Re: [IxDA Discuss] Captchas - what do you currently do?
I think this is an important question, Caroline. We're using the honeypot method on a redesigned site whose primary audience is people with disabilities (including cognitive). We're using ColdFusion for the validation, rather than PHP, for what it's worth. This site previously used only the Hiveware Enkoder to encode e-mail addresses. We'd never had much trouble with spam that way, though we did get some (possibly because some of these addresses had been posted early on without encoding). It was important to us not to place roadblocks in the way of users, to totally separate content and presentation, to use progressive enhancement, and to do as much of the work as possible on the server side. We want the user experience to be as simple, as seamless and as instantaneous as possible. This is not a high-traffic site, so I can't speak to how well this would work elsewhere ... but two weeks into this, the honeypot is working well and I don't know of a better solution. Another advantage for us is that it is remarkably simple, and dismantling it to implement something else will be a piece of cake. I think some who implement Captcha are suffering from delusions of grandeur or unwarranted paranoia. If your audience does (or may) include users who are blind, even with the audio Captcha option, the frustration will drive people away. We should always ask ourselves whether we can really afford to lose that visitor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=43847 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Usability of accordions
I like the concept of the FAQ accordion, Jeroen, but the example you posted is not a working example. All the same, it's good idea for conserving space and it is a functional enhancement. In such a use case, I would be happier if it also behaved as Kordian's example does (defaulting to display all content when javascript is disabled, or enabled in all cases by server-side scripting). Thanks for pointing that out! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=36908 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] 10 Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design
Hooray, Whitney! Amen to the kudos about how terse and informative this is, and I also want to say how well the piece was written. Sprinkled with good quotes to make it both lively and credible ... beautifully done! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=37038 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Usability of accordions
If I understand you correctly, Sachin, your concern is that we are impeding the progress of good web design if we caution against the use of this accordion structure that I call a gimmick. Rather, what I want to suggest is that we move forward thoughtfully. I am an accessibility advocate, and accessibility does not concern itself only with screen readers and other alternatives to the standard browser. In the end, it requires exactly what Angel points to above: Adherence to Web Standards, Progressive Enhancement, Graceful Degradation, and Unobtrusive Enhancements. Kordian has now clarified that the accordion function is only a small component of the final product, and we can see already that the model he provided was accessible without javascript ... some accordion implementations are not. So really, I wouldn't discourage its use. I just personally favor simplicity, and I believe that any feature of an interface that isn't truly useful (not merely pretty) should be discarded. The most beautiful cars are the ones with the cleanest lines, not the ones with the most accessories attached to them. The same may be said of women (men too, I suppose) and web interfaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=36908 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Usability of accordions
I concur with William, basically. There could be exceptions (please show me one), but I think in most cases the accordion construction is an unnecessary gimmick. I do think it's worth mentioning that accessibility is an important component of usability, and the example you posted is fully accessible with javascript disabled, Kordian ... oh, wait a minute, do you want to use the accordion structure because your name is Kordian? THAT might be an acceptable excuse! My suggestion is to use it very sparingly if at all. These gimmicks are a bit like specialized photographic filters, in or out of Photoshop, and above all the presentation should suit the intended purpose. First criterion: Does this tool or implementation really support the fundamental message I want to convey? If the answer is yes, THEN you can think about how to integrate it. Cheers, Jeff (a fan of the wee Celtic button accordion) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=36908 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] What extensions would you like to see in a mobile browser?
1) Display As Text (like Lynx?) 2) Read Aloud 3) Override with Local Stylesheet 4) Search This Page 5) Search Again 6) Set Target, ZOOM to target My thinking is this: Graphic design is nearly irrelevant on mobile devices because of their diminutive size. Content is king. Use the mobile device's strongest features: text and sound. But allow for zooming in to view content that may be indispensable. Good question! Jeff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35476 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] question for tablet pros -- where do you use it?
Great topic! I've been using the smallest of the Wacom tablets for several years, and I don't use the mouse at all anymore. Mine is to the right of the keyboard and a little farther away, and where I once had repetitive stress issues with my wrist and elbow, now it's in my shoulder. I think that's because my elbow is not supported, and at times I'm drawing in Photoshop more than I realize. The solution, I suspect, will be this: http://www.wacom.com/graphire/6x8_bt.cfm With a wireless tablet, I'll be able to prop the thing on my lap and kick back from the desk, instead of feeling chained to the spot as I often do. I think the ability to vary your posture and position is more of a solution than finding a single comfortable position and staying there. Just like drawing with pencil and paper. I second what Kevin says above about Corel software. Great stuff. YMMV, Jeff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35253 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] Since you all be my peeps - I wanted to share THIS news
Congratulations, Dave! Savannah is a great place, and I think you may like living there a LOT. I hope so, and I wish you the best in the world of academia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=33823 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] To auto-play or not to auto -play video?
I always err on the side of the user having full control of the experience. Also, autoplay wastes bandwidth ANY time the sound or video is unwanted. As Will's own experience tells us, it is often unwanted when it isn't expected. I've done accessibility testing with deaf users for whom sound is entirely a waste of time, and you should see their faces when a website takes a minute to load and they finally realize it's because of an unexpected sound file. Grrr. My feelings are even stronger than Will's. I consider unwanted content a form of assault. When it comes unbidden by me, it is disturbing my peace and hogging bandwidth I might be using for something I DID choose to experience. Multitasking is not merely possible these days, it's increasingly likely, and we should be mindful of reducing possible conflicts among simultaneous tasks. Frankly, I have similar feelings about Flash and other dynamic content. If I want a fully immersive experience, I'll go to an IMAX movie. Keep that stuff off my desktop unless I ask for it. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=33377 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] right hand vertical menus
Loren is right. CSS layout allows for a lot of options here. The right side won't necessarily drop off first, if a liquid layout is used specifying widths in percentages. Here's an example of liquid layout, if you want one: http://tinyurl.com/4p8nwl Resize the window however you like, and the contents will flex so you can adjust it to suit your own preferences. This menu question is something I've had to ponder a lot, so I'll try not to ramble on about it although (God help me) I could. Browsers will parse HTML top-to-bottom, left-to-right, so one advantage of a right-hand menu is that in virtually all cases it will be read immediately after the main content -- assuming the ubiquitous 3-column layout with header and footer. In sites that have a skip-navigation link that allows users to jump over inaccessible dropdown or flyout menus, a secondary navigation in the right column can become the primary navigation for some people. It's especially convenient for people using screen readers, because they will be delivered these navigation options immediately after reading the main content. That sets them up to go wherever they want to go next. This is a plus for their usability without subtracting usability for most of us. But as always, a lot depends on how, where and why you apply all this thinking to the actual structure and the final implementation. The considerations I've mentioned may be completely irrelevant to your purposes, but I thought they were worth mentioning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=33108 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] Drop-down menus disadvantages?
Elysa's observations are right for perhaps 99.995 percent of existing drop-down menus, but not for implementations that follow progressive enhancement principles. Because Martin and Nikolay are working on a brand-new implementation, my mind is open to the possibility that theirs could be done right. For me and my users, accessibility is the first step toward usability. We can't guarantee accessibility for a menu system that relies on event-handlers including mouseover and onclick. If the user has disabled javascript, or is using a text-only browser or screen reader that overlooks javascript, there had better be a workable fallback. A robust menu system should respond to the mouse and to link-tabbing equally well; and with proper XHTML structure and tagging, search engines should easily catalog everything. It is possible. It just isn't done often enough (yet) to be widely recognized or adopted. A few years ago, I customized a simple two-level dropdown based on Gary Burton's EasyMenu (http://www.easymenu.co.uk/menubuilder/). It will work just as well with more levels, although that was all I needed. It's lightweight XHTML, semantically correct, searchable, degrades gracefully, functions well in every browser I've tested it with including Lynx, and screen readers navigate it without a hitch. So it can be done. Adding a behavioral layer to this with ASP.NET, ColdFusion, PHP or other server-side scripting would be the icing on the cake. Gary Burton made a commitment to functional simplicity that really pays off for our users who require full accessibility. I think it's an equal benefit to everyone else, and I'd love to see it extended. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=32933 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] Disability Discrimination Act and AJAX
Great article, Caroline! Thanks for that. I work with a guy who teaches people with low vision and blindness to use those assistive technologies, and I lean on him for that kind of insight. But I don't recall ever reading it anywhere, and I have looked! I regularly consult resources published by the RNIB, AFB, WebAIM and others, because accessibility is a high priority for me. Anyway, I think more people would make an effort to think and code accessibly if they could gain some small measure of the understanding you have. Please keep it up! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=32646 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] Disability Discrimination Act and AJAX
Some resources that might help you, Sudhindra: http://tinyurl.com/6xv6d6 http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/paper/29 http://webbackplane.com/thought/pbe http://adactio.com/journal/959 http://tinyurl.com/2xtugr http://www.sitepoint.com/article/simply-javascript/ http://tinyurl.com/3sx7jj Nicholas is right. Accessibility is all about progressive enhancement, and once the proper habits are developed it makes a lot of sense. It's like dressing in layers, each of which can be added or removed as needed. The problem with a lot of rich interaction is that some designers leap forward to the next new technology before building an adequate foundation in HTML and CSS, both of which are simple and straightforward, but also powerful in their own way. They jump right in and build a site that relies heavily on AJAX or Flash, and only later wonder why some people complain that they can't access essential content. The Tower of Babel comes to mind as an apt metaphor. For the sake of accessibility, everything should be done at the lowest possible level. If there's a way to structure and style it appropriately in HTML/CSS, do that first and add the rich interaction later. Otherwise you may find yourself needing to retrofit for accessibility, and that's just as messy as stripping off the icing to rebuild a cake. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=32646 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] The new UI wars: Why there's no Flash on iPhone 2.0
My guess is that the next UI paradigm (in this context, at least) will not be developed in the kind of environment in which Adobe developers work, but in some small shop where people are free to create lean code nearly from scratch. Apple's success has come from making it easy and intuitive for the end user, implementing solutions that are elegant in their simplicity. Those words don't describe Flash, Flex, Air or any other Adobe product. I'm not knocking their stuff (I use quite a bit of it), but since we're talking paradigms, the paradigm of Adobe developers is more closely aligned with the way Microsoft developers work than the way Apple developers work. And you don't have to look any farther for proof than Adobe's website, where there are notes everywhere about their _plans_ for OS X compatibility. It's like translating the nuances of Chinese poetry into English. If you aren't multilingual from birth, pick a language to master and accept that your second, third, fourth languages will be sub-optimal. People talk about this being a war, but it doesn't have to be. That's the paradigm that must change before consistent progress can be made. The existence of cows does not depend on the non-existence of horses. If there's a war here, it should be a war of functionality against chaos. Pick a platform and program for it, and allow for the coexistence of other paradigms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=30366 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] Usability = Predictability
Conceptually, I can agree that usability is a continuum (or a scale, as Jared puts it). To the extent that a definition is possible, for the reasons Chauncey points out, I think we _must_ define it. Otherwise we have all the credibility of the ancient alchemist, shrouding our work in mystery and ultimately having it condemned as hokum. The specific components or attributes of usability do vary from one project to another. But predictability, being partly intuitive (the user's responsibility) and partly experiential (the designer/programmer's responsibility), is a key attribute that moves us toward the side of the usability continuum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=29451 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] Usability = Predictability
... the above should have read: 'But predictability, being partly intuitive (the user's responsibility) and partly experiential (the designer/programmer's responsibility), is a key attribute that moves us toward the plus side of the usability continuum.' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=29451 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] Usability = Predictability
Thanks for sparking an interesting discussion, Robert. I agree with your premise, too. Among other ideas this discussion generated in me is an analogy with music and poetry. Predictability in meter or rhythm is desirable and usable, but so is variation. We want the familiarity and cohesiveness of variation on a theme, rather than random variation. I recently ordered something from despair.com, where they've done a great job of marketing the art of the curmudgeon. At checkout time, everything works as expected with a perverse twist. You get a message something like This is where we suck the money out of your bank account and exchange it for the useless crap you've ordered. And you're informed about how to exchange merchandise that isn't what you expected (as if we care). And so on. The functional predictability makes for good usability, and the unpredictability of the messages makes it fun -- and consistent with the site's theme. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=29451 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] Hand Writing in Web Design
Well, I'm going to assume you're not flame-baiting. That doesn't mean my own opinion won't generate a little heat. I think the idea has some very small degree of merit, in the same way any visual imagery has merit as a design element. But overall it is crap, and a vestige of print designers' thinking that does not belong on the Web. The handwritten content must be rendered as an embedded image, which will require proper tagging for accessibility, and some people simply won't bother. In fact, this wasn't mentioned at all in the Smashing Magazine article -- which I think is patently irresponsible of the contributor. Good web design shares some characteristics and sensibilities with good print design and with good television and movie production values. But it is a new and different medium, with additional constraints and concerns that include portability and extensibility, and people who try to fit it into those old pigeonholes do us all a disservice ... especially when they lead others down that dead-end path with them. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=29152 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] Hand Writing in Web Design
Web design and print design share *some* characteristics, Matthew. I also share some characteristics with a mountain gorilla, but I'm not a mountain gorilla. In a similar way, the Web is an evolutionary cousin of print and other media. Many fundamental design principles do carry over to web design. Some don't. Among other things, I'm an accessibility advocate. The various markup languages used in web design were meant from the start to serve up content in accessible ways, and this idea of doing handwritten design might be OK for very limited use -- maybe for a site on the topic of excellent handwriting, or handwriting analysis. To use it extensively would be a real headache if you did it as the standards require. So a more polite way of saying this is crap would be to say I don't like headaches. The point where we may diverge is this: If it works, it works. What does that mean? If it's standards-compliant and semantically structured AND attractive and functional, it works. Otherwise, it just looks good. The thing that riles me about that statement is that it carries this underlying assumption: If it works for ME, it will work for EVERYONE. And that's not true. On one level, design is design. All disciplines share certain principles of good design. But you don't design a 20-story building with the exact same engineering principles used in designing a kite, even though the two can have significant aesthetic similarities. A highway engineer doesn't design a complex interchange to LOOK good first, without regard to function, and I think the Smashing Magazine article encourages just that kind of thinking. Web design isn't just what we see and experience on the browser du jour. There's a bunch of important stuff under the hood. My personal feelings of aesthetic like or dislike aside, I don't call a design good unless it also satisfies the basic rules of structure and accessibility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=29152 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] website-proportional size
Hello, Michael. It sounds like what you're describing is a background image, which can be applied using CSS to tables and other elements. There are many CSS references in books and online that explain how it's done (like this one: http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_background.asp ). Applying a background image is easy once you master the concept. I'm not clear what you mean about the maximum and minimum size of Web pages, though. Can you explain a bit more? Sometimes we talk about page-weight, which is the sum of all code and other elements on a page (including pictures). If you are talking about physical dimensions, that's another matter and it's more relevant to the printed page than the pixellated page. There are conventions based on hardware, and again CSS allows simultaneous design for different platforms like PDAs and cell phones. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=28899 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] What Colors do Designers like on a Website'sHome Page?
I'm with Robert in suggesting you ask a different question, Harvinder. Choosing a color scheme is as important as choosing a font, as each conveys something about the company and its image. It's really a combination of many factors that will create the final impression, and for me the end goal is to elicit consistent confidence in buyers, users, etc. Color contrast is important for accessibility (the precise minimum contrast required is presently being reconsidered by the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative). You can test your color choices with one of the tools found here: http://tinyurl.com/2ets5g I'm probably an oddball, but I prefer not to use white except for highlights, and to help call attention to the smallest of headlines. A majority of web designers use white for the background (it's the default), and for people who browse the Web a lot that can cause eye fatigue. Unlike the printed page, a Web page requires the user to glare directly into a light source. We ought to keep that in mind, and modify our design practices to facilitate physical as well as cognitive comfort. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=28911 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] Usability is more than...
Todd R. asked: For those who include satisfaction under usability, is there anything you include beyond usability in determining whether a design is 'good' or is usability a synonym for good design? I include accessibility, and in web design I include various considerations related to standards compliance and portability to platforms other than a desktop monitor. I call that extensibility ... so I try to imagine how a product will sustain its usability over time, and not just in the use cases I've anticipated. Usability is a very good indicator of good design, but for me it's not entirely synonymous. These words haunt and inspire me: When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong. R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) And while I'm thinking of it, I have to say that you folks ask the best questions and offer the best answers of any online group I've ever been a part of. Thanks for that! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26788 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] Power icon
One of my favorite books on this or any subject is Man and His Symbols, by Carl Jung, dealing with universal archetypes. Abi said: The more I try to come up with a visual model for 'save' the more I think about synapses in a brain, firing away. Or a piggy bank. Or a squirrel. Or (ducking) Jesus ... / idealistic realist and apparent blasphemer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26596 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] Off: Where do you read news?
Jeff White said: http://www.marumushi.com/apps/newsmap/newsmap.cfm Good combo of news and design. Sweet! Bears repeating. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26457 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] Offtopic: What music do you listen to while youdesign
Classical and jazz, mostly: Shostakovich's Symphonies 6 and 9, Budapest String Quartet (mostly Beethoven there), instrumental acoustic stuff by Keith Jarrett, Al DiMeola, Earl Klugh, Michael Hedges, Doc Watson, Sea Level, Weather Report, Paul Winter Consort (this is mostly stuff from the 1970's, kids) ... I also like Miles Davis and Charlie Mingus. Piedmont blues guitarists John Jackson and Etta Baker. Viva Quetzal (music from the Andes and Central America). My acoustic guitar is handy for break time ... which could be more frequent. Back to work! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26467 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] Default value in chekbox
I'm with Todd: For radio buttons I would have one pre-selected only when I understand that most visitors select that choice; that becomes a kind of usability accommodation. I'd go a step further to suggest that this can be a usability issue on the delivery side, too, depending on your specific use. Leaving choices unselected by default helps assure that all users have actually selected an option in all cases, rather than overlooking and accepting a default option that may lead you to misinterpret whatever data you're gathering. As Todd suggests, it also depends whether you want people to choose or whether you want to want to lead them. I may not be a typical user, but I immediately discredit any app that appears to give me a choice but pushes me -- however gently -- in one direction. Many online polls, for example, have such simplistic choices as to be completely trivial and irrelevant. I won't waste my time with them, and I can spot them in microseconds. So the next question may be (depending on specifics of intent), how important is credibility? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26405 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] Slightly OT: Where is the sustainable PC?
Sebi said: I guess a way to rephrase the question would be: 'When will they start providing services instead of products?' I think that's a shrewd way of looking at it, and it begs another question: When will we demand that? It's like all service. We have to support the services we want and refuse to settle for less. That means we (the end users) are the only ones who can assure sustainability; and if we don't take responsibility for that, they won't either. A case in point (and a perennial favorite target) is Microsoft Windows. I retired a Windows 2000 computer last year after Microsoft announced the last and most insidious irreparable security flaw in an OS that I generally liked pretty well. I'd already maxed out the RAM potential on the motherboard, and I hated to discard the computer, but it really wasn't suited for an upgrade to XP. So just for laughs I wiped the hard drive clean and installed Ubuntu Linux, which recognized and configured all hardware, configured for the existing wireless network and just worked from the start. I've since installed a ridiculous number of open source programs for everything from web design and graphics to desktop publishing and sound editing, and what I have now is a computer customized to my own eclectic needs. I was fretting the other day about overtaxing the only internal drive, and checked my available drive space. I was stunned to find I'm using only 11.5 gigabytes on a 60-gig drive. I'd estimate that similar software on a Microsoft system would weigh in at roughly three times that. Does anyone really think all the hardware we throw away is useless, or that all software must be endlessly expandable? That's the same thinking that gets us more laws instead of better laws. Maybe we've just accepted an irrational premise from manufacturers who measure their success in terms of production and sales, period. If so, we do have the power to change that. I think sustainable technology and sustainable design principles are increasingly important, but I don't anticipate much support from government or the business sector. The U.S. Dept. of Energy lost funding for its sustainable design initiative in 2002: http://www.pnl.gov/doesustainabledesign/index.html With a multi-trillion-dollar budget deficit, I don't see that coming back anytime soon. It would be a good niche for some forward-thinking university research, as NC State has done for universal design: http://www.design.ncsu.edu/cud/index.htm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26306 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] Creative Navigation
What's interesting to me is the diversity of opinions expressed about the navigation technique, Russ. Clearly, very few people understand the principles of (or need for) accessibility in web design. I agree with the points made by Ian, the guy who gave it a C, but I give it a D for the same reasons James Leslie explained above. If you hover over the triangle in the low bandwidth version _first_, then you can tab through the navigation functionally. But if you think some people are confused about how to find the nav while _looking_ at the page, try adding vision impairment into the equation. The concept is cool (which I think was Kelsea's point in directing you to it in the first place), but it can be done just as well with CSS and a bit of javascript using an unordered list that degrades gracefully. That would rate an A from me for both design and function. In fact, it looks to me as if the chief argument for using Flash on that site was that the developer had Flash and took the easy way out. To one whose only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26313 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] Where are all the designers?
Dan said: Today's global economy is spiky. What's more, the tallest spikes, the cities and regions that drive the world economy, are growing ever higher while the valleys, with little economic activity, recede still further. Very true. A few years ago, much was made of the fact that Verizon had established the first statewide fiber optic network here in West Virginia. It was the backbone of a network, not a full-fledged neural network, of course. The same economies of scale that historically prevented travel through some of this state's rugged terrain, and the same factors Dan enumerates, have prevented the further evolution of this network and the arrival of technology leaders we hoped it might attract. Innovation is only a spark. To fan the flames of any new idea or industry requires very personal, very human connections that always have happened, and always will happen, in the places where innovative people congregate in relatively large numbers. That presents eager young hotshots with a choice, but it's by no means the whole picture. Yes, I sacrifice something by not living in such a place; and so do those who uproot themselves to travel to whatever pseudo-Mecca they seek. If we learned nothing else from the IBM (I've Been Moved) era of post-industrial America, we should have learned that in the long term our peace of mind is integrally connected to our sense of place and our social connectedness, or cohesiveness. Is this obvious only to those of us who've studied social anthropology and psychology? I don't mean to be a naysayer. I just want to affirm the importance of blooming where you're planted. Sometimes we're better off creating opportunity than seeking it -- especially if we're dragging a young family around with us! If employers hold on to the notion/expectation of a global and infinitely mobile workforce, I think in the long run they'll be terribly disappointed. Community and society cannot sustain that or be sustained by it, and anarchy is never a good climate for any human enterprise -- including business. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26170 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] Signup screen as the first screen?...tangent
From your specialist in obscure regional dialect: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2q=catawampus Also kittywampus in Appalachia, akin to kittycorner (on a diagonal, or opposite, corner)) ... Can't tell you about the derivation, but people around here use these words all the time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26194 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] Using voice narration on sites
James said: I was shocked to find that only about 10% of blind people in the UK use screen readers, mainly due to inhibitive costs and the (generally) complicated set-up involved and learning process. The number may be a bit higher here in the states, James, but all the same issues apply. There is slow progress being made. When I upgraded to Ubuntu 7.10, I was surprised to find that the Orca screen reader is part of the default installation of the Gnome desktop: http://live.gnome.org/Orca It isn't a mature product yet (though Ubuntu itself is great for me), but it is free and functions pretty well. I alerted Dan Jellinek, who does a great job of keeping up with accessibility news in the E-Access Bulletin: http://www.headstar.com/eab ... and Dan alerted his readers, most of whom are in the UK. Linux may never achieve an impressive market share, but maybe it will push competitors to advance this technology and others. FireVox is a Firefox extension that enables text-to-speech in the browser alone. From what I've seen in print, it's moving forward at a good pace and it's been widely accepted. http://www.firevox.clcworld.net/ If you follow that FireVox link, you can also read about AxsJAX, with which Google aims to improve the accessibility of Web 2.0 applications. http://code.google.com/p/google-axsjax/ I don't agree with Kevin Carey about sound starting by default, although I have much respect for the RNIB's very consistent and compelling accessibility advocacy. From the standpoint of interaction design, it isn't usually good practice to surprise people; there's always a price to be paid for that. I'm with you on standards compliance, James. We also can (and should, I think) design in such a way that we don't push unwanted enhancements from the server side and at the same time don't inhibit them on the client side. I wish I was as certain about an answer to Vicky's original question, but there's obviously a lot that Vicky can't tell us. I believe people are weary of being talked at, and quick to leave when they perceive this kind of message. The message or the customer's need would have to be very compelling to overcome that resistance. The Web is not as good a medium for this as TV or radio because it isn't linear and users aren't *required* to wait. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25934 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] Password enforcement UI - good, bad or ugly?
The problem with this trend (and I'm seeing it as such, too, Kenny) is that it presumes that more security is always better. But in many use cases (blogs, mailing lists, software tech support), such stringent security can be ridiculous and inconvenient. Security is not just protection. It's also reassurance. Excessive protection is more aggravating than reassuring, and likely to drive people to goods and services that balance these considerations better. I like the visual and verbal indicators of password strength. They give me choice, leave me in control. I think it's best to err on the side of enlightened self-interest and leave the details of these decisions to the user. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=26110 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] Progressive Disclosure and Forms
I think it's important to be both internally consistent and to have a good rationale for choosing one way over the other. Sorry if that's stating the obvious. The dynamic method seems better to me because it advances the process in a logical way, opens a door as you approach but keeps it closed if you don't. It's also important to hear what users are telling you beyond yes and no. What other feedback, pro and con, argues for one method over the other? How strongly do people feel about it? Some people equate digital forms with their counterparts in paper documents, and are reassured by static elements. Others appreciate and quickly accept the guided experience as an intuitive benefit. Is age a factor among the intended users? Older users may be more surprised at the dynamic behavior, but my experience tells me that's not necessarily a bad thing. Once they get it, some actually giggle with delight at the cleverness and usefulness of that feature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25866 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] The ONE Book!
Dan said: Ultimately, if you do something to make their jobs easier, they'll want you back. And they're just not going to get that from a book. ... just like any *other* user! Amen, Dan. Wouldn't it be interesting to apply the same principles to our peers _as users_ as we want to do for users? I think demonstrating a benefit is always better than talking about it, and we're all ultimately on the same side when the benefits of our processes are made clear. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25549 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] The ONE Book!
With substantially less shame, I also support Robert's book. The very first illustration (and the wry comment accompanying it) was worth every penny I paid. The rest of the book is pretty good, too. I get an error message occasionally in Dreamweaver that always makes me wonder what the engineers were thinking when they programmed it. It says simply, No error has occurred. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25549 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Statistics, Facts, Reports on PDF vs. HTML
I think your observations are good ones, Adam, but you may not find the data you're seeking. I've looked for it, too. I know your frustration. In the absence of information about your specific use case, some food for thought: * For the inexperienced user, well-formed HTML/XHTML is designed to do a lot of little things transparently. If you aren't a frequent user of Acrobat, on the other hand, you could easily overlook controls that exist to make it easier. (Look at the first link I pointed to before, in which they talk about reflow controls in PDF -- not enabled by default, and most users won't know about it. That's just one example. You can think of a dozen more in a 30-minute brainstorm.) The point here is that you're asking/requiring the user to get familiar with one more piece of software that he/she may not care to learn well enough to extract the needed data. IT people tend to accept a level of complexity that the average human will not, and I find they often need to be reminded of that. * Along the same lines, HTML/XHTML is inherently designed to be repurposed. Acrobat is designed first and foremost as a printing intermediary. Acrobat is a wonderful program, but that bias shines through; I know Nielsen emphasizes that, but it bears repeating. * Sometimes showing is better than telling. Know what your PDF looks like on a PDA or a cellphone? If you're posting a resource for business travelers or podcast listeners, that might be relevant because a mobile device may be their only choice. Those IT people you're talking with are users too, so _show_ them what doesn't make sense about their idea by going along with it for initial testing. Experience is even harder to refute than a big pile of studies. I hope this helps, Jeff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25459 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] home links
Another advantage of the reset function that I've used a lot myself: You're exploring a site and, the more you see, the more you think you might like to come back again. You don't necessarily want to bookmark the page where you figured that out; you probably want the introductory page. It's a common occurrence for users, and that home function is familiar enough to grab without manually editing the URI in the browser's address bar. Breadcrumbs are good for that, too. I don't think the numbers tell everything about the usefulness of this or any other function (I've only needed a seatbelt once, but I was glad to have it), so Bryan's data doesn't surprise me. Some familiar controls may be worth keeping for the sake of user comfort and convenience, more than pure function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25499 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] home links
I'd echo what Christine and Joseph say, and add that in some cases you can simply view the site's name or title in the same way you would a logo. I personally don't like the generic Home link, either, but I like using a consistent text link in the main nav that functions as a home link. Redundancy is good too, to a point, so the combination of a consistent text link and consistent logo is often a good idea. The important thing is to establish those cognitive links that help users make sense of your content. Note that, on this very page, you can hover over the IxDA logo to summon the word Home ... This reinforces your guess that the logo may function as expected. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25499 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Statistics, Facts, Reports on PDF vs. HTML
Great question! The decision _may not_ be a bad one, actually, depending on the specifics. A lot of it depends on how you've set up the PDF, which may be somewhat inaccessible by default. Adobe has made some significant effort to help with these concerns, but it's something many people don't bother about. For a start, see these resources: http://www.webaim.org/resources/reader/ http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/index.html . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25459 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Continuous Scroll
Patricia said: I think it's one of those situations that if you bring it to someone's attention, they may decide not to like it, but if you don't say anything, it probably won't interfere with user experience much. I'm not so sure about that. It's one of those features that adds nothing significant to the user experience and subtracts some functionality and choice. How many of us are just like Murli in the way we scan articles, reading the beginning and end as a way to decide whether in-depth reading will be worthwhile? I know I do, and it's something I don't want to change because it saves me time and adds value to my experience. Just because it's cool, doesn't mean you should do it. Well-structured HTML/XHTML loads very quickly in any browser, and is preferable for many reasons. This is one of those presentational enhancements that will -- in the long run -- encourage people to disable javascript. In designing for the Web, I think we should always ask whether a feature really adds enough genuine value to offset its cost (as measured in time and comprehension) to the end user. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25287 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Social app popularity begins to decline
Jeff Axup said (with what I perceived as a touch of irony, and I think not too seriously): I really like this quote - 'people are, just, well, bored of social networks.' As if humanity will ever be bored of social networks, considering that we have been happily using them for thousands of years. Not like this. To compare this technological simulation to a true social network is to say you've been skydiving because you watched a video that was taped from the point of view of the guy who actually did it. It has some value if viewed with sufficient empathy (we supply that ourselves), but lacks the validation needed for a genuine experience of society. What do Facebook, MySpace, et al *not* have that traditional social networking has? Things like body language, eye contact, genuine social context, validation that you are in fact talking to another 16-year-old like yourself ... In short, they lack the element of trust -- in part because participants have whatever degree of anonymity they choose to have. Whatever other metrics are applied to assess the decline of online social networks, I think this lack of trust will be the bottom line. We'll have heard one too many stories about people who pretended to be something they aren't, and others getting hurt in some way because of it. I do think that online social networks can be a valuable way to reinforce existing social interactions, but it seems unlikely to me that they could ever stand alone. Nor should they. I can't imagine calling any group a society when all their interactions are superficial and transient. Anything that evaporates in a power outage is not a society. Thank you, Murli and everyone, for some very thought-provoking ideas. I'm enjoying your comments very much, in spite of my uncertainty about your existence in real time and space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25387 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Wii Would Like to Play... Minority Report
Dennis said: We are trying to mash his technology with Denim Prototyping Tool ... I'm glad to see someone interested in Denim. I've been keeping an eye on its development for a while, and I'll look forward to seeing what you come up with. *Good luck!* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25366 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Testing for No Flash situation
Since you mention Firefox add-ons, you might try one of these: Flashblock https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/433 Flash Switcher (for Windows only) https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3649 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25411 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Social app popularity begins to decline
Greenfield makes some great points, Jeff. Thanks for that link to his Antisocial Networking rant. Looking at this from the standpoint of anthropology, I think there's something inevitable about how we're wrestling with some of these details just a few years after we've functionally connected ourselves in real time to the entire world (or those relatively few inhabitants of the world who can afford the time and technology to play along). When we superimpose new technology on a pre-existing convention, it becomes a sort of metaphor for that convention. But a web page is not in fact a page at all. Our friends on MySpace are not really friends, and the word apple is not an apple. The metaphor is profoundly useful for our understanding of any new thing -- if we don't forget it's a metaphor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25387 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Social app popularity begins to decline
Will said: Jeff- going all Magritte on us now! To wit: 'This is not a pipe' Hah! Yeah, I was thinking something along the lines of the zen koan in which the monk says not the wind, not the flag, but mind is moving. Seriously, you're right that MySpace friends can transition (in either direction). If I have an objection to the whole concept of online social networks, it's the way the metaphors are used so casually and loosely. What are friendship, respect and love without accountability and the reciprocal obligation to _earn_ our place in the lives of others? What will these concepts mean to a person who evolves without sufficient understanding of that reciprocity? My friendships require considerably more maintenance than an occasional twitter, and I'm content with that. We've only recently heard about the girl who committed suicide because she was dissed online by somebody who didn't exist. I think that's one casualty we should think about when we consider the implications of implementing new social paradigms via technology. Sorry, that's probably way off topic here! I do think it's important to consider the social implications of these technologies, though. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25387 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Continuous Scroll
I agree with both Abi and Mark about this. I'm impressed that it remains accessible without scripts, and I like that a lot. I think you'd want to use this very selectively. In most cases, it's an advantage to me that my screen contains a finite amount of information I can sort through and use. My specific usage exception might be for archived material in a wiki, news site or the like -- cases in which you're unlikely to want anything at the very bottom. No, maybe not even for that. Try this: reload the page (with javascript enabled), and use your browser's search function to find PHP Throwdown (which is several pages down). You won't find it because it isn't loaded yet, and it won't be loaded until you scroll down to it. As often happens with javascript, some basic functionality is denied. Search is a very important feature to toss aside without good reason. Also, this script may make the assumption that the user who enables javascript has a fast connection. I'm on a T1 line now, and the load time was noticeable. Anybody care to test this on a dial-up connection? Don't get me wrong, I think it's _very_ cool. But these are accessibility problems that can come back to bite you later, if not considered at the start. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25287 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] interaction design groups for women?
bq. Is design gender specific? What would be the need / benefit of such a group? My first thought, as well, Mike. But you know, guys can be so ... boorish, sometimes. All that testosterone and bravado and belching and flamewarmongering we do all the time. Just kidding, Wendy and Kim. Y'all can segregate however you like, just as the Old Boys Clubs have been doing for centuries. I see no reason to believe we've actually gotten past all that. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25244 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] interaction design groups for women?
bq. Is design gender specific? What would be the need / benefit of such a group? My first thought, as well, Mike. But you know, guys can be so ... boorish, sometimes. All that testosterone and bravado and belching and flamewarmongering we do all the time. Just kidding, Wendy and Kim. Y'all can segregate however you like, just as the Old Boys Clubs have been doing for centuries. I see no reason to believe we've actually gotten past all that. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25244 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Continuous Scroll
Shekhar: How about this AJAX paging example from 'Componentart' ... Hi, Shekhar ... As you might guess from my comments above, I'm in part an accessibility advocate. As such, I like javascript as progressive enhancement. AJAX is being used far too much (in my opinion) for primary development with integrated enhancements. I hope that distinction makes sense. Integrated enhancements are a barrier to some users, and it's the biggest problem I have with what many people call Web 2.0. The Componentart implementation allows no useful content to be delivered if scripts are denied, so because of our laws it isn't anything I would be able to use in designing for a government website (my main interest, these days) ... In other ways I like it, assuming all intended users have good eyesight, good hand-eye coordination and javascript enabled. Very interesting example, Shekhar! Thanks for sharing it. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25287 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Pen Tablet recommendations sought
bq.I've used wacom products for years and wouldnt recommend them for prototyping/sketching. I agree with Pauric if we're talking about the smaller Wacoms, but I think their usefulness for prototyping is much improved if you use one of the larger -- and more expensive -- models, like a 9x12 Intuos3 at around $450 each ... You'll have to be the judge, Miranda, but a bigger investment in the *right* tool can pay back major dividends. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25265 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Myers Briggs, DISC, Personality of UX Folk
The criteria used by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual are more valid (but not entirely valid, I'm afraid, even according to the professionals who use it every day). Like Murli's emphasis on the difference between states and traits, the DSM lists criteria for the various diagnoses and emphasizes both the number of criteria and their *persistence over time*. Lay people often overlook the time element. On any given day, I could be diagnosed with half the disorders listed if we threw out the requirement of persistent symptoms! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25081 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Why do crappy interfaces sell?
Katie said: In this context, I'd like to not see the word user used since it apparently differentiates practitioners and the lay public from one another. I agree. User has some bad connotations too, at least in English ... drug user, so-called friends who are users ... etc. You don't want to stir up any cognitive dissonance. A small sign hangs on my wall, a quote from Henry David Thoreau's Where I Lived, and Why I Lived There. It says this: Simplify. That's good advice for World Usability Day, which I suspect from Susie's description is more designer-centered than user-centered. Sounds like they are in desperate need of clarifying their intent. If I ruled the World Usability Day, I'd want to *listen* to what users tell me and immediately *demonstrate* how good design can make their very specific circumstances better -- which might make it something more like World Usability Week or Month, in more practical terms. But it would get the point across. I think it was SitePoint that recently sponsored a web design contest among competing design teams challenged to redesign a site in a day. I didn't pay attention to the results, but that's the kind of thing that really shows people what you're about. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24918 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Why do crappy interfaces sell?
Katie said: Before we go haring off too far on the question of whether the word user itself is misleading or derogatory or whatever, I'd really like to pull your attention to the fact that my issue with referring to users in this context is limited to ... All points well taken, Katie. My comment was meant in reference to marketing to a population unused to any of the professional jargon. That's an interesting point about connecting user to other, too, even if it's been ridden to death before my time. Semantics can be critically important to human and/or machine interactions. Client and customer work well enough for me most of the time, because my own perception of my role is not the creation of tools, but the provision of services. Tools are by-products or conveyors of the actual service I provide to clients. (Clients is also consistent with the server-side, client-side imagery, too.) OK, I'm done with that semantics exercise. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24918 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Why do crappy interfaces sell?
Easy answer in two words: Brilliant Marketing! This applies especially to products that do something never done before. Most people don't know such a thing as interface design exists. Brilliant Marketing convinces them that if they don't understand how to use the product, or if its functions are not intuitive, they are out of step with the seething mass of humanity and it's a malfunction within themselves. I'm releasing my Brilliant Marketing theory under the Creative Commons license, by the way, if anyone wants to borrow it. Just give me credit anytime you use the term in public or private conversation. In your example, Bruno -- and here I'm assuming that your design actually is better -- people have adapted to bad design and it has become their new norm. My guess is that the flaw in the company's testing lies in their reliance on existing users (clients) rather than novices who could offer a potential for expanding their market share. Given a choice, most novices would choose the more functional design. Clients choose the more familiar one. And yeah, there's that whole inertia thing, too. So essentially I'm in full agreement with Todd and Nasir, but in a much more cynical way. Do you think a long vacation would help? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24918 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Why do crappy interfaces sell?
Bryan said: By and large I think most people 'make do' with what they have, and only really demand things when they're physically painful, EXTREMELY annoying or offend our values. Great point. In a former life I was a police and court reporter for newspapers, and I learned some interesting things there. Do you know what the prevailing standard is for justifying installation of a traffic light at an intersection? ... (wait for it) ... The number of *fatal* accidents at that intersection. Not good design, not good planning, but political pragmatism fueled by a public outcry. Tangential, but it's an important point about human psychology. Change in itself is so painful for people that it usually occurs only after our circumstances have passed significantly beyond our pain threshold. Then there's The Stockholm Syndrome ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome ... in which the captive becomes dependent upon and even enamored of the captor (in this case, a dysfunctional interface). It's all very sick -- and, sadly, predictable. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24918 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Best practices for scripted interactions (for customer service reps)?
I like this published model so much, I keep it beside my telephone! I know nothing about its development process. http://www.xs4all.nl/~egbg/english/counterscript.pdf (opens as a PDF, but it's worth it) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24933 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Why do crappy interfaces sell?
Bruno said: I'm talking about how to make the general public DEMAND better interfaces? With all due respect, that's not your problem at all. People will not demand what they don't know about. Your Brilliant Marketing must succeed within the company before it can succeed elsewhere. More psychology (alas): Your frustration comes not from the failure of consumers to demand better design, but from not getting your groundbreaking interface to market. To do that, as Nasir wisely suggests, you must overcome the inertia of inaction born of complacency. That happens first inside the company, later in the world at a large. Considere isto: If this company is humming along happily selling produit du crap, do you think they want to rock the boat to the extent that they must go scout for a new factory so they can triple production? No. Because they are humans, and when humans are fat and happy they are also lazy. Brilliant young hotshots in any field (like you, Bruno) confuse such people with your enthusiasm for change. That isn't your fault, it's just a fact of life. Put your rejected plans in a drawer and wait for the next sales slump, when everyone is scrambling to figure out what's wrong. You'll get their attention then, and you may just become some kind of hero. Timing is everything! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24918 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Why do crappy interfaces sell?
Andrew said: Back to where I started, the effect of a bad interface on, for example, a set of online learning materials, is to be a distraction from the content and a slow-burn frustration for users. This doesn't necessarily have any impact at point of sale. Well said. Especially true for educational software, where tens of thousands of units may be sold before anyone uncovers the flaws. Or cares, even if they do uncover them. Witness the ubiquitous WebCT, which I despise ... well, OK, let's say I really dislike it. It was widely adopted not because it was a great tool for the job, but because it was the best *available* tool and the education community was clamoring for such a tool to make distance learning more feasible -- which WebCT did, in its own clunky way, to the frustration of many students undertaking coursework on the Web. I look forward to the Next Big Thing in that market! It's probably arrived by now. Your point's well-taken about content driving the educational software market, too, Andrew. I think it should, but in this case the content delivery system can be almost completely disregarded -- and the real costs of that disregard (frustration, and ultimately failure) can be passed along to the end user. It isn't a real-world market because the buyers are insulated from the consequences of their flawed decisions. Happens a lot in government, too; that's how we get $900 hammers and $600 toilet seats for the U.S. Air Force. So in partial answer to this thread's overarching question, can we say that crappy interfaces are far less likely to sell when the end user is in control of spending, and can vote with his/her pocketbook? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24918 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] The Designers Accord
Valerie said: I am eager to ask this community about how you think social and environmental sustainability fits with interaction design. Welcome, Valerie! So far I like everything I've read about the Designer's Accord. As an interaction designer yourself, how about a little jump-start? Where do you see the fit with interaction design? And thanks for asking the tough question right up front. I wrote a convoluted response and scrapped it. No need to thank me. Had to be done to get at the meat of it. I'll put it this way, as a start: What we think, and how we think, is to a great extent what we become. If we engage constantly in very tedious and complex and frustrating interactions, we will become that kind of person. If we instead function simply, transparently and efficiently, we will be imbued with those qualities as individuals and as a society. I know which I prefer, and I think I know which will provide the greatest longterm benefit to humanity. What do you think? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24609 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Defining UCD (and other things)
Language can express our ideas and ideals in a way that's readily understood and inclusive to the general population, or it can isolate us in a world of specialized jargon. A decision should be made about which is most important to the group -- promoting a broader understanding, or inventing language that better satisfies the needs of the specialist. I'm for the former, and I think that's in line with the founding principles of this group. But it's not a right or wrong decision, just a decision. And like all decisions, it has consequences. I agree with Mark: These definitions will be the building blocks to our message. Our audience will not have the same opportunity for dialog or background. The message will need to be clear simple and normalized. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24685 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Defining UCD (and other things)
Here's a model definition that I love for its brevity and clarity, from the weblink Michele has just posted: Human Factors is concerned with the application of what we know about people, their abilities, characteristics, and limitations to the design of equipment they use, environments in which they function, and jobs they perform. There are other reasonable definitions of the same term that aren't as satisfying to me. One thing I really like about this one is the simple language. Another is the application of *what we know* ... because what we know will change with time and practice. That's a nice touch. On the other hand, I'd clarify the same definition by rewriting it like this: Human Factors [as applied to design, engineering ...] considers what we know about people -- their abilities, characteristics and limitations -- and applies that knowledge to the design of equipment they use, environments in which they function, and jobs they perform. User-center design may be described or defined as a subset of that. You can think of others. Not that there need be a hierarchy as such, but such structure helps with comprehension, acceptance and adoption. Those three factors are as important to me as accuracy, where definitions are concerned. We have a lot in common with related disciplines, and a willingness to adopt longstanding definitions only adds to our credibility. We need not reinvent the wheel if we can just shave off some of the rough edges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24685 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Ajax product configurator examples
Land's End does something similar to Old Navy's approach, Michael, except Land's End uses clickable swatches as the trigger: http://tinyurl.com/39k3gx . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24768 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Defining UCD (and other things)
Seriously, guys, can you make this any more difficult? As a writer/editor, may I suggest something that may help advance this beyond the realm of philosophy? (please say yes) Write a definition that suits you. Better yet, write a definition that you *love*. Keep it short. Hoist it up the flagpole. Let us all shoot holes in it or salute it. Then move on to definition #2. Lather, rinse, repeat. Just a thought. Carry on! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24685 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Defining UCD (and other things)
Thanks for that, Katie. Well worth keeping. The period ending Katie's first sentence got tangled up in the link, so if/when you get a 404 Not Found error, delete the period at the end of the URI or use this link instead: http://www.asktog.com/columns/057ItsTimeWeGotRespect.html . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24685 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] The Designers Accord
Sorry to get all Zen on you guys, but there is a connection and a movement if we perceive one and act on it, Gloria. Flower child or not, more power to you! I think these are choices thoughful people face in any endeavor, maybe more so with experience. There are many rewards and considerations beyond financial compensation, and (like you, maybe) I am seeing and hearing more evidence all the time that people do consider the environmental footprint of a company as a factor, whether they want to invest in the company or do business therewith. Maybe we have Al Gore to thank for that, but I think it's simply that the time has come. I think there are a lot of short-term and long-term benefits to the tie-in between accessibility and sustainability, and other matters of social empathy. When I first started seriously concentrating on accessibility, I thought of it primarily as The Right Thing to Do. Now I think of it as a structural and cognitive benefit that helps guide me through the process with fewer distractions (aware that I can embellish later without subtracting accessibility). That makes my work product more sustainable, too. Robert Frost talked about how he'd studied and used classical forms in his poetry, and felt somehow liberated by them; he compared it to a horse learning to run light in harness. I feel the same about function and form. So the things that may seem to restrict us can also free us. There's yang in the yin, yin in the yang. The woman who conceived this Designers Accord did so on an airplane enroute to a meeting with a client. Are such transportation costs really justified with all the communications options available to us today? Would we not be wise to cultivate business closer to home? These are questions we each answer for ourselves, and little things in our own experience (having a family, for example, and being concerned about their future world) will lead us one way or another. If these considerations are indeed on the rise (they are for me, a 51-year-old guy with three teenaged children), I'm all for it. I think it takes a long time for things like this to reach a critical mass, but we've been talking about sustainability for my entire adult life. My tattered yellowed copies of Design for the Real World and The Last Whole Earth Catalog prove it! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24609 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Ajax product configurator examples
http://beta.mego.com/ http://www.meez.com/ I can't advise on the code needed, but this sort of functionality is increasingly common so I would expect to find some blogging about it among developers. A friend recently spec'd a new Toyota on their website using a very slick interface that displays all the options and the pricing for your customization, and builds a PDF for you to download as a reference. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24768 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Tata Nano vs. OLPC/XO
Stew: To directly relate this to software / site design it's about working out what is the mininmum you need for the job and being ruthless with the pruning of needless functionality (yes I know it's a bit of a stretch). That's the essential mindset, I think, Stew. And ruthless is the word! The tendency to develop something more complicated than necessary will destroy us, ultimately, if we succumb to it. The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them. [Einstein] (Note that he didn't say a *higher* level is required) I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness %u2014 to save oneself trouble. [Agatha Christie] Jeff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24467 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Arial vs Vernada?
It probably is a reach to call typography an element of interaction design in the strictest sense, Jeff, but in the broad sense I think that interaction design has to consider any element that impacts understanding and confidence in a design interface. I agree with Maxim ... typography deals with visual appearance/representation readability (usability of text in some cases) ... and I consider the user's cognitive processes as an essential key to any interaction. I accept other interpretations as well, and I appreciate hearing them. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24248 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Cultural variations in how consumers interact withhealthcare websites
You mean everybody doesn't think *just like me*? http://www.lcmedia.com/mind474.htm This links to a written introduction and an audio transcript of a program called In Any Language: Mental Health Care for Immigrants on the National Public Radio series The Infinite Mind. I was driving one night, and listened to the whole thing. Good stuff about cultural differences in the perception of mental health and mental health care. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24420 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Arial vs Vernada?
Well, Andrei, I've thought about this on and off for about a day now (I really must get a life) and -- subtracting my ego from the equation -- I do agree with your scathing criticism of that study. I had liked it because it generally confirmed my own subjective impressions and experience, which also are unscientific but based on many years as a fan and a user of good typography in print media -- and several years of experience assisting people with visual (and other) disabilities. Mea culpa. So back to the original question, now that we've savaged this study: Are there valid studies/discussions of this topic available? Benoit may still want to know. I've found these, for our further consideration: # Bringhurst's book excerpted online at http://webtypography.net/ # http://www.webaim.org/techniques/fonts/ # http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt6/html-email-fonts.htm (here, especially, some of the examples call attention to Andrei's points about line-length and other results of inexpert testing ... if the examples shown are an indication of what was tested, 12-point Arial and 12-point Verdana cannot be reasonably compared using the same column width because the optimum line length is different for each) # http://www.maxkiesler.com/index.php/weblog/comments/the_web_20_big_font_controversy/ All these, including the study from Wichita, have value in focusing our attention on the way we use typography. If we apply our own critical thinking skills, we can probably distill all this into a better understanding. And maybe even design a better study of our own, if we're so inclined. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24248 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Arial vs Vernada?
For me, perceived legibility is important because I serve users with visual impairments that range from peripheral vision loss to total blindness. Some of them use screen magnifiers, which can be a PITA to navigate with. Any slight legibility advantage for them translates to less magnification and an experience that's more like yours and mine. Perceived attractiveness matters less to me, but I think the impressions of the people studied might be important for some designers, marketing people and the like. The fonts included in the study are still among the most-used online fonts, even five years later, so that seems relevant too. Less than half of the study has any merit from my point of view, but those bits may be worth knowing. Would a larger sampling be more valid? Sure. Based on some experience with low-vision users, I don't think the perceived legibility results would change much unless we added another font designed specifically for people with impaired vision. As far as I know, that font doesn't yet exist. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24248 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Audio User Interfaces
http://www.syncmyride.com/ and maybe: http://www.Nuance.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24317 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Leading websites using Web 2.0
With all due respect, Pauric, I like Tim O'Reilly's vision of Web 2.0 better: It's really about data and who owns and controls, or gives the best access to, a class of data. All the rest is bells and whistles, much ado about nothing. Lipstick on a pig, as one clever member of this forum put it. Fashion can be timeless or ridiculous, and most of it of any era is the latter. I do like the look and feel presented by James Bond's example, but try to navigate schematic.com without a mouse. Design that hinders or disallows basic functionality should not be considered a step forward, but in these wild west days of Web 2.0, it often is. Google Mail is a much better example of taking Web 2.0 in a positive direction, and user response to it is proof. Suggested reading in the fiction section: Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card. Ender changed the world by teaching himself to think multidimensionally. Emerging technologies on the Web don't evolve in a straight line, as the Nova Spivak diagram suggests, and timelines are most useful in hindsight. A better mental model might be based on atomic models in chemistry -- the periodic table, covalent bonding, the double helix and such. Cheers, Jeff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24104 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] SEO and Usability
Luis said: 'In fact, abundant use of div and span tags wouldn't be the problem but substituting semantic markup by them: a span classed as header2, instead of an H2 tag, for example.' Yes, Luis, I think you've said it better than I did. That's exactly the sort of thing I meant. I wholeheartedly agree with Fred about structure and consistency. Well-structured semantic markup yields huge benefits in searching as well as presentation, and all of this relates to faster page loads, better accessibility and a more positive user experience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24134 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] SEO and Usability
Search engine optimization is one area in which I expect our progress toward standards-compliance and good structure to pay major dividends and time savings. Increasingly, search engines are biased away from deliberate manipulations (like metatags) in favor of the actual content of the page. Semantically structured pages benefit by being very accessible to searchbots, but only if the semantics are well designed. Pages that rely too exclusively on CSS layout (you'll know them by their abundant and tags), without adequate semantic structure in the page markup, also suffer. Pages with abundant Flash and javascript will be indexed well if their essential content is described as required by the HTML/XHTML spec in effect on that page. We used to spend inordinate amounts of time and attention on keywords in the metatags, and other SEO gimmicks; I suppose some people still do. But in the past year or two it's become clear to me that I have more success with search engines if I give each page a unique and meaningful title and assure that all headings are contextually meaningful. It helps too if the text on all pages follows the inverted pyramid model familiar to journalists. If you do all that, which is pretty simple, you can be reasonably sure you'll be appropriately indexed and also fairly accessible to assistive technologies (of which searchbots are only one example). All this serves the user well, too. So I guess my bottom line position at this moment in time is that SEO now relies on semantic structure and other good design principles, and is not the separate consideration it once was. I also think that's the way it should be. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24134 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] SEO and Usability
Sorry, my previous comment should have read: ... Pages that rely too exclusively on CSS layout (you'll know them by their abundant div and span tags), without adequate semantic structure in the page markup, also suffer Jeff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24134 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] the appearance of change
An interesting article, Michael. I think there's a great study yet to be made of the mob mentality that allows people to accept being herded like cattle and humiliated in U.S. airports these days. So I'll call Eva's rant, and raise her one. Security initiatives and terrorism are both essentially about creating the illusion that we are perpetually at risk. A security firm will not put itself out of business by making everyone feel delightfully safe and secure; they will instead create the illusion that they are somehow in control of that risk. How people *feel* is almost more the issue than the realities of how safe we may be. Any rational person will admit that risk is an inherent part of life, so the only trick is to extend that idea into the ridiculous notion that we are all in real danger most of the time. More and bigger security guards are just another brand of terrorism, which is well understood by those who pull the strings of the suicide bombers. Terrorists and other sociopaths get more bang for the buck by getting other people to do a large part of the work for them. It's a brilliant (and sick) interaction design based on proven principles of human psychology. I agree it would be good for more people to see it for what it is. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24028 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] The death of web usability testing as we know it?
Oleh: Since it brings actual statistical analysis into usability testing based on sales goals, doesn't it lead to the death (or at least to the significant dent) of the conventional web usability testing (facilitator, one-on-one etc.) ? Put something on the web and start incrementing on daily basis. I'm not opposed to metrics and analytical tools, but the real challenge is in the inferences we make from the numbers. To make those inferences in real time based on a tiny sampling is going to guarantee a lot of knee-jerk reactions that will probably run in circles. Actual statistical analysis may yield entirely unreliable data if it's based on faulty assumptions or faulty interpretation. So to my mind, this tool may be the birth of something useful but it isn't the death of anything. There's always somebody trying to sell us shortcuts or an easy way out. Caveat emptor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24040 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Does eye-tracking carry any real meaning?
I studied a bit about eye-tracking when I was working for newspapers. We were concerned then mostly about the readers' flow as they scanned the page, and how our layouts might call attention to key elements such as informational graphics or advertising. It seemed to me then that the only way you could draw valid conclusions from eye-tracking was if you also gathered subjective data on the user's cognitive process. What information did s/he retain a minute after reading? Five minutes later? An hour later? What did s/he recall about the images or the layout and design, and how or whether they reinforced the primary messages? How relevant did s/he perceive the material to be to his/her life before *and* after the experience? If that information is correlated with the eye-tracking data, you may have something useful. I think it's also important to ask whether such studies are likely to merit their costs (time and money), compared to other user testing and the information already available to us about how to design effectively. In some rare cases, given an effective methodology, those costs will be justified. This may be comparable to a doctor who orders extensive testing just in case -- but not for all patients. Is eye-tracking commonly used in modern interaction design, and if so, how? I'm curious to know. Jeff Seager P.S. Cheers to Jared on the Nilsson reference! _ Don't get caught with egg on your face. Play Chicktionary! http://club.live.com/chicktionary.aspx?icid=chick_wlhmtextlink1_dec *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Interesting tab navigation example
Pauric: I would restate the issue you describe as too much design effort on creating delight, part of the 'essential' granted but, at the cost of defining the core goals. This results in feature creep in my view (and gmail is well down that road now). My thinking exactly, Pauric! I also very much agree that it's useful to look to what works and doesn't work in nature. Castles in the sky are built on weak foundations, and we might do better if we looked for examples outside the confines of our narrow specializations. I walk in the woods a lot. More than 2,500 years ago, LaoTzu said: Be at one with all these living things which, having arisen and flourished, return to the quiet whence they came, like a healthy growth of vegetation falling back upon the root. In programming/design, I usually call this root the core. But it's the same exogenous idea. Whether it's a tree or a design concept or a civilization, I think we'll do better by tending to root needs and guarding against being unsustainably ambitious (I'm not advocating conservatism so much as solid structure). I love the designs of Frank Lloyd Wright, but some of his most beautiful homes have not held up well for this very reason. All the points you're making also tie into principles of universal design, Pauric, which I see as a sensible way forward in many disciplines: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_design Simple structures always prevail over complexity. Study a beehive or a spider web; each relies on one or two very strong and flexible concepts. The accessibility question is at least partly one of whether we want to do the job once in a way that accomodates most people well, or do it once in a way that accomodates elite users -- development oriented toward a diverse human community, or survival of the fittest? I'm not a pessimistic person, but I think realistically we must assume that we will not have infinite resources to sustain and power our complexity, either. I'm inclined to get in, get the job done and get out without entanglements. Here's the catch, the elephant in the living room that we don't want to talk about: If I own a design firm founded on the principle of providing the coolest, most cutting-edge product in this particular market ... I don't even need to finish the sentence, do I? Is it harder to sell simplicity if it truly is the best solution? I guess that's for the salespeople to answer, but many people before us have proved that great design can be elegantly simple. ... Which brings us back to your Einstein reference, Pauric. Right on the mark. Thanks! Jeff Seager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=23821 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
Jim said: Go back even further. I heartily recommend a study of heraldry %u2014 coats of arms. Layering of colors, readability at a distance, points of difference%u2026 there's a lot of good basics there that have been around for 1000 years. Agreed! In a different context, look even further back at Chinese calligraphy, if you can find someone knowledgeable to explain it. Fascinating to explore the way it's evolved from pictographs, and I only know a little of it. It's a very rich non-linear language because each character in its essence represents not a sound but an idea. Jeff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=23618 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Interesting tab navigation example
In the final analysis, there is no perfect objective test that's automatic. Ther are too many variables, including doctypes, and many of the accessibility criteria can only be assessed by the subjective human mind. That said, I use and appreciate http://www.cynthiasays.com/ after checking for HTML and CSS validation. I have a few other tools to assess such things as color contrast, which is important for people with vision problems. Some are available free from this site: http://www.wat-c.org/. Very good advice about accessibility for the blind is available from http://www.afb.org and from a source I mentioned earlier, http://www.rnib.org.uk I'm not a complete nut for accessibility as it's understood by many people. Few people with serious vision impairments drive cars, for example (!), so maybe it isn't necessary for Ford or Toyota to think much about serving those customers a website that's blind-accessible. For other products, it may be a very good idea. For government sites, which theoretically serve all citizens, it's imperative. Jeff Seager To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 00:45:14 + Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Interesting tab navigation example Hi, I am web master trying to provide accessibility to our corporate website. I checked our site with http://508ita.com and it gave me a very comprehensive report. I would like to know if there are any similar free products available. o2ateam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=23821 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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 _ The best games are on Xbox 360. Click here for a special offer on an Xbox 360 Console. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/wheretobuy/ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] US News thinks we have potential!
Science has a while before osmosis becomes a viable business practice. Yep! I think your reservations about this article tie together some things others here have said in a different thread (or threads) in the last few days, Chris. Mark Schraad lamented the occasional disadvantages of compromise, and Robert Hoekman Jr. stressed the value of solid communication -- both in a somewhat different context. I hope I'm not reaching too far to make those connections. When we divide the design process into discreet segments assigned to different teams, we also need to promote a collegial spirit and methodology *among* those teams, and not just within them. If we don't, there's potential for a lot of lost knowledge and understanding at every intersection. This requires good communication and an environment conducive to communication, and that sounds easy but it can get muddy when you factor in human ego and ambition, for two common examples. It's just another kind of workflow analysis complicated by a lot of human variables, and I think good leadership is what gets us over those potential obstacles. Apart from other thoughts about what Chris has said, I'd like to hear anyone's story about a leader you've known who did a good job of keeping all the dots connected along the way. Seems to me that's a rare and valuable quality. Thanks for pointing this out, Chris. Jeff Seager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=23918 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Interesting tab navigation example
Also, I think you're partly correct here, Pauric: p.s. The 'firewall' argument, http://tinyurl.com/yhcr7o , is -completely- bogus. I've been building corporate networks for 12 years and designed a number of firewall UIs. This limitation is purely down to dumbass lazy network admins BOFH's (as Will put it) . If you cant access blogger from your place of work - talk to the admin and get the site whitelisted, if they refuse then you're really facing work-practice politics, not true concerns over blogger.com injecting malicious js code in to your corporate network. The problem remains partly because there are, and always will be, dumbass lazy admins. For most users on our network, Blogger is wholly inappropriate during work and should be blacklisted. Scripts are not forbidden, but we've already had a major virus incident compromise our server. If such an incident is ever traced to some malicious script, I believe the knee-jerk reaction will be to forbid all script. Real-world paranoia trumps logic every time. So I'd agree that doesn't make it right, but I'd still argue for what your linked article calls progressive enhancement. Maybe good interaction design should make allowances for the existence of human variables like dumbass reactionary sysadmins, too. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=23821 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Interesting tab navigation example
Will Evans asked: How does js implementation effect text-2-speech? Is this really a 508 issue or are we talking about accessibility for BHOF's that use emacs and opera on Linux and stubbornly choose to turn off javascript? Here's my take on this, and I'm assuming we're talking about interactions on the Web: It's an excellent question for which there's no easy answer, Will. If you use event handlers rather than HTML/XHTML's semantic markup for access to content (text, for example), you'll probably be denying that content to screen readers and others. Javascript does not *necessarily* get in the way, but the way it's used makes all the difference. It was not designed to be accessible by default. It was designed for maximum versatility, and it's a great tool in many ways. But we should always have a very good reason to use it, and we should test each implementation for accessibility before unleashing it on the world. There are tried-and-true methods of implementing js with accessibility in mind, but I don't do much javascript so I don't know the inner workings to tell you what makes the difference. I know that if you block scripts without blocking essential content, you've accomplished something significant to a lot of people. More people than you know. Also, why stubbornly choose? If I stubbornly choose to ride the bus to work instead of driving my car, I have that right. It means I can't swing by the store on the way home, so I'm denying myself that little piece of functionality and I'm the only one who sacrifices in so doing. If you're a web designer, I'm letting you come into my house, my computer. Be respectful. And for heaven's sake, wipe your feet! ?:) Jeff _ The best games are on Xbox 360. Click here for a special offer on an Xbox 360 Console. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/wheretobuy/ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Interesting tab navigation example
Ah, I was hoping someone besides me would say this, Lucy (quoted below)! Thank you for this and a similar post earlier in the thread. In that post, if I recall correctly, you mentioned the RNIB -- one of my favorite resources on web accessibility issues. I highly recommend them to everyone interested in the subject. http://www.rnib.org.uk/ I'd refine and elaborate on what you say just a little, Lucy, but I admire your brevity. The HTML/XHTML protocol includes well established and tested criteria for delivering most essential content. So for web design (this may or may not apply to intranets and other closed systems such as applications), stick as closely as possible to a core design that adheres to these well-worn standards of quickly delivering the goods. Having done that, or simultaneous to that, enhance the design with javascript, CSS and other technologies that provide added value but do not interfere with the primary delivery system. In the simplest terms, that's the only requirement for accessibility. Section 508 compliance is rather easy if you can do this much. Javascript *can* interfere, but it is possible to create a javascript-intensive site that is pretty darned accessible. From the standpoint of accessibility, the problem goes a little deeper than saying yes or no to scripts. Key words from Lucy: when there is no fallback. We should burn those words into our collective memory. I think we have to look at the end user's return on investment as well, and ask ourselves whether the time and code consumed in delivery is more than the delivered content deserves -- but that has to do with more than accessibility. You can also substitute the word bandwidth for the word attention in Herbert Simon's famous words below: blockquoteWhat information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it. ... Herbert Simon/blockquote Web standards are based on a number of essential assertions, thanks to Tim Berners-Lee and a lot of other Very Smart People who helped him and Al Gore invent the Internet. One of those assertions is that the end user has a right to control his/her experience with this technology. The problem with javascript and Flash and lots of other stuff is that they can be used, maliciously or not, to seize that control. As more people abuse these tools to pop up advertising or anything else unexpected, more people will turn them off by default -- not because they're Luddites, but because they are asserting their right not to be diverted somewhere they didn't want to go. Unless something changes drastically, Lucy's example of corporate firewalls is going to be the rule one day rather than the exception, as we practice due diligence in protecting our networks. Also, because I've heard a lot of whining about this elsewhere, I'll add: People who use screen readers and other assistive technologies have no choice in the matter, so they aren't turning off scripts just to deny you your God-given right to deliver your brilliant Design. Get over that. Traditional designers hate this way of thinking because presentation is EVERYTHING. Good web designers (and here creeps in my opinion) recognize that it's just part of the game plan. Added function and enhanced presentation are fine if they don't impede the underlying function of the delivery system, but *please* don't shove 'em down my throat. I won't go into all the reasons why to make the effort to re-think accessibility. In the end, it's going to come down to whether you want to sell to the whole market or a piece of it. Disability of one kind or another is inevitable with age, and statistically the current populations of the world's most affluent nations are weighted more toward the latter part of life. A significant part of the wealth is concentrated there, too, as these people have saved for their later years. And so on. We deny them at our own peril. Jeff Seager To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 07:23:25 + Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Interesting tab navigation example I've nothing against javascript per se, in fact some of my favourite sites use it... as they say ;D I love some of the uses like checking username availability or password strength on the fly but have issue when there is no fall back. Its not just to do with visually impaired people and browser agents that could handle things better. Corporate firewalls are also a random problem for people accessing sites that rely upon javascript. see http://tinyurl.com/yhcr7o for examples. I like to approach programming in a similar manner to many of the designers on this discussion list. White space is good. Brevity is good. The less you write the less you
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Design in Interaction Design?
I don't think a Psych degree per se is essential, but a genuine interest in human psychology would be very useful. One of my longtime friends is a clinical psychologist, and I gain important insights from her occasionally about all sorts of things, including interaction design. I also was briefly enaged to a true sociopath (narcissistic and borderline personality disorder), and the consequences of that experience led me into some fairly extensive explorations of what is normal and what is not in human behavior, and how some people succeed extremely well at manipulating others to meet their own needs. That had only a little to do with interaction design, perhaps, but a lot to do with understanding the vast diversity of human experience. I think sincere interest and experience will always be more important than a specific degree or training, but I think it's important for interaction designers to understand the hows and whys of critical thinking and scientific method. You would learn that as a psych major, but also as an engineer or geologist, and I learned it in high school with pretty strong reinforcement in both social science and natural science classes in college. I see a lot of sloppy, uncritical thinking applied everywhere these days. Critical thinking skills are crucially important to this work, along with (as I mentioned before) imagination and humility -- humility being needed to understand that somebody else's solution may very well be more desirable than your own. Jeff Seager To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 04:27:07 + Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Design in Interaction Design? Oh my, apologies for the dreadful spelling and grammar in the last post. The last para should read Since most of the participants *do not have psychology background,* I have to ask this question of the people you work with. How many of your colleagues have studied psychology? *Do you consider psychology* important or are psych degrees *too* general to be of use? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=23732 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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 _ Don't get caught with egg on your face. Play Chicktionary! http://club.live.com/chicktionary.aspx?icid=chick_wlhmtextlink1_dec *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
*Good* designers are, in fact, more enlightened about good design than *good* usability practitioners and it is that indefinable something that separates art from science that makes it so. H. Not all of us live in that dichotomous world that divides art from science. We may have to agree to disagree, if our perceptions about that are so different. It seems you assume that a designer can't be a usability practitioner, and I think he or she must be both to be good at either one. I perceive usability and design as complementary considerations that combine to yield varying degrees of satisfaction in user experience. It sounds like your definition of a usability practitioner is one who, like Jakob Nielsen, only assesses the work of others and designs nothing himself. Or one engaged in the metrics of usability. Am I interpreting you correctly, Joseph? I don't meant to be contentious at all, only to understand your perspective. Evaluating the usability of design -- we're talking interaction design, right? not something painted on afterward or applied as a skin? -- is a rightful part of the design process, and many factors argue for its integration long before a prototype is presented for testing. Similarly, it makes no sense to ignore accessibility considerations from the start. Accessibility and usability are hard to separate anyway. Good design doesn't need to be retrofitted with anything, because it's designed with all essential criteria in mind from the beginning. Of course, these are ideals and our real-world experience has to make allowances for all kinds of circumstances. But given the opportunity to do it right, my own life experience with everything from fixing cars to fixing websites tells me that it's very hard to go back in and retrofit usability when it was not considered important at the outset or at other points in the design process. Regards, Jeff Seager _ Get the power of Windows + Web with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_powerofwindows_122007 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
Nicely summarized, Murli. BTW, one could conceive of such a thing as: Design for Unusability -- think security devices: you might want them to be unusable (by the bad guys). Or is 'unusability' merely a special case of 'usability' where 'usability' = 0 or a negative value, in a mathematical sense? Tongue not entirely outside cheek I'll leave the quantification of it to the mathematicians, but I can think of one such 'unusability' design off the top of my head. The holsters used by most police officers these days are designed to resist someone else pulling the weapon out, which could easily happen in a crowd. Officers are trained in the proper way to release the firearm from the holster, and (by design) it might take the rest of us a while to figure it out if we'd never encountered it before. This gives the officer time to react and deny access to the would-be assailant. Usability for one is not usability for all, and to deny access intentionally is Good Design because that was one of the design criteria. Unusability can be really simple and unintentional, too; you can deny access with something as simple as vocabulary, by writing in engineer-speak or accountant-speak ... or, as we often see, by delivering all content in English even though the intended audience is multinational. Jeff _ Get the power of Windows + Web with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_powerofwindows_122007 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
On Dec 19, 2007, at 4:03 PM, Allison wrote: Actually, I don't know that that's true. If you consider that Alertbox is a newsletter meant to be opened (or not) from an inbox, then the articles titles are 'designed' to get my attention and explain the article's content quickly. If only everyone else who sent me emails could summarize their points so succinctly. and Andrei responded This really isn't a good analogy or example. And it's not even design... it's writing. Surely you don't mean that writing has no usability component, Andrei ... Usability can apply to anything that affects understanding and functionality. In practical terms, almost any aspect of a website has components that add or subtract usability. Useit.com is not pretty. It has a wow factor rating of something between zero and negative integers. Its interactivity is extremely simple, and designed to be so. But it's very usable and functional in ways other sites would do well to emulate: * Page loads are maniacally fast! The external stylesheet is so simple you can view it in its entirety without scrolling * One article, one page. No spreading articles over four pages to force advertising refreshes. * Font sizes are relative (in 'ems'), allowing full user control for people with impaired vision. * Resize the browser window and the type reflows naturally to any line length you find comfortable. * Want a quick outline of the topic? Scan down the page reading only the section headers. * Want to skip to another section? Cool, the next is plainly delineated. * Uncertain about the meaning of some bit of jargon? Most of it is linked to a definition or otherwise elucidated. * Want to know what Nielsen/Norman say about a related or completely different subject? There's a search engine, a link to an index of articles and breadcrumbs on every page. and BONUS! ... It looks Just As Good in the Lynx text-only browser! (a wee joke, but true) ?;-) Jeff _ Get the power of Windows + Web with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_powerofwindows_122007 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
There's little doubt that self-promotion is high on Nielsen's list of talents, Ben, but I also think he has a pretty good grasp on the essence of usability. If you read far enough in the Alertbox missive he sent out today, you'll see he's giving away a 150-page study that includes 75 well-summarized accessibility guidelines. Grab it while you can, folks! It's a good reference with actual user testing to back it up, especially handy if you ever need to teach newbies about accessibility ... which I'll be doing next month. You can find it here: http://www.nngroup.com/reports/accessibility Jeff Seager From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 04:06:09 + CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!! What Jakob is best at is causing a stir! He's been doing it for years, resolutely throwing up over-contentious headlines (remember Flash 99% bad! ?) and refusing to make his own web site any more appealing (they even joke about that in NNg seminars). He does this in order to make ripples, with people like us having to take a position one way or another. All that keeps him in people's minds and on their lips. I'm sure we all know the truth is somewhere in between yes, sometimes / no, usually and it depends, and so does Jake! - Ben _ Don't get caught with egg on your face. Play Chicktionary! http://club.live.com/chicktionary.aspx?icid=chick_wlhmtextlink1_dec *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
Thanks, Mark. I agree. I also believe that usability may be the core component of all design (I don't care if my house/car/computer/website is sleek and pretty if it doesn't function). And though I occasionally praise Nielsen's usability evangelism, this is one of those fields in which I don't hasten to call anyone an expert. (If you want to call yourself one, that's OK with me.) The end user in all his/her diversity is the expert, and the only one who knows his or her experience. We have the privilege of practicing a very interesting craft, but it's all practice and the best we can hope for is to come a little closer to success each time. There is no Holy Grail of interaction design (or usability, or accessibility) because there are too many physical, social, economic and cognitive differences among users. But man, it is fun to try! In terms of usability and design both, the challenge I see again and again is that most people create for themselves and their peers, with very little consideration given to those invisible unknown people out there somewhere who perceive and function differently. I've observed the results many times, and Nielsen writes and talks about it sometimes, and very few others do. I'd like to see a more general awareness of that. And when I say people create for themselves and their peers, I understand that we are all involved in a multitude of peer groups categorized by culture, gender, social status, wealth, ethnicity, education and many other factors. Any one of us may have vast and diverse experience, but even that is not enough without a well-distilled combination of imagination and humility. The great designers are those few who break free of their roles and stereotypes and develop a much broader perspective on interaction design and the consumers thereof. So there aren't many great designers, but that could change if we incorporate these qualities in our goals. Jeff Hi Jeff, You elude to an important point for clarification. That one is an expert in usability, does not mean they are an expert in interaction design - or an interaction designer. Usability is a large area - only a portion of which is focused upon interfacing with software/web. Likewise, I interaction designers must think well usability. Many of us on this discussion group use usability or interaction when we mean quite the other and should be more specific. Jakob's expertise is in usability. Mark On Tuesday, December 18, 2007, at 07:15AM, Jeff Seager [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There's little doubt that self-promotion is high on Nielsen's list of talents, Ben, but I also think he has a pretty good grasp on the essence of usability. If you read far enough in the Alertbox missive he sent out today, you'll see he's giving away a 150-page study that includes 75 well-summarized accessibility guidelines. Grab it while you can, folks! It's a good reference with actual user testing to back it up, especially handy if you ever need to teach newbies about accessibility ... which I'll be doing next month. You can find it here: http://www.nngroup.com/reports/accessibility Jeff Seager _ The best games are on Xbox 360. Click here for a special offer on an Xbox 360 Console. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/wheretobuy/ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] Co-Relations between Graphic - Digital Media Design
There are design principles that translate easily from print media to digital media, and some of the same creative processes make the transition easily. For some time, though I think it happens less often now, I've seen graphic designers utterly resist the flexible nature of web design because they're conditioned to want absolute control over presentation. I've been guilty of it myself. That way lies madness. The jury is out as to whether the madness manifests more deeply in the designer or the user, but it's a foolish path to pursue. Pursue it if you want to try to prove me wrong. Some otherwise very good web architects and designers are oblivious to how their designs will be presented to a text-only browser, a screen reader, a Blackberry or some other small-screen browser ... or even how it will display on a standard Postscript printer. That needs to change, because smaller devices and adaptive devices will proliferate and become cheaper in a very short time. The power of this medium is in its flexibility, portability and extensibility. Use it! People always think that issues of accessibility, like rape or alcoholism, are about somebody else. The vision impairments that will cause people to use screen readers are increasingly more likely with age. You may have noticed that this baby boom generation is aging, and substantial wealth is concentrated in this market segment. Businesses soon will be taking note of this and targeting that audience, and those businesses will expect us to know how to reach them even if they're using adaptive devices. Structural elements are necessarily more flexible on the Web, and we have to think about how a design re-flows into different containers. Designers and editors for the Web must understand this flexible virtual world as well as designers of yore understood modular layout inspired by people like Piet Mondrian. This virtual digital world is more liquid than solid. As a designer you can work with that. In engineering terms, it's more like building a floating pier than a fixed pier. The challenge now is not to create a changeless work of art, but to design a flexible structure that will flow easily across different digital media. Jakob Nielsen once said something brilliant about developers inevitably creating complexity, and I think that's true of developers who work for other developers. It's been true of designers who seek the approval of other designers, too. You've heard this before, but good design assists in conveying the intended information quickly, effectively and clearly. Whatever else may change, that will not. Jeff Seager _ i’m is proud to present Cause Effect, a series about real people making a difference. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?source=text_Cause_Effect *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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] OLPC: BBC article
I appreciated Murli's questions, and replied to him yesterday when I intended to respond to the list. I've included a slightly edited version of my reply below. I also appreciate Jeff Axup's response, and his point of view that OLPC may be a step in the right direction. I may agree with Jeff, but not without reservations. I have not seen a working model of the laptop, though I applaud the effort to make it affordable and build it around open source software. Is anyone here familiar with the Boxer Rebellion, when China drove away the outsiders who were bringing too much in the way of foreign technology, including the opium trade? After a century of intense Western trade in the southern Chinese seaports, and after repeated and desperate attempts to resolve the problem in other ways, the wisest of those in the crumbling Chinese empire understood that they could not accept new technology without accepting the implications upon which that technology was based. The strict social and moral fabric of China had been disrupted badly by the consequences of foreign trade, and communist rule followed a few years after the death of the last dowager empress, Tzu Hsi (or Cixi, in the pinyin transliteration). The communists brought China into the machine age, which may have prepared the Chinese people for the much more rapid modernization happening today. But at the dawn of the 20th century, it was necessary for China to shun all modernization and take one big collective breath. That function was served by the Boxer Rebellion. Technology is not culture, but culture is implicit in all technology. Besides their overt purpose, technologies are languages by which we transmit our culture. If we buy into this idea that we really are improving the world by exporting computers or any other technology, we may one day have to accept the inevitability that all world cultures must be assimilated into one world culture. Altruism aside, I promise you that somebody is making money on this deal and I suppose that is the real motive force at work in the OLPC program. I like diversity in theory and in practice, and I believe that cultural diversity is an advantage to all of us. Some of that advantage may be forever hidden from us until such time that diversity is no more. Perhaps this technology won't eliminate cultural diversity, but the possibility is something to consider. At worst I think the desire to disseminate such technology is a well-intentioned arrogance, and certainly not the first or the last in human history. Jeff Seager _ i’m is proud to present Cause Effect, a series about real people making a difference. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?source=text_Cause_Effect *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ 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
