the computer. I hate that, but that's one of the drawbacks of not using Flash. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Form Validation Messages - How much is needed?
I normally find sign-up forms incredibly irritating-- but Yahoo's is light years beyond any others I've seen: https://edit.yahoo.com/registration?.intl=usnew=1 My concern about javascript-driven validation (either entirely on the client side, or AJAXified) is that it will lead to laziness in developing validation routines in the back-end process that your browser POSTs the data to. *** naive developer: the form already validated itself-- I should be able to trust its contents! *** paranoid devleper: what if they have javascript turned off, and their ZIP code happens to be 'DROP TABLE users' ... ? On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 11:13 AM, Alexander Baxevanis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I would highlight the field that fails validation and I'd put the following message next to it: This doesn't look like a [first name|last name|city]. Maybe you made a spelling mistake? Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] How to design a useful FAQs page?
A couple years ago we were looking for an interactive help desk solution, and a company called Inquira had an absolutely awesome product for that and FAQs. Unfortunately, my company choose the cheap option instead of the good one. But check out their products, and copy as closely as you can (or just use theirs). http://www.inquira.com/ Dante Murphy | Director of User Experience| D I G I T A S H E A L T H 229 South 18th Street | Rittenhouse Square | Philadelphia, PA 19103 | USA Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.digitashealth.com -Original Message- Can you point to a really well designed and useful FAQ pages or some related article? Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Spatial reasoning and spatial memory
Thanks for the great suggestions! Although they pointed in a fairly unexpected direction. I'm deep into the vagueness features of language, visual information binding, coherence of consciousness and so on. Trying to extract applicable information. The main trouble is that it seems most of this research is kept inside the academic publishers out of reach of the unwashed heathen. Google Scolar could not find a single paper in full text. Google Book Search found some interesting stuff tho. I'm looking forward to receiving the Pinker book. -- Morten Hjerde http://sender11.typepad.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Muxtape.com's simple interface
I think Muxtape's goal is to get users to explore music organically and discover new tunes... at least, that's what it's getting me to do. I think the playlists on the user page could use smaller text and keep things above the fold so you can see all the songs in the list and a control for fast-forwarding or rewinding might help. That's nit-picking though... its simplicity supersedes most of my critique. Here are links to other sites that kind of do the same thing: http://guitarati.com/ and Hype Machine: http://hypem.com Guitarati is okay, but their heavy reliance on color confuses me a bit -- they ask users to mark their music with a color that evokes a mood... which would be a great idea if it didn't isolate people with colorblindness. This isn't a music sharing site, either... well, it is, but anything released by a studio. Hype Machine is a great site for music discovery, but they've just recently redesigned it. The new UI is a tad bit more cluttered than the old UI, but now that I've spent some time on the site, I think like Hype Machine's new UI more than the old. Neither site beats Muxtape, though... IMHO, of course. On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 11:09 PM, Karthik Ram [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It is simple (to create and share) - but after that it needs work. It needs to address how someone discovers the playlist - and fast - having a long page full of list names with different backgrounds tells me nothing. Classification schemes , etc. were made to help with information discovery as well as organization. One could be smart about it - given a song - you can find out the genre , sub-genre , etc., for many cases and could organize the playlist as leaning towards a certain thing. I'm sure it is a first cut - for a first cut - its definitely good. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Spatial reasoning and spatial memory
On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 5:47 AM, Morten Hjerde [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm currently thinking a lot about spatial reasoning and spatial memory related to small screens. Does anyone know about additional resources or research on spatial memory? I don't have time to dig deep into my human factors articles and research right now. Check in, though, with the US Air Force human factors guidelines. Anecdotally, we frequently test applications using one softkey paradigm (e.g., Options on left, Back on right) on devices with another softkey paradigm (primary action on left, menu on right, Back on Back button). What we've found is that after about 20-25 minutes of using an application and then returning to the native UI is that we start committing errors. Lots of errors. While using something we are very familiar with, and even expert at. Seriously check out aeronautics. There was a WWII plane in which the seat ejection lever was in the same location and the same action as another aircraft's landing gear deployment. Many airplanes were lost due to the muscle memory. What's worse is the B-57 Canberra, deployed in the 60's, had the same problem. Similarly, there was a specification for a cockpit layout for a specific aircraft. However, manufacturer A made it left-to-right, and manufacturer B made it right-to-left. The result was even more errors. -- Barbara Ballard [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1-785-838-3003 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
