Re: [IxDA Discuss] Facebook on Google Buzz: How Well Does That Friendship Model Work?
Google increasingly gives me the creeps. Yes I am sending this from my Gmail account, which is a widget in my iGoogle home page. And I am increasingly wondering if having Gmail iGoogle accounts is such a good idea. I really don't want any other integrated cleverness from Google. They have become too pervasive and inscrutable for me to completely trust now. Although undoubtedly irrational on my part, my sense of unease is affecting consideration of other Google initiatives which are probably completely unconnected, like Android. If any clever Google intelligences are monitoring, artificially or otherwise, know that Buzz is the point at which you overstretched and went too far for my comfort. Michael Micheletti On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 10:42 PM, John Romano jrom...@capstrat.com wrote: As a long time Facebook and (intermittent) Twitter user, I was completely frustrated by the lack of clear privacy settings and explicit friendships. Their algorithm to determine my friendships was far from accurate. And I have no idea what they will recommend. On the other hand, it's like having Pownce back! Images, videos and links. Explicit commenting. Yea! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=49241 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 -- Michael Micheletti michael.michele...@gmail.com 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] iPad.
I keep seeing a control surface when I look at the iPad. The whole tablet computer idea is meh for me, but I'm imagining it as a soft console audio mixing board for a musician, or displaying a couple of virtual turntables for a DJ. Or, more in my line of work, a touchscreen console for radio operators. Any sort of professional application that would benefit from faders, knobs, zoom, multitouch physics and so on could use a control surface like this. And in a dedicated control-surface application, the lack of multitasking capability is no problem. This first release doesn't look optimal for these purposes. Almost any application like this would need external hardware for processing, and this thing doesn't have enough horsepower or ports. But I expect to see these in artists' hands on stage sometime later this year. And Apple's much vaunted Top-Secret design silo failed them this time: one normal everyday focus group session would have brought out the sniggers when they said the name the first time. Michael Micheletti . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=48704 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
[IxDA Discuss] The nuts and bolts behind 4636 in Haiti
I've been following the work of Ushahidi for a while now. They've come up with an emergency response system for Haiti based on short text messages and Kreyol-speaking volunteers with intimate knowledge of their locations. They make this data available to other organizations. I'm really impressed by the design of this entire system; especially how technology is lowest-common-denominator and hardly matters, and people form the core of the system. Here's a blog post from their site explaining how the system works: http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2010/01/22/the-nuts-and-bolts-behind-4636-in-haiti/ The system is in place and working now, having been designed and implemented in a matter of days. Most impressive whole-system design work I've run across in a very long time. -- Michael Micheletti michael.michele...@gmail.com 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] Toward a search dominant wayfinding paradigm (worth it?)
David, I've been watching my wife and son struggle while learning to use Adobe products, searching through help and online using their own words or descriptions for what they think they want to do, knowing the answers are locked up somewhere in a vault they can't identify. Eventually, they may stumble upon Object / Live Trace / Make and Expand or Layer / Create clipping mask, but probably they won't. My wife was working in Photoshop the other day when I came home, looking frustrated after trying to figure out how to get her image back after saving it in another format and size, having Googled all up one side and down the other. That one was gone, but I showed her Save for the Web and she was good for the next time. Why didn't she consider that choice in the first place? Because she was trying to Save for the Book. Because Adobe products form a strange parallel universe all their own, with Terms Not Found In Nature, it's hard to know what to look for unless you already know what it is you're looking for. I'm not sure if search on the Adobe website will solve that problem. But please, somewhere in your decision process, take some time to watch novices struggle to learn your products, and do your best to help them succeed. Thanks, Michael Micheletti On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 4:10 PM, David Hatch ha...@adobe.com wrote: Hi all, For the past several months I have been perseverating on the concept of creating a search-dominant wayfinding system for my web site: Adobe.com. Why, you may ask? My thought (and I know Jared, at minimum will disagree after having just listened to a recent podcast from him on this) is that as web users we are moving more and more in that direction - toward search as being a standard, hard-wired, lizard brain reflex when confronted with moving through the vasty content spaces that are out there. The Googles have had no small impact on our wayfinding approaches. *Meme check: search as last resort?* I wanted to call out and question a particular meme, namely: ³search on sites like adobe.com is a function of last resort for those poor folks who aren¹t finding their trigger words in the page (nav or content). I know there is research on this so please hit me with it as necessary. But I can¹t help thinking that you could phrase a new approch like this: ³People search first because that¹s how they are used to finding info². What do you think? *Why a search dominant wayfinding mode?* Any attempt on our part (UXers) to come up with appropriate linked words or images to use as nav in the hopes of getting users where we think they want to go is only a guess. Sometimes our guesses at nav are great but sometimes they totally fail. What we do know is that in every user's mind is an intent as they move through a web site. If we let that user type their intent into a search box then that is a step closer to (and more feasible than) creating the mind reading UI we all know would be best for users. Of course the next thing is: are the search results useful? But lets assume they were. Why in that case would we not want to create a search dominant wayfinding UI for folks. *What would a search dominant wayfinding UI look like for a site that's not Google?* It would probably have a very prominent search field. One of those giant novelty size web 2.0 style things perhaps. For a site like adobe.com it would probably also have some standard links such as products and support, etc but those would not be the main focus. Perhaps search could even be used to generate the local navigation on subsections. Perhaps the search input field could be integrated into the page such that it could also act as a page title (an example is here http://bit.ly/o81Vp, although admittedly its a results page). An extreme example of a search only UI on the homepage is here: http://www.sequoiacap.com/. Question: what are you thoughts on developing a search dominant wayfinding paradigm for a corporate site. I'd like to hear what you think. Thanks, David Hatch 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 -- Michael Micheletti michael.michele...@gmail.com 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] Microsoft Courier ...
I'm not normally given to Gadget Lust but I want this one. On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 7:07 PM, Grady Kelly gr...@simpledesign.org wrote: Any of you see this yet? http://gizmodo.com/5365299/courier-first-details-of-microsofts-secret-tablet I like the organic feel of the video. Typically they do product visions like this that at the end, you would think were production ready. Grady Kelly gr...@gradykelly.com http://www.gradykelly.com 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 -- Michael Micheletti michael.michele...@gmail.com 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] Design -- Development pipeline/tools?
Hi Billie, In the project I'm working on now, I made a special effort to document the important parts of our design and leave many details out of the specifications. I added a disclaimer in all the documents that the specs were like a jazz chart, that some improvisation was expected and encouraged, and the specs would not be updated afterwards. No time (this is the 10th day of my current work week, which I think may end sometime in October). The other important part of this jazz performance thing is that I'm one of the improvisers. I'm in every team meeting. I'm actively in the code styling and setting dim timers on indicator lights. I drew all the production art, and redraw a good deal of it once I see it in action. I refactor control templates and debug events. We're a small tight dev team and our boundaries are pretty fuzzy. And we're all ok with that. This sort of arrangement obviously wouldn't work in a large formal organization, or when you need to send work overseas, or when the team is inexperienced, or or or... But it's working for us. I think of it as the sort of structure you want to get to when three or four really good people who work well together are all turned loose to do great stuff. Hope this helps, Michael Micheletti On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 5:54 AM, Billie Mandel billie.man...@purplelabs.com wrote: Hey folks - What's your company's process/pipeline/set of tools for delivering and communicating designs (and associated visual design assets) to your dev team? *[Addressed particularly to innies in software development orgs though anyone's insights much appreciated]* TO be clear: I'm NOT asking the Visio vs Illustrator vs Fireworks etc conversation. I'm asking what happens *after* the design team has determined (at least a first cut of) both how the app should work, and how it should look. Do you have a tool or process that tells the developers which UI patterns/controls to use, where to place the art, how much velocity/decay there should be on animated transitions or gestural effects? Are they coding these things manually based on design team deliverables (wireframes/animated sequences)? Do you have a tool that you use in which designers can actually create the apps' front ends? I ask because I'm doing a bit of an audit of our processes, trying to streamline things and get more efficient. I'm trying to get a feel for the state of the art in UI development processes -- need to assess how behind/ahead my company is so I can decide how hard I need to push my process innovation agenda. Cheers - Billie PS - [waving hello] Haven't posted in ages - been a bit 'heads down' over here. Hope everyone's having a fab summer! *** Billie Mandel Director, User Experience Myriad Group AG www.myriadgroup.com 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 -- Michael Micheletti michael.michele...@gmail.com 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 are common Application Software Development Team sizes?
Our application software company's interaction design team size would be, um, one. That's also our visual design team size. Oh, and it's the same one, and he codes a bit in his spare time. Pleased to meet you :-) It's not all stand-alone work though. When we're mapping out something new, I'll form a small internal design team that includes business, architecture, and technology people. Design teams tend to be project-specific, which works out well for the engineers 'cause they get sort of itchy in design meetings. I do think sometimes about what sort of designer I would bring in if we ever doubled our team size to (gasp!) two. By necessity he or she would be another polymath, ideally with some serious research chops (not my strength), an informed interaction design background, an understanding of graphic design, and professional technical skills that include some ability to traverse the nether coding regions of software products. Michael Micheletti On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 4:27 AM, Lindsey Berdan lindsey.ber...@fluke.comwrote: I am one of two interaction designers at a hardware company, and am curious about the interaction design teams who work at software companies and develop application software. What are the average team sizes for the development of the User Interface and Interactions? Thanks, Lindsey. -- Michael Micheletti michael.michele...@gmail.com 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] Colors and Usability
A couple more links for you: Colorblindness simulator: http://colororacle.cartography.ch/ Accessibility in Interaction Design course at the Open University: http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=2057 NASA/Ames Research Center - Designing with Luminance Contrast: http://colorusage.arc.nasa.gov/design_lum_0.php These guys have great info and examples at their site, recommended. Michael Micheletti On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 11:24 PM, C K Vijay Bhaskar ckvijaybhas...@gmail.com wrote: One of the sites that talks on color and usability is : http://www.colormatters.com/usability.html. You can also google for more info on this topic. About the color and download speed: The fact is that any information over the internet is just binary data that is processed via the user's computer. The speed would depend on the connection speed, the inflow of color information, the ability of the browser to decipher the color based on its internal algorithm and properties and finally the ability of the graphic chip on the mother board to aid in the processing of the color on the user's screen. With the current advancement of technology, all this happens in a matter of milliseconds or less. Hope this helps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=43732 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 -- Michael Micheletti michael.michele...@gmail.com 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] Expression Blend 3.0 with SketchFlow Released Today
On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 6:27 AM, Fredrik Matheson fredrik.mathe...@gmail.com wrote: So, has anyone tried EP3 with Sketchflow? What's your experience so far? I'm sort of living in Blend 3 these days, styling a major WPF application. Haven't had a chance to use the Sketchflow portion yet since I'm working on production deliverables and am a bit behind schedule. The Blend 3 RC is considerably more stable than the preview release, which crashed frequently when I'd open a code-behind file, or sometimes even just selecting something from the Object menu. The Adobe Illustrator imports are 95% great in Blend 3, only missing on some color accuracy and alpha values. Can't round-trip vector graphics, but support for Illustrator imports has really helped me out for this project. Blend 3 continues to be alternately handy and frustrating as a vehicle for designers to spruce up WPF and Silverlight applications. The XAML editor is much improved by the addition of Intellisense, but there are still moments when the parser thinks your code is busted but it really isn't. Blend also seems to do strange stuff to solution and project files sometimes, to the point that I only create new resource dictionaries and make other project-level changes using Visual Studio now. At some point I'll write up my experience styling WPF components in a serious production application, but I'm too busy today. Let me just mention that it feels more like hacking than like design. Plus it's given me one of the low points of my technology career when I realized that to style an 80-line screen took more than 800 lines of nearly unreadable and probably dangerous XAML template code. Ok off now to dive into 3rd-party UI components with a debugger, see how they put them together, hook up their default styles, hack them until they look right, and try not to break something. Life as a designer in the 21st century... Michael Micheletti -- Michael Micheletti michael.michele...@gmail.com 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] [Conan Team to IXDA members]: Paying job posts to fund IXDA activitiesother issues
On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 4:06 AM, Maria De Monte mtdemo...@yahoo.it wrote: 1) Would you pay a fee to post a job at IxDA.org using Coroflot’s service, knowing that half of the fee you’ll be paying would go to fund IxDA activities? For a really high-end top-tier position, where you want to attract talent of highest experience and caliber, perhaps this makes sense. But for internships, mid-level, new hires, developers, people around the fringe of UX, I wonder if these jobs would get posted. I'd expect we'd see fewer opportunities than we currently do on this list. 3) How valuable would the portfolio service be to you? I have a Coroflot portfolio already via the AIGA and I've received many inquiries from it, from people I didn't know about before, who were contacting me about interesting opportunities. I know that some people on this list are unenthusiastic about portfolios for a variety of reasons, but recruiters do search on Coroflot for designers. If you're not there, they're not finding you. 4) Should a Coroflot-hosted Job Board at IxDA.org display available jobs in categories OUTSIDE of Interaction Design? The other specialities they presently handle include fields such as Architecture; Art Direction; Design Management; Industrial Design; and Motion Graphics. I'd like just one Coroflot portfolio to maintain please, for both AIGA and IxDA. But I'm in that fuzzy area between UX, development, and visual design so maybe I'm an outlier. Michael Micheletti -- Michael Micheletti michael.michele...@gmail.com 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] Black background interfaces...
Larry, thanks for the NASA visual design links. These resources will be very helpful on a project I'm just getting going with. All the best, Michael Micheletti On May 3, 2009 10:51pm, Larry Tesler tes...@pobox.com wrote: Gavin, See NASA's Designing with luminance contrast at http://colorusage.arc.nasa.gov/design_lum_0.php and the last few paragraphs of Luminance contrast at http://colorusage.arc.nasa.gov/luminance_cont.php. The references are at http://colorusage.arc.nasa.gov/refs_1.php. The upshot is that a too-bright background can cause problems in a darkened hospital room or cockpit. In other information display contexts, black on white is usually best. Larry On May 3, 2009, at 9:41 PM, gavin burke|FAW wrote: Hi, Black as the background colour for an interface is sometimes used in mission critical UIs, such as medical monitoring systems and trading software. Can people recommend some research on the use of black in this type of context and also post links if you have them of example interfaces. Thanks! Gavin. 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 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] Inspirations from art
Strong influences on my current work include backlit indicator lights, jewel boxes with hidden little drawers and compartments, international signs and icons, telephones, and two-way radios. Nothing I can show yet, apologies for the tease, Michael Micheletti On Mon, 4 May 2009 16:59:41, Mike Myles mmyles2...@yahoo.com wrote: I'm a avid musician - I've been making music longer than I've been designing. For me there are many parallels between music and design. Most of my musical 'career' has been dedicated to writing and performing original material. I find the act of composition, or of arranging someone else's material to fit the band I'm working with to be very informative to my work as a designer. I've definitely learned more about design from music than any other source. Frank Lloyd Wright saw music as a metaphor for architecture. He demanded all his students study and perform music. The immediacy of musical performances forces one to focus attention and make split second judgements about balance, aesthetics, movement, timing, and so much more. I don't think I would have become a designer if I wasn't first a musician. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41710 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 -- Sent from my mobile device Michael Micheletti michael.michele...@gmail.com twitter: @mikeym 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] I'm designing in Visio for the last time
You are all generous with good advice and tips. I'm especially intrigued by the idea of Blend 3 becoming more of a design tool. Thank you for the kind help, Michael On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 7:42 AM, Stewart Dean stewd...@gmail.com wrote: In Visio the easiest way to zoom in and out is to use a wheel mouse. Press Control then move the wheel to zoom in and out. Press shift to pan left and right. Visio's layers are a joke. Instead it's better to use multiple layers of backgrounds. Backgrounds can use different backgrounds and, with a little patience, can be used as layers. You can't turn these on and off when needed though. I have never used any of the shapes in Visio (well maybe a mouse pointer once or twice). Instead I have a library built up from others libraries and my own items - once mastered Visio's masters are quite powerful (if not entirely free of bugs). There is much wrong with Visio - no merging documents, not paste in place, lots of annoying bugs and needless features. Having used both Omnigraffle and Visio in anger I feel both have major short comings but, under pressure, I find Visio twice as quick to use. The perfect user experience tool has yet to be built. -- Stewart Dean -- Michael Micheletti michael.michele...@gmail.com 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
[IxDA Discuss] I'm designing in Visio for the last time
I'm working on a product design, under pretty intense time/money/team pressure, using Visio for design sketches. I picked Visio because I've used it since version 1.0 (maybe I was even a beta tester, can't remember back that far) and am fairly expert with it. I can work fast and get lots done, and redone, which is maybe even more important. But today, when I attempted to copy/paste from one Visio drawing to another Visio drawing, it pasted in a bunch of mystery shapes and junk instead of the various dingbat font symbols and other images in my original. Yes, you read it correctly, it failed copying from Viso to Visio. They say that you can boil a frog if you put it in a pot with cold water and slowly turn up the heat. Well, then I'm a frog and Visio's finally boiled me over. Some other fuel on the burner: - Visio's layers dialog is application modal. What a constant endless Pain In The Butt. - Screen and Print visibility are controlled by separate columns of checkboxes within said PITB layers dialog. How many times have I printed images the first time and had to go back in and uncheck stuff there? Probably a couple trees' worth. - The Pan and Zoom window retains control of the keyboard when you reposition the cursor over your drawing. Think you're going to nudge that shape with your arrow keys now that you've zoomed in? Surprise, you're zooming in and out again instead. I appear to be unable to learn this. And Visio appears to be unable to learn that I want to zoom in when I use Ctrl+Plus, and zoom out using Ctrl+Minus. - The window and web design shapes are probably ten years old and look really tired. Translucent windows? Ribbon controls? Galleries? 3-D controls? Mobile phones? PDAs? Aero? Sorry. - Connections never seem to connect how I want them to, and one false move may reroute every one of them. - If I ungroup a shape in order to change some component visual properties and then regroup it, the z-index changes. - Any website big enough to require automated tools to perform a content inventory is too big for Visio to handle the job. Certainly the moment I go back to work after sending this I'll remember ten other things that bug me, but you get the idea. Visio is no longer working out very well as my quickie sketchpad for designing a new software application. Now I'm sure that Visio can do other wonderful tasks, like layout an office floor plan, configure equipment in a network rack, plan HVAC ducting, create simple electrical schematics, maybe even do database modeling. But I don't need to do any of that stuff. I'm a user interface designer. I have lots of alternatives for my next project. I'm good in Photoshop, but don't normally like to sketch with it because I'm faster in Visio (mostly because I tend to try and make things pretty in Photoshop, but also because it's a pain to resize a complex screen mockup). I've made an uneasy peace with Illustrator for symbol design work, but it frustrates me enough that I wouldn't want to spend any more time there than I have to. I've used InDesign to create marketing slicks and brochures, but it doesn't strike me as optimal for software interface design. Fireworks gets a lot of good press in this group, that may be what I try next. I'm getting increasingly adept in Expression Blend, but it's a development tool. I sketch on paper a lot, but mostly as quick notes to myself that no one else is expected (or able) to read. Maybe Microsoft will surprise me with a tight Visio upgrade that fixes everything that bugs me. But I doubt it. Instead, I expect them to bolt on the ability to design staircases, or roofing tile courses, or croquet fields, or asteroid belts, or something else equally useless to me. And maybe that's good business if there are underserved asteroid belt designers out there. But Visio, even though we've had some good times over the years, I think it's time we break up. Ok, I'm all screeded-out now. Time to go back to work (in, um, Visio, yes...), Michael Micheletti -- Michael Micheletti michael.michele...@gmail.com 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] Fun with comics (or storyboards!)
Check out Pippo Lionni's Facts of Life font from Linotype. He's one of my personal design heros. It's really fun to play with these images. http://www.linotype.com/275/linotypefactsoflife.html Michael Micheletti On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 12:07 AM, dnp607 dnp...@pacbell.net wrote: Hi Troy, I was thinking it would be great to have a palette of images including (though just off the top of my head): - Generic human forms in different states of standing, sitting, walking etc. - Generic human hands in different states of action - pressing, tapping, etc... - Generic user Interface elements such as buttons, windows, sliders etc... - Office space elements such as desks, chairs, tabletops... - Generic cell phones, keypads, mice and other input devices - Different types of frames to which items above could fit into, like comic book frames; various motifs like window frames? If these items were vector-exportable, even better. The real benefit here would be the objects themselves, but also the quick and easy framework they could fit into. Honestly, I have hundred (maybe thousands) of images I've vectorized - usually from photos of myself, my surroundings or items I have, converted into Illustrator - but a good framework to assemble them that I could give to my co-workers to express their ideas (they don't use or want to learn Illustrator) would be excellent! Best, -Dan On Mar 8, 2009, at 10:56 PM, Troy Gardner wrote: I've built things identical to it, curious what shapes would you want? 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 -- Michael Micheletti michael.michele...@gmail.com 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] Knowledge and Skill Requirements of the Industry
Hi David, A few months ago, when the IxDA meetup happened at the UW, I was impressed that students from the Technical Communications/UX path, students in the Industrial Design curriculum, and Computer Science students were all present. And they were working together on projects. They made it sound like they were doing this in stealth mode. So it may be a possibility for you to stay in the CS path but mix it up a little with design classes and design projects along with students in other majors. When I took graduate courses in the UW's Technical Communications UX program, they seemed oriented towards HCI and UX principles, usability testing, and research. This was a helpful program for me - I'd already been working as a designer for some years - but it wasn't a studio-based program where you designed lots of stuff. Perhaps this has changed in the last couple of years. I got the impression that Industrial Design students at the UW spent more time designing things, including interactive media. So perhaps mixing things up between the CS, ID, and UX programs might work. I think the UW might actually be able to create a solid studio-based Interaction Design program by rearranging/regrouping existing courses should they wish to. Perhaps a sympathetic professor or advisor can help you along a dual-major path or similar self-designed curriculum? And perhaps current UW ID or UX students can chime in here and correct me if I'm wrong, thanks. Hope this is helpful, Michael Micheletti -- Michael Micheletti michael.michele...@gmail.com On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 5:40 AM, David Little da...@littled.net wrote: snip / 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] Blackberry Storm
Thank you all for the thoughtful comments. They make me want to go back and give the thing another chance. Tami your comments reminded me of when my wife converted from PC to Mac laptops. For some weeks there it was tough sledding and then suddenly she was a fan. Much appreciated, Michael Micheletti 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] Tablet PC vs PC+Wacom ?
Hi Pankaj, I have both an IBM X60 tablet laptop as well as a serious design workstation with a Wacom tablet. I've been using a Wacom tablet for years, and am very comfortable with it. I've never quite gotten used to the tablet laptop though. There's something about the way my hand shields the screen that bothers me. I sense a visual flicker around my hand, but this may just be me. Also the tablet drivers on the laptop worked better with its original XP OS than with Vista, even after upgrading - the stylus contact point is just enough off the mark to be unpredictable. My laptop is one of those Vista Capable machines that MS got sued for though, undoubtedly yours will be better behaved. My recommendation: Wacom tablet for desk work and a Moleskine notebook and a nice pen for sketching in the field. Scan when you get back. Hope this helps, Michael Micheletti On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 6:57 PM, Pankaj Chawla pankaj...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, I am trying to equip my design team with work toys and was wondering if anybody has strong opinions or experience while working with a touchscreen based tablet PC vs a regular PC/laptop with digital Tablet (Wacom etc.) Here is the link to the tablet PC that I have in mind http://www.dell.com/tablet The second option of having a regular PC + Wacom will be a 21 inch LCD with a high end desktop processor and stuff plus a Wacom digital tablet pad. I know the choice will also depend on what we want to do as part of the design but lets say from a pure visual and graphics designing point of view which one will be better to use. First hand experience and feedback will be greatly appreciated. Money is not a constraint but happy designers and excellent output is a must :-) -- Cheers Pankaj 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 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
[IxDA Discuss] Blackberry Storm
I stopped by the Verizon booth in the mall the other day to try out a Blackberry Storm, the new one with the touchscreen. I'm a current Verizon customer, and my antique Moto Razor is about to do the El Croako. I'd heard the Storm had a good browser and a great screen for viewing media. Since Verizon has treated me pretty well and I've no complaints about their service, I was curious about their new phone. The guy at the booth let me play with theirs. I tried typing on it, and was not very successful. The Storm's touch screen acts like a button, so you have to press it down to enter a character. But it also acts like a touchscreen, so there's obviously no indent for your finger to know when you're over a button. I mistyped many characters, sometimes more than once, and got frustrated after a few minutes of fiddling with it. Perhaps this is just me. I'm curious to know if others on this list have successfully adapted to the Storm's unique touchscreen/button controls. Or if anyone here helped test or develop it and would like to share something of their experiences. Some million or so people have eagerly purchased this handset; I'd like to know how it's worked out for you. Thanks, Michael Micheletti 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 to do in an environment run by engineers??
Hi Ali, Hope I'm not stepping in too late here. I've made something of a career of being the designer on the development team. Although I once was the developer on the design team which might even have been a bit stranger. Here are some approaches that have worked for me: - Volunteer to write the spec, of whatever it is being built. Do a great job. Lead the discussions. Incorporate wireframe sketches. The engineers may drift from what you sketched, but at least they have a starting point to consider. With time, you will become the person whom everyone looks to for initial specifications and design artifacts, sometimes even for technical internals code. This is because (warning generalization follows) Engineers love specification documents, but don't usually like to write them. - Become handy around the shop. You'll want to volunteer to help test code, to visit with customers, to create prototypes, to help with technical recruiting - to do whatever you can to make your engineering team successful. Another generalization: Engineers respect people who work hard to make the team a success. You want the respect of your team. When your team respects you, you will be listened to. - Be very patient. I try to plant the seed of an idea early, then help it grow quietly. I know the time is right when I hear engineers and business people saying it's time to do this thing, as if it was a new idea they just thought of. This is a wonderful moment, because you can smile and say that's a great idea, let's do this and all of a sudden you have allies in a strategic design project. I'm working on one of these now. It took more than a year to sprout. - Bear with me here a minute. There's a financial trading term I think is called a negative indicator. A funny application of this is there are some people who always pick stocks just before they fall (oh wait, that's all of us). Time Magazine covers are a negative indicator - by the time a company shows up there, it's at the peak. Sports Illustrated covers another. Madden football game covers also - the player on the cover will underwhelm the next season. I've heard of traders who kept an eye on negative indicator (people) as a sort of reality-check on market direction. Ok now back to our story. There will likely be one very senior engineer on your development team who is a negative indicator for design. You know, the let's just add another checkbox type. This guy (I haven't met the female version yet, although maybe she's out there) will be a very skillful coder with deep knowledge of your system and the respect of all of the engineers on the team. This is the hard part: you want to partner with this guy. You want to work with him as closely as you can. He will understand the system very deeply. You will understand design patterns and be able to make his system more usable and attractive. Together you will create far better applications than either of you could do on your own. - Create paper prototypes. Engineers immediately understand these. Bring your paper, colored pens, and scissors to prototype working sessions and everybody will be cutting out shapes like crazy to try different things. You can advance the design a great deal in an hour of collaborative work with a crude prototype. I hope these suggestions are helpful, have fun, Michael Micheletti On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 4:38 AM, ali naqvi a...@amroha.dk wrote: Interesting comments from all of you. Thank you. I have had a few conversations with the department managers, other co-workers and even prepared a powerpoint presentation for my first kickoff, (many of the attendants are engineers) wherein I will stress the importance of user Centered Design (OOBE, IX,UX, Usability etc) I have noticed that they all think that usability is enough... I'll change their views :) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=37605 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 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] Living the Job Enterprise UX Research by Doing (vs. Observation)
I've done this twice. Once to redesign a CRM system for a technical support group and another time to design a content management application for technical writers. Each time I basically joined the group for some time, taking support calls or writing technical bulletins under the guidance of the group's manager. I went to staff meetings and got good advice from my coworkers. After I walked the walk for a while, I had a much better understanding of what was important or not. Both groups were very accepting of me and both projects were successful and well-received. In subsequent design projects I've tried to get similar experience, but the domains generally didn't permit this. I'm also a big fan of participatory design, where one or two real live users are on the design team - that's worked well in projects too. Michael Micheletti On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 2:55 PM, Julez huj...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, Does anyone out there have the experience of actually performing a given job (for at least a day or three, perhaps longer) as a means of really researching context, tasks etc.? Specifically, I am thinking of an enterprise context, where the user doesn't have choice in tools, workflow and there are some highly developed skills (ie more than the basic web skills of an e-commerce user). Also, I am contrasting this approach to on-site observation, empathic modeling and user role playing. For example, working in a call center as a first line telephone customer care agent. Sitting down with call center agent, getting some basic training and having that person watch your back to prevent major catastrophes, You answer calls, use the system(s) to retrieve and enter information etc., essentially it is you performing the job. This was something I though of proposing ages ago when I wanted to analyze and model the work of a particular type of system analyst. It never came to fruition (due mainly to technical skills gap, but also legal issues with outsider using systems) and I ended up doing standard contextual observations. It was great for insight into high-level aspects of the product and job that had issues (most of which we were already aware of) but not much nuance. It is inspired by a story I heard (circa 2001?) about a financial analyst getting a job at an Amazon.com warehouse as a means of gauging their likelihood of hitting/exceeding their numbers. There are a myriad of reasons not to do this, namely resource/time constraints, but I am curious to see if other IxDers, particularly those with a research bent have experience with this and could provide some input on how it compares to CI. Of course input from people with no experience is also welcome. What context was this performed in? (Real vs. Realistic Simulation) Did you have some basic, prior understanding of the domain? Did you do training? What did you call it? (methodology) Was it disruptive to work setting? Does it provide a level of insight worth the time/hassle of setting it up? Cheers, Julian 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 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] How many alternatives, concepts, or sketches are enough?
On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 3:13 AM, Jakub Linowski jlinow...@gmail.com wrote: http://www.90percentofeverything.com/2009/01/14/why-you-shouldnt-rush-into-a-solution-too-quickly/ The question which I am wondering about then is how do we know how many alternatives are enough? How do we know we have enough sketches, alternatives or concepts before we begin choosing a satisfising solution. My manager is asking this too, as I'm now working on my eleventh set of concept sketches for a new software product. Probably several more ahead of me still. Sigh. But there's a telltale indicator that lets me know when I'm getting close. It's when the design stays put for at least 24 hours with no one on the design team, including me, wanting to change anything. I call it the 24 Hour Rule. Maybe someone taught this to me - if so, thank you, whoever you were - it's been helpful. Maybe it's original; I've been using it so long I can't remember. The 24 Hour Rule means if you're still twitchy to change something, you're not done with the design yet, even if engineers are already building the product. And I seem to recall a graphic design course where our instructor had us bring in a hundred variations of whatever it is we were drawing. But maybe we were bad and she wanted to punish us... Michael Micheletti 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] IxD Portfolios @ Interviews: What Do You Do?
On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 1:18 PM, Jen Randolph j...@jenrandolph.com wrote: What are some of the ways other IxDers have presented their work? Hi Jen, I have a small portfolio book that I bring to interviews. For significant systems, sites, or software, I'll include a single page from a design or requirements specification facing a single screenshot that shows how that requirement was delivered in the finished system. For smaller websites, I may include only a screenshot. I use the book for storytelling. Rather than expecting an interviewer to read through all the many pages of some whopping-big design specification, we flip through the book together and talk about how a project moved from design to reality. It helps an interview become a conversation, and lets the interviewer drill down into detail about a project that he or she finds interesting. I include URLs on my resume, but have no expectation that busy interviewers or hiring managers will have visited them. Hope this is helpful, Michael Micheletti 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
On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 9:43 AM, Christine Boese christine.bo...@gmail.comwrote: What of it? Would our field reject most musical instruments as beyond the pale? Could they ever be invented today, or anything remotely like a success? Imagine the first round of usability tests on the oboe. :-) Michael Micheletti 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
[IxDA Discuss] Whole system interaction I appreciated over the holidays
I gave the US Postal Service Click-N-Ship and carrier pickup services a try over the holidays to send parcels hither/yon. In a nutshell, you create an account and enter shipping details on their website, pay for postage with a credit card, and then print out a shipping label with your printer. You can then request that your postman stop by your house to pick up the packages for you. This all worked out pretty well, eventually. I had some trouble with the website, especially the first time when a multi-page registration intruded while entering credit card data. Gave me that edgy feeling of oh boy do I need to enter all that package stuff again, or will it remember? (it did, but was distinctly uncomfortable). It felt like there were about 35 steps to sending that first package. Other problems I had were finding an accurate scale (third kitchen drawer from the top, in the back, on the bottom - at my house, it may be someplace else in yours) and coaxing my aging printer into doing an acceptable job on the label. The non-web/non-Micheletti parts of the system worked very well though. My mailman came by and picked up the packages from me, and the post office sent me a tracking number. I could also sign up for the recipients to get a tracking number emailed to them if I wanted. No charge for a pickup and a little discount on the postage if I remember right. The web interactions succeeded (uncomfortably), but need work yet. The entire thing works like a wizard, but you don't know exactly where you are in the process. There are confusing multiple entry points on their website's home page - even after I'd done this a couple times I had trouble remembering which choice I needed to make. But overall, this was an extended system interaction that I appreciated. I can see that this is also a cost savings for the post office - if more people schedule pickups from their postman (who's coming around anyway) then they don't need so many post offices, employees... US-based folks maybe give it a try when you need to send a parcel: http://www.usps.com/ Happy new year, Michael Micheletti 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] Interaction Designers: What is your elevator pitch?
I've been known to say, I design software and websites that people don't hate. That's usually gets a good conversation going. In design circles, we all speak about usability and delight as if these were commonplace. But out in the world, everyone works with software or websites that drive them crazy. I often get an earful, and learn something. Michael Micheletti On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 1:40 PM, R. Groot rein.gr...@gmail.com wrote: Interaction Designers, how do you introduce the work you do when you have a social introduction? Curious regards, Rein 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 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] Design for impulse Behavior Economics
This article made me think of unintended consequences. For example, Bruce Schneier wrote in his book Beyond Fear how the increase in secure car ignitions (that can't be hardwired) led to an increase in the number of carjackings in Russia. In this case, the immediate design outcome was to make the car's ignition more secure, but the impact seems to endanger the car's occupants. Michael Micheletti On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 1:17 PM, David Malouf [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hey there, Robert Fabricant of frog design write this nice piece on an designing to change behavior. http://designmind.frogdesign.com/blog/design-for-impulse.html The topic of behavior economics is important, and one I know I haven't thought nearly enough about (despite being mentioned in the article). What do people think about this in our domain as IxDers? -- dave -- David Malouf http://synapticburn.com/ http://ixda.org/ http://motorola.com/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Inactive UI elements: disable or disappear?
I like the clear way you've stated these rules Jack, thanks. I recently did a design review with support and field engineers looking at concept sketches. They all spoke out (rather strongly) to request that controls always be visible on the screen and not disappear. It seems that vanishing controls make their support tasks more complex. I'm attempting to honor their request. Mostly I can, but there are still some cases where different configurations create or expose different controls. For example, in my application some people will have telephony configured and see phone controls, others not. So I seem to be following your rules at the feature level - if the users have phone functionality, show them all the phone controls, even if some are disabled. Within a feature/panel though, I'll always show the controls. So, for example, even if someone's configured phone provider will never support conferences, the application will still display a conference button in a disabled state. Michael Micheletti On Sat, Dec 6, 2008 at 12:49 PM, Jack Moffett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bart, Your instincts are correct. Here's a post I made on my blog awhile back: Developers often ask me whether a function should be hidden when not available, or merely disabled. I gave them the following two rules in my UI Design First Aid lecture. When a function is unavailable due to current system state, but may be enabled for the current user when the state changes, the control should be disabled. This provides a visual indication that the function exists, and the user knows that there is an action they can take to enable it. When possible, I specify a tooltip that explains why the function is disabled. If a function will never be made available to the current user (barring a change of the user's access privileges), it should never be seen by the user. There is no reason for the user to be exposed to functionality they cannot use. This only leaves them wondering why they can't access it. http://designaday.tumblr.com/post/47558495/back-to-basics-disable-or-hide Jack L. Moffett Interaction Designer inmedius 412.459.0310 x219 http://www.inmedius.com The public is more familiar with bad design than good design. It is, in effect, conditioned to prefer bad design, because that is what it lives with. The new becomes threatening, the old reassuring. - Paul Rand Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Interaction Design Career Path
Hi Allison, I'm guessing that the generalist path occurs most easily in a small shop, perhaps where the entire design department numbers 1 (like where I am). Opportunities present for graphic design, application design, coding, writing, prototyping, testing, giving presentations, and some research. I'm sure that designers who hang out a shingle and start their own consulting business also get a good deal of general business-related experience along the way. I have done design work in a larger company, and was more narrowly focused there. It gave me an opportunity to gain depth in a couple of areas, but it took some effort on my part to incorporate other specialties of the design craft into my work. I seem more suited to a generalist role by nature. I've noticed that other successful senior members of our technical team here have generalist tendencies as well. For instance, our CTO can variously debug network traces, author patents, write interesting low-level software, test phone gateways, give good presentations, and do terrific tech support. So perhaps finding a supportive environment with generalist tendencies is helpful. Michael Micheletti On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 8:13 AM, allison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In really large companies, at some point you sort of make a decision to either go the specialist route or the generalist route. Does this phenomenon exist in the IxD career path? If so, what are the generalist options? snip/ 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] Declaration of User Rights by Dan Saffer
Dan's DoHR article is great, but there's one significant omission: attention paid to accessibility for the disabled. People who have visual, auditory or physical disabilities should be able to use your product or website. The web and related modern technologies can be very enabling for people who otherwise have great difficulties in life, but only if we design with them in mind. This is something that we as designers can do, ourselves, if only we remember and make the commitment. Add Article 11 please, Dan. Thanks, Michael Micheletti On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 2:01 PM, Jeremy Yuille [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: coming in late here sorry, snip/ 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] Language\Culture-based Keyboard
Hi Majid, I did some quick searching using Google Images for Arabic keyboard and Hebrew keyboard to look at examples of keyboards with non-Latin alphabets. You might also try Cyrillic keyboard etc. Found an article from Sun about different keyboard support in Solaris that may be an interesting perspective: http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/817-2521/6mi67tj4s?a=view Not sure if any of these are the best ways to do things, but at least it's an easy way to get familiar with how others have solved similar problems. And it looks like there is a need, when I searched for Farsi keyboard I saw page after page of stickers. Hope this helps, Michael Micheletti On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 3:58 AM, majid dadgar [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: *Greetings,* I am about to search/research/(re)design some keyboard tailored to the local/native language and culture (of my own country). I'm in the first stage of gathering data/related articles+essays/advices/rules/possibilities/do's and dont's/methods /models/studies/references/books/case studies, etc. I was wondering: *1.* that if any similar project has been done in any country around the world? *2. *What is the logic/method/philosophy for arrangement of the buttons (alphabets+numbers+key commands+all others) on keyboards? *3. *How can we optimize/(re)design keyboards based on brain/mind characteristics of people living/speaking in certain cultures?in which way Language(alphabet letters/pronunciation)/Life style/(visual) culture would affect keyboards? I think every native/mother-tongue language provides unique understanding and mind framework that in this case would interact with keyboards. e.g. the concept of Home (think it as a button on keyboard) would be different in different cultures, would be different in different languages scripts; and it would make a different picture of Home. *Cheers, Majid. *-- Industrial Design, BA, University of Tehran. - - - - - - - -- - - - P.O.Box: 15635-119, Tehran, Iran. - - - - - - - -- - - - : : once upon a time Design : : http://1to3Design.blogspot.com - - - - - - - -- - - - Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] What to choose? (technical writer or technical tester)
Hi Ali, If it helps, I actually went from interaction designer to technical writer (asked by an old friend, out of the blue) and then back again. The technical writer position was challenging for me. I'm too creative by nature and needed to dial that back and become more detail-focused and precise. I was able to do quite a bit of design for print, marketing writing, and all sorts of other stuff while in that role. My writing improved. It was fun enough for a while, and then I started missing application design work. Glad to be back in it again. I've done a fair amount of casual testing since I've mostly worked in technology companies. I don't find it much fun, even though I seem to have the touch and can break almost anything given twenty minutes or so. The real testers always get their schedules compressed by some sort of development funkiness and have to stay late at night, on the weekend, over a holiday, etc. There doesn't seem to be a career path from tester to anything else, except maybe software developer. The one little pleasure testers seem to have shows up as a small evil grin when they've found a really good bug, because then the developer gets to stay late working to fix something and keep them company. Maybe I'm missing out on the joys of testing, having never done it as a steady diet, but I'd go writer if given the choice. Best of luck, Michael Micheletti 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?
I'm just getting around to learning to use an Intous3 6x9 with photoshop and I have it where I'd normally have my mouse pad (I use the Intous mouse as my regular mouse much of the time). I'm holding mine like this as well. Both are in arc before me, keyboard a bit on the left and the Wacom towards right. It took a while to get used to, but I need the keyboard far too much to keep it elsewhere. I push my keyboard up under the monitor so it leans on the monitor stand, and then have the tablet leaning on the keyboard's wrist rest at an angle, with the bottom propped in my lap and chair scooted in tight. A bit of a balancing act, but it's become automatic now - push keyboard forward, grab the tablet, lean it up, scooch in my chair, grab the pen - sort of all in a motion. Keeps the keyboard in play as well as the tablet. Only care to have is move the coffee mug out of the way first says Mister Clumsy here... Michael Micheletti 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] In the Event of My Death
On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 9:46 PM, Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Another issue -- how to inform people that you are only in contact with online that you have passed on? A Final Tweet? Perhaps instead we should call that a Croak? :-) Michael Micheletti 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] Can an interaction designer creat (great) interaction without (great) visual design skills?
Hi Andy, There are two guys I work with who use them. One is the writer on our dev team - he records every meeting with his pen while taking notes and gets a lot of interesting little details that way. We chuckle sometimes when he says hold on a sec - I need to reboot my pen but he's capturing good stuff with it. Both of the guys using the pen have evolved interesting indexing strategies with the special notebooks the pens use. It's like a real-time IA project for them to configure navigation into content. They've created tables of contents and so on in their notebooks. It's the first time I've seen end users invent their own content navigation into a repository that's half paper and half digital and entirely spontaneous. I have noticed that both of them take deliberate concise notes in a neat hand. Scrawlers/doodlers like me probably would have some trouble with it. Michael Micheletti On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 3:15 AM, Andy Polaine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Any thoughts about whether http://www.livescribe.com/ Pulse constitutes great interaction? Has anyone here used one much, for that matter? Are they any good as a pen as well as the tech of it? Looks like it might be a quick way of capturing research notes, but then a scanner/camera and a normal pen and paper might be just as fast. snip/ 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] Can an interaction designer creat (great) interaction without (great) visual design skills?
I seem to be alternately skillful in interaction work and graphic design work (and programming for that matter), but seldom all at once. Seems like a few days and a serious change of focus is needed to switch between the crafts. I'm mindful of athletes who compete in multiple sports during the year, but need to train and focus on one sport at a time. So even though I'm alternating between sketch pad and code today, the sketches are raw and I'm more technically focused. Programmer Brain and Designer Brain are different. And I think you're right Will. I've known Great graphic designers and Great programmers (currently surrounded by the latter), and look up to them with respect. They give me something to aspire to and lots of ideas. They're fun to work with. But even if I've a long ways to go yet, there's some benefit in occupying the intersection between related crafts. Having some facility in coding, graphics work and interaction design has been very helpful to me. I try to be aware of which craft I need to seriously focus on and learn about at the moment (right now it's code, I suspect next will be graphic design), and I would recommend this sort of cross-training to others as well. Michael Micheletti On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 3:34 AM, Will Evans [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: But to argue that a designer can't be both? I'm sorry, Will, but you don't have a leg to stand on. I did not argue that they can't be both - I merely argues that I have not seen one that is Great at one also Great at another. Perhaps my judgment of what constitutes Great is very different than many others. I know for a fact that IxD can learn GD, and vis verse - I am talking about greatness - not merely possessing the skills. I was more hinting that the greatness in both is orthogonal b/c I have not seen it overlap in one person - and this is completely a subjective call since what I may consider decent/okay GD - you may consider great. 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] Joe the Plumber as Persona
In the US Presidential debate last night, there was considerable discussion about Joe the Plumber. Turns out he's a real person, but nevertheless I heard him used as a sort of proxy or persona. Anybody else flash on this too? Is he the right persona to be designing an economic turnaround for? Other secondary personas to consider? Just wondering what you wise and witty folks will come up with... Michael Micheletti 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] Flash and Silverlight
I found Flash pretty quick to pick up, at least at a basic level. I was already good with Javascript, so Actionscript came naturally. I learned by working on a pixel-bound mobile prototype, rapidly turning around several experimental versions. I'm learning XAML/WPF/Blend now and it's a much steeper curve to get started. Trivial examples are easy, but fairly quick on you need some understanding of the WPF structures underneath the UI components. All of a sudden you're a developer, and sometimes an architect. I know C#, have done some .NET work before, and it's still steep. Stack of thick books steep. The (real) developer I'm working with is finding some of the same steep climb, but in the other direction, since he needs to understand the declarative interface construction. The Blend/XAML etc environment is very powerful, and we're planning to use it for production code. I'm prototyping with it every day, partly to get better with it, to experiment with the controls, and also to see where the brittle edges are. But it's hard to imagine being successful with it without diving in deeply and being somewhat of an expert. Flash seems more inviting and forgiving to newcomers. And David's right about the layout controls in WPF. The WrapPanel is exactly perfect, right out of the box. Michael Micheletti On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 5:14 PM, David Malouf [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: uh? The first part is easy. W/o a doubt Silverlight and C# work much more tightly. You can do all your code in C# (no scripting languages required) and work in Visual Studio or other C# IDEs for all the UI Integration points. As for what is better for a UI person. Which type of UI Person? A UI Developer? or a UI Designer? Here's what I would say having worked a bit in both. I actually think that from a UI Designer/Developer perspective, the inclusion of Layout controls in XAML that I have never seen in Flash makes it heads and tails above Flash. Now that being said, SL has technical limitations that Flash doesn't. Flash has more access to peripherals than SL such as cameras and microphones, but SL has arguably better video processing, while Flash has better interactive and animation capabilities. If your team is a .NET development team and you have no need for a camera or microphone or other peripherals then SL is your way to go. Flash/Flex does have .NET (and thus C#) capabilities, but they are not the direct route. If you can leave the browser completely, I would take WPF over AIR (the equiv) any day of the week from a technology perspective (won't run on Mac/Linux though, unlike SL which will). -- dave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=34250 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Expression Blend advice please
Thanks Ambrose, this is great information. The Infragistics control set caught my eye the other day. Much obliged for the kind help, Michael On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 3:12 PM, J. Ambrose Little [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: See perspectives and other stuff I referenced. HTH. --Ambrose 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] browser text zoom inconsistency
Hi Abhishek, Firefox defaults to the behavior you describe, where the entire page is zoomed in or out. There is also a View / Zoom / Zoom Text Only menu item that causes the browser to zoom only text within the original size bounding blocks (like how IE behaves). This flexibility allows people with visual disabilities to choose the behavior they find most useful. Nice people, those Firefoxers. I don't know about a best practice, but what I've observed working is for the web designer to test the page template with text resized to the maximum, with Javascript disabled, with a user stylesheet installed, even using the keyboard only - to ensure that the site's content is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. Performing such tests frequently during development of the site's CSS template, in common browsers, helps prevent those awkward moments that can occur when accessibility issues are tested only after the site is completed and more difficult to fix. Yes this does make stylesheet development take longer, sigh. I believe it may be possible to engineer various bounding-box expansion behaviors into multi-column CSS page templates by specifying block widths using ems, but it's also possible to have text resizing work fine in a fixed width block if it's not too skinny and you leave enough margin. Creating flexible and accessible CSS layouts can be a frustrating exercise in compromises, especially at first. But people with disabilities also want to read the news, buy a plane ticket, pay bills online, search for new music... and we, in our role as designers, are uniquely situated to help them succeed. All the best, Michael Micheletti On Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 8:20 AM, Abhishek Bhor [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Is there a best practice to handle text zoom and its containing blocks? 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] on Critique (was G1 Android - case study in inconsistency)
Perhaps Jared's recent article on What goes into a Well-Done Critique has already been mentioned on this list, but if not, here's the link: http://www.uie.com/articles/critique/ I thought this an excellent short article with good recommendations and positive examples of how experienced reviewers help to make critiques successful for their teams. Recommended. Michael Micheletti On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 10:34 AM, David Malouf [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... I think one of the big issues is one that Jared Spool's latest Webinar is trying to address in the UX community. Where is critique in UX, In IxD? ... 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] IxD and the Resistance of the Material
Hi Jonas, Thanks for sending this link, I didn't know about We Feel Fine before. The idea of an art project based on datastreams that has an API is somehow very deviously appealing to me. Might have something to do with the Processing language books on my bookshelf, demanding I read them. Or with the Java communications API I'm currently documenting (volunteered to help out in between design projects). But yeah, these guys are good, and their project makes me think. Like it a lot. Digg labs http://labs.digg.com/ has a somewhat similar project with their screensavers that scrape postings and display them graphically in various ways, but those aren't as emotive or personal somehow. Thanks again for the WFF link, Michael On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 11:59 PM, Jonas Löwgren [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Are there Starker IxD's? Who are they? Yes, we are a young field, but my personal impression is that there are ixd experiences closely resembling Michael's description of his Starker recital. The first example that comes to mind is We Feel Fine by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar (www.wefeelfine.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] IxD and the Resistance of the Material
I've been thinking about this conversation quite a bit overnight. My perspective as a life-long musician: Many musicians learn Bach pieces on their instruments. At any one moment, there may be thousands of musicians practicing Bach pieces on our planet. For all I know, you're reading this on your iPhone in an elevator where Bach is playing over the speaker. The music is well-known, playable, practically a commodity. So how was I to know that Janos Starker in recital, playing Bach unaccompanied on a cello, would carve a permanent wound in my soul? I had no idea that anyone could push through the resistance in that familiar material to reach such a place. We, as interaction designers, don't often push through our material resistance. Our performances are more like musicians at weddings: show up on time, wear nice clothes, don't play too loud, play what the bride requests. The wedding party isn't looking for any more emotion - they've got plenty. They want Wedding Bach, not Starker Bach. Or perhaps we're more like the road-builders of our design world: not too many potholes? nice and smooth? good clear signage? won't wear out too soon? Ship It! That's a usable road! Right now, at this stage of our evolution, our materials resist us powerfully. Think quickly of how many rich web applications work well in all different browsers and mobile devices, are powerful enough to grow into but instinctive enough to grasp without reading instructions, and are accessible to disabled users? I'm sorry, but somewhere there will be a compromise to technical capabilities, schedule, finance, usability, beauty. There are levels that we can aspire to, but we will need to build our craft and advance our materials. Because right now our materials are crude, brittle, and frustrating compared to what musicians have to work with. Or even road-builders, who every so often create a bridge of such great beauty that you want to do a U-turn and cross it again a couple more times. I for one am very pleased that we have this community that celebrates the good roads and pushes through the materials, little by little, as we can. It may be a while before we reach that happy place on the far side. But I follow these conversations, hoping for glimpses, and am happy to celebrate small steps in the right direction. Michael Micheletti On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 12:25 PM, David Malouf [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... But back to resistance. I think people have been speaking of great examples in other areas, but I think at the crux of the issue (as Matt sorta alludes to) is what is our Craft? Are we even craft people, or are we simply the directors of craft people? (oh and not we in the sense of my job, but as interaction design -- ers in the pure sense. Many of us wear multiple hats and do a ton of craft. 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] Rugby.com
Hey Will, I think you should ask Christine and Benjamin to join the team... Michael Micheletti On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 7:04 PM, Will Evans [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Yes. they are indeed nancy boys - better suited to the OC or some other special on the WB - certainly less badass than any male or female rugby player I have ever met - but that is no worse than the fact that they are all hitler youth poster kids for a pure aryan nation. On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 8:49 PM, Christine Boese [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: As another former rugby player, I can certainly vouch for that! Chris On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 9:46 PM, Benjamin Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've also had this site sent to me from a few people, but mostly because I play rugby, not because of the design/interaction. ... 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 Topic: how will rising gas prices affect e-commerce?
I think there's a wishful side of us all that hopes business picks up, whatever our businesses may be. But Citibank just posted a net loss of 2.5 billion dollars from people having trouble paying home, auto, and credit card debt. The effect of high gas prices on e-commerce may be just a blip compared to the effects of job losses, hiring freezes, empty storefronts, and foreclosures. I'm pretty sure that people will continue to buy food and gas and other necessities. Readers will continue to buy books - they can't help it. Internet services, like online banking, will endure. But consumer luxuries purchased online? Ouch. Michael Micheletti On 7/11/08, Angel Anderson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A friend is a writer for an LA-based appeal newspaper and he was wondering what the folks in the Interaction Design community might have to say about this question: how will rising gas prices affect e-commerce? 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-topic] Alarm Clock Recommendations
I've had a Zen Alarm Clock for some years now: http://www.now-zen.com/cgi-bin/orders/shop.pl?ACTION=ENTER+SHOPthispage=zenclocksAFFILIATE=google73ORDER_ID=%21ORDERID%21 I love it, but then I'm a left coast tree-hugger from the Pacific Northwest, your mileage may vary. The tall triangular versions are better than the little portable ones with the lids IMHO. Michael Micheletti On 6/20/08, Jonathan Abbett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There was a list discussion a couple years ago about alarm clocks... http://www.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=5934 ...and it made me wonder-- what do usability-sensitive people use for alarm clocks? I'm at a point where I'm ready to buy the last alarm clock I'll ever need, so for argument's sake, let's say money is no object. What's the most delightful alarm clock experience you've had? -Jon Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] give content to get community
On 6/3/08, Jeff Gimzek [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A lot of site require registration, or a fee, but can you think of any that require your donation of time, effort and/or creativity to be part of the community? Some variant of this is common in the Anime community. You get to download something if you upload something (or sometimes the other way around). Alternately you can get credits by chipping in a donation. The Minitokyo community comes to mind (http://www.minitokyo.net). Contributions may not be absolutely required, but they typically are encouraged and rewarded. You might also take a look at microstock photography communities like Stock Exchange (http://www.sxc.hu) that encourage comments, reviews, and submissions. Michael Micheletti 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] Introducing design to a dev team for the first time
On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 12:28 PM, Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I get the definite impression that they are after something more visual that they can take and translate into the built product. Which raises another question: how interactive/hi-fidelity to make wireframes/prototypes? Whiteboard/paper? Visio with layers to simulate different page states? HTML/CSS/JS for something that wags and barks like the real thing? (The latter will require a crash course to fill in some big blanks...) They are used to receiving PPTs to illustrate interaction flows, so I guess anything's better than that :) Ugh Visio layers, what a sadly broken feature. You've listed some good choices. The usual criteria to select might include: - What you know how to do - How much time you have to do it in - What your customer prefers - Why you are prototyping or wireframing For usability testing, it's great to have a working prototype. It's perfectly acceptable during an early design stage to use a paper prototype. A paper prototype gets done quick, finds lots of problems, is easy to work with, low tech, cheap. No style points but big results, and early in the project where it can really count. Powerpoint can work for you too if needed. Flash is a great prototyping tool, as is HTML/CSS/Javascript. There's a tendency for Flash or HTML prototypes to end up as front end code in the app sometimes so heads up there. Since you're introducing design into the process for the first time, and it's a bit new to you, I'd recommend that you focus more on facilitating design processes and communications than on higher fidelity prototypes, at least during the early phases of the project. Good luck! Michael Micheletti 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 isn't voice-based UI mainstream?
On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 11:36 AM, Jeff Garbers [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Why aren't we talking to our computers yet? Should we be? Or cars. I've been thinking about BMW's iDrive while following this thread. This is a screen-based control system that also has a voice control interface. I remember reading comments elsewhere from a BMW salesperson who said that he sat new owners down in their cars and helped them train the air conditioner. That way they could issue commands vocally without taking their eyes off the road. The idea of using voice recognition as a navigation layer superimposed on other controls is interesting, but I'll admit I'm glad my older 3-series has pushbuttons. Michael Micheletti 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's Home Page?
On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 3:31 PM, Harvinder [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We are a design and usability staffing company redesigning our website. While we have come closer to the layout for our website's home page we are having a debate on the colors to use on the home page. Hi Harvinder, Preferred colors is a tough question to answer - ask any two designers and you'll probably get three different opinions. What I'd suggest instead is that you work with your designers to strengthen your brand. This includes fonts, colors, logo, layout choices. Make the colors you select work for you. Imagine them on your business cards, your letterhead, the polo shirts you wear to conferences, the sign outside on the building, your company logo. Be consistent with your brand identity and colors across all corporate communications, including your website, biz cards, etc. When design-focused recruiters do this it makes me think that they are professionally savvy enough to employ strong design talent. Two Seattle-area design recruiters who I feel do a good job with their own branding are FILTER (http://www.filtertalent.com/) and Big Fish ( http://www.gobigfish.com/jobList.aspx). Each of these agencies has a bit of a twist to their brand. FILTER gives away a muchness of branded swag at design events. Big Fish emails have fun ASCII art signatures (fish with bubbles). So try and think bigger than just your website. When your brand is right, your website visual designers will have a much easier time. Hope this is helpful, all the best, Michael Micheletti 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] Iron Man
Warning, potential spoilers... The assembled teens at our house took us along and we all had a good time. There were two thought-provoking things for me: 1. Most unrealistic moment in the film: when Jeff Bridges plugs the stolen power supply into the Evil Robot and it works first off, without needing to shim, rewire the connector, configure the IP address, etc. I laughed aloud. Flying robots and 3-D talking holograms seem much more likely somehow. 2. Thing I was surprised and delighted by: the giant fighting robots in the film could be operated by adults. Many of the mechas among my anime favorites can only, inexplicably, be operated by middle school students. Michael Micheletti 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 UX hall of shame
On Tue, May 6, 2008 at 1:03 PM, Darlene Pike [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: How could the winning design be a major service to the public if it were never implemented? As a tutorial? Possibly not a contest or tutorial, but as an interview question. The interviewer hands the candidate a color screenshot of the GoDaddy home page and says, Here's a web page we think may benefit from a few improvements. What would you suggest? I've done this sort of thing before with other, um, improvable materials and it's like a 5 minute redesign project you get to observe the candidate perform. Sometimes the candidate puts on a clinic - you're in awe after. Other times... not. But the GoDaddy home page is fine raw materials for such an exercise. Michael Micheletti 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] Difference b/w online installed apps
Hi Vishal, I work in a real-time two-way communications domain, so I'm off at the edge here. But I find there are a small constellation of functions that just don't work now with browser-based applications without either employing crazy architectures or shoveling massive traffic across the network. Accessing network sockets, hooking multiple audio cards, audio mixing, disk access, complex network routing and peer networking are (rightly) frowned upon by browsers as security risks. The new Flash/Flex/Air and Silverlight client capabilities take me somewhat in the right direction (you can get to the local drives) but I still couldn't build our communications clients in them, not even in the Flash/Flex/Air/Silverlight of the dreamy-look future roadmap. Which is sad, because I want to. If you are not working in a real-time domain though, these limitations may not apply to you. You may be able to deliver a higher level of fit and finish in an installed client, and it may allow your developers to maintain internal state and so on more easily. But then it does need to be installed. I heard long ago that the web didn't kill off client-server architectures because the web was better, it killed them off because you didn't need to install anything. So weigh application support costs into your equation. Also consider the capabilities of your development team (including their development aspirations - where they'd like to go) and the strategic focus of your company. Hope this helps, Michael Micheletti 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] Username vs. email for business users
Hi Anthony, You can probably make up your mind quite quickly if you do a little experiment. Find all the sites that you personally have an account with that use your email address as a unique identifier. Change all of them to a new email address. It will take you days, and some of the transactions (Amazon, eBay, Paypal) will walk you through an exceptionally awkward multi-step confirmation process for security reasons. At some point during one of these processes, you will likely become confused about just what to do with which site. No two sites have quite the same email change process. I'm a digital adept and the process never fails to confuse me - I can only imagine how difficult it would be for someone who is not a computer professional to be successful. Contrast the experience with sites where your email address is not the primary unique identifier. You'll probably be able to simply go to your account, change the email listed there (maybe confirm it a second time) and press the save button. I hope this is helpful, Michael Micheletti On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 4:25 PM, Anthony Hempell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: anyone with an opinion on this? It's commonplace to have email addresses as the username for regular users, since generally an email address is tied to only one individual; However business email addresses sometimes have multiple users, and/or are sent to distribution lists; and possibly if a person uses their own business email (ie. [EMAIL PROTECTED]) and they move on / are fired / etc... then the account enters into a period of limbo if nobody can access the account since that email address is no longer valid. Hence -- is it better to just ask for a username for business users instead? Anthony Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] The American People / Politicians = The Users / Developers (?)
On Sat, Apr 12, 2008 at 6:46 PM, W Evans [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To Oleh's point -- the best article to read on language and politics by Orwell is his article in 1946 - Politics and the English Language, which is even more true today then in 46 - since at that point, most politicians, at least in theory - understood good rhetoric, a strong argument, and reason. Today that is not the case. The link to it is here: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm Thanks Will and Oleh. I was unfamiliar with the Orwell article and found it thoughtful reading. One of my favorite things about this forum are the reading recommendations. I'm currently deep into The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb based upon an earlier suggestion and it's an eye-opener. All the best, Michael 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] The American People / Politicians = The Users / Developers (?)
Watching a YouTube presidential campaign clip the other day, the candidate kept saying The American People this and The American People that. The way it sort of trilled off the tongue reminded me much of developers saying The Users this and The Users that. We've all heard of or employed various ways to work the design past The Users when creating software: user research, personas, inviting a couple representative users onto the design team, etc. We know from past experience that what the developers think The Users want may be instead what the developers want, or know how to do perhaps. Does The American People / Politicians sound like The Users / Developers to you? Are there other similar Generalization / Occupation pairs you can think of? Examples from other cultures and languages? Clarification from anyone more politically savvy than I am (that's just about everybody)? If this doesn't make any sense, my apologies, it may be the antibiotics cough medicine talking... Michael Micheletti Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Committing changes to a database
On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 8:51 PM, Jessica Enders [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Any opinions on when one approach should be used over the other and whether the inconsistency matters? Hi Jessica, I've done some work on an existing web-based product configurator that does something similar - you save your changes but intentionally commit later. Although this makes sense from an engineering perspective, this intentional commit has been the cause of some long-winded product support calls. The main problem turns out to be that the application's committed/uncommitted state is not clearly indicated. A secondary problem is that the importance of committing changes is not obvious. Application users go along happily thinking that they've done their thing then wonder why no changes have taken effect in the system. I'd recommend in this case that you bring the product support team a box of doughnuts and ask them to tell you the things they get lots of calls on. If they don't mention the commit problem outright, ask them if they ever get calls related to it. Alternately, if you're setup to do quickie usability tests for the application, grab a couple newbies and see what happens. From my perspective, though, inconsistent save and commit behavior is more of a problem than a solution. Hope this helps, Michael Micheletti 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] Windows -- what would you change in interaction?
On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 10:57 AM, Maxim Soloviev [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What would you add? What would you change? rantSeveral times a day I'm frustrated by file save dialogs that don't remember the last place I saved a file two minutes ago in the same program. Some clever developer was just so certain that all of us would always want to save all of our files in the root My Documents folder... forever./rant Then I come back to my faithful friend Photoshop and the Save for the Web window works exactly how it ought to - remembering the last place I put a file and offering that location the next time. Michael Micheletti 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 helped most in your career?
On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 1:21 PM, Sebi Tauciuc [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you were to name one thing (or a few) that contributed most to your success, that brought a lot of value to your work, that greatly improved your design skills (you get the idea), what would it be? I'd say that practice, practice, practice has made the most difference to me. In design and music both. A steady stream of design projects of all stripes over years, with some succeeding, some flopping. Some as solo efforts, some as a tiny cog in a great machine. Education, professional associations, reading, and many kind helpful people have all been valuable, irreplaceable even, but nothing can supplant practice. From practice grows competence, confidence, and what I hope may be the early beginnings of wisdom. Michael Micheletti 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] Table Row Interactions and .ico files
On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 6:04 AM, Fine, David [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: PS Does anyone have any good suggestions or software for converting .ico to gifs? Hi David, Give IcoFX a try. It's an excellent free icon editor that can export an icon in several different image formats. File | Export Image | Gif will do it. I run it on Windows, not sure if there's a Mac equivalent. Obtain it here: http://icofx.xhost.ro/ I use IcoFX mostly for packaging all the different image resolutions together for a final .ico file. I'm more comfortable editing the original source graphics at their various sizes in Photoshop, so I haven't spent much time with the IcoFX editing or scaling tools. Good luck, Michael Micheletti 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] Security on the web: how far do we go?
On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 10:08 AM, Gloria Petron [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: David Platt devotes Chapters 3 4 of his book, *Why Software Sucks...And What You Can Do About It* http://www.amazon.com/Why-Software-Sucks-What-About/dp/0321466756/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8s=booksqid=1204999335sr=1-1 , to this very issue. His quote: The No.1 threat of security isn't the packet sniffer...it's the Post-it Note. ... Kevin Mitnick, *The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security* http://www.amazon.com/Art-Deception-Controlling-Element-Security/dp/076454280X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8s=booksqid=1204999227sr=8-1 (Wiley, 2002). Another for your book list: Corporate Espionage by Ira Winkler http://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Espionage-Happening-Company-About/dp/0761508406/ Former NSA computer security spook (hi guys, hope you get this message, tell Verizon I'll pay my bill soon, OK? :-) delivers case studies that read like spy stories. My favorite was the Japanese Documentary Film Crew caper. His recommendation for the most effective thing a company can do to promote security: a company-wide security awareness program. The weak point of most of the cases discussed in the book are the humans in the system; a security education awareness program helps them make better decisions. Michael Micheletti 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] Design Deliverables and Developers
Hi Celeste, I work with an in-house dev team and find they are truly grateful when I document a handful of details in addition to the general broad brush-strokes of wireframes, layouts, etc: - Error and status messages, especially when a consistent word order format is used. - Dimensions of images and graphical assets. - State charts of complex controls (you click this here and that lights up there, except when this other deelie is held down). What these have in common is they're all head-scratchers that take the poor developer out of flow and make them puzzle over what really ought to happen in a situation. They have to stop being a developer and start being a designer. I know (from trying to switch back the other way sometimes) that this is a difficult leap to make quickly. Some simple web forms get total documentation of a quickie Visio wireframe drawing and a page of accompanying text and that's it, everybody's happy, but more complex rich client components may end up with many pages of detailed docs plus some sort of prototype to play with. Oh one other thing I've noticed is that product managers and marketing folks love to extract high-level feature lists from development requirements docs and use them for their own nefarious purposes. So I've been putting this information in tables lately in an intro section to make it easier for them. Michael Micheletti 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 and Theatre
On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 4:50 AM, Whitney Quesenbery [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Labanotation is an interesting notation system for dance, as it documents not just movement in space, but also the shape of the effort. It's incredibly detailed. Here's an example from the Dance Notation Bureau -http://www.dancenotation.org/lnbasics/frame0.html Old ghost time: in an earlier career as a dance accompanist I worked with several teachers and choreographers who were trained and certified in Labanotation and the related effort-shape exercises. My observation was that the notation was excruciating, both to create and even more so to interpret. One resuscitation from notation of an early modern dance piece took weeks of trial and error. The notation didn't seem to catch on much with the dance students - I don't remember that any of them went on to Laban certification school. The related effort-shape exercises were absorbed by everyone though. They were designed to get the body moving in 3D space, along diagonals, in specific ways. I still do some at the gym to cool down and stretch. The exercises related well to everyone in the class (even the musician!), so we learned them. The notation was interesting in a remote sort of way, but a bit too peripheral to the exhausting experience of training to be a dancer to really catch fire. I later created several scores for pieces in collaboration with choreographers certified in Labanotation and didn't see it get used much in the real-world chaos of setting a piece on dancers. I dread the day something as intellectually rigorous and challenging as Labanotation is head-nodded all around for documenting system interactions. That evolutionary branch of IxD will dead-end as an academic backwater, much as Labanotation has in the dance community. The rest of us will move along and design stuff. Michael Micheletti 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] Career tips for a high-schooler
Thanks guys for the good tips. My job-shadow session went well today. My high-school student came prepared with good questions and took serious notes about design school recommendations courtesy of this list. I had to get busy for a bit on a project and suggested he grab a design book to read from the shelf. Next time I looked up he was halfway through Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. Might've set the hook in this one - a profession that involves drawing pictures, textbooks in comic format, good pay, and a high-end coffee robot in the kitchen was looking pretty appealing to him. He suggested we trade places, but when I told him what sort of math grade to expect he changed his mind. If you ever get invited to host a curious youngling for a day do give it a try. Was pretty fun. All the best, Michael Micheletti 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] Career tips for a high-schooler
List friends, A high-school sophomore with an interest in a software design career will be job-shadowing me Friday as part of a career day assignment. Any tips I should pass along about education or breaking into the business would be welcomed. I'm especially curious to hear from designers or design students on this list who are just now starting out about what is working (or not) for you. Thank you on behalf of my visitor, Michael Micheletti 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 you design
I have trouble working and listening to music with understandable words. Some favorites that seem to get me going: Rachid Taha, Ekova, Alex di Grassi, late Beethoven quartets, Miles Davis (my son named after), Altan, Cocteau Twins, Afro-Celts, Mory Konte, Terje Rypdal, sacred choral music by Palestrina. I typically blast trip-hop in the car on the way home, and play quiet music on the piano once I get there. Michael Micheletti 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] Silverlight work?
Just curious if anyone on this list is working on anything substantial with Microsoft Silverlight (http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/). Have you taken it beyond the marketing/early-demonstration/casual-game realm yet? There appears to be some demand here in the Seattle area for people with Silverlight development skills. I've been wondering what they're building. I'm especially curious to learn about success creating rich internet front-ends in Silverlight. Please brag or share links if you know of strong work out there. Thanks, Michael Micheletti 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] friday fun: what's the coolest thing you've designed?
On Feb 15, 2008 2:18 PM, Michael Micheletti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Not sure you can count scripture as cool but I remain rather fond of the Lutje Baha'i (Baha'i Prayers in Armenian) website I did a couple years ago: http://www.bahaiprayers.org/sq/ Oops senior moment that's Albanian. Sigh... 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] Other Discussion Lists Like This One?
On Feb 8, 2008 3:09 AM, Oleg Krupnov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I really find this discussion list interesting and helpful, yet I'd like to discover if there are other similar lists you may be reading? I find the Information Architecture Institute discussion list useful. There is often some overlap or cross-postings with the IxDA list and members, but the IAI discussions tend towards the structural, navigational and organizational aspects of user experience and information design. Group initiatives sometimes emerge from these discussions, such as the recent efforts to find and define what Information Architecture patterns might be and how they might best be described. Membership in the organization is required; if I remember correctly it is $50/year for professionals. Learn more here: http://iainstitute.org/en/network/discuss_ia.php Michael Micheletti *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] When to go backwards
On Feb 7, 2008 4:15 PM, paintrgrl99 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: When is it a good idea to go backwards? What will the recruiters think? Should I take the word Sr. and Lead off of my resume? Is this career suicide? Does anyone have any advice for me? It's not really sideways, more like forwards in a different direction. I'm no longer a professional musician or an airplane mechanic or a software developer, so perhaps I've one of the more zig-zag career paths out there. But it's good to zig when your heart says it's time. Being over-employed is a great opportunity to save up for school. School is a great opportunity to shift directions. A directional shift is a great opportunity to enter a new profession at a different level. You may already have the seeds of your directional shift in-hand. If you review your portfolio materials and resume, perhaps you'll see the thread of your new path there. Extract and reorganize to tell your new story to your new audience. Think of your portfolio materials as a mashup or card-sorting exercise; move things around and prune judiciously until it rings true and points in the right direction. One of the partners at WRQ once said that the company didn't really have a career ladder, it was more like a career monkey-bars. In my experience, the entire modern technology world seems to work like that. Swing, let go, and catch yourself. Repeat if you need to. The experience builds strength. All the best, Michael Micheletti *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] flash books
On Feb 4, 2008 11:48 AM, Micah Freedman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Got any favorite flash books for cs3 for an intermediate user (designer/developer) who hasn't upgraded in a few versions? I'm no Flash super-power, so when I needed to get more comfortable with CS3 I went browsing at BN and came home with a heavy armload and a lighter wallet. These are the two books that I seem to get the most use out of: Adobe Flash CS3 Professional On Demand http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Flash-CS3-Professional-Demand/dp/0789736926/ This is a how do I do it in the interface sort of book. Essential Actionscript 3.0 http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Flash-CS3-Professional-Demand/dp/0789736926/ Scripting and coding reference with examples and sample code. Have fun! Michael Micheletti *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
On Jan 29, 2008 3:48 PM, pauric [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Wacoms are designed for, and best suit, high end image manipulation. Not free form fluid sketching. I'm lost without my Wacom tablet (Intuos) pen for: - curve manipulation in Illustrator - painting and touch-ups in Photoshop I've tried using a tablet PC with a Wacom pen driver (IBM X60) and found it awkward to have my hand over the screen - using the separate tablet while looking at the screen works better for me. The Wacom mouse is a mixed bag. Very precise, but it needs to live on the tablet. I'm constantly wiggling it around to get it back where it needs to be. Michael Micheletti *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] Differnce between user interface and interaction design?
On Tue, 29 Jan 2008 13:15:14, Jeff Howard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Try not to think of it as interacting with the brochure. That's a red herring. Instead, think of it as interacting through the brochure with something else. The brochure mediates an interaction. Here's an example. No one goes to Expedia to interact with it. They operate the interface in order to interact with United or Southwest Airlines. Same thing with MySpace. It's not about interacting with the site. It's about using the site to interact with your friends. This put me in mind of the hanging chad Florida ballots of a few years back. Paper-based interaction design writ large. Michael Micheletti *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] Criteria?
On Jan 26, 2008 8:41 AM, David Malouf [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Critique: is a real time review of designs, among peers (fellow designers), who not only evaluate (aka judge your designs), but most certainly begin a short process of co-designing. It is often expert led, but everyone is involved at all levels of critique and analysis and contribution. The goal is to give guidance, not to give answers (except where the designers come asking for explicit help. The other goal is to elicit further exploration by increasing cerebral participation. The critique session can be a challenging and threatening experience for those unaccustomed to it. Work is up on the wall or screen, and designers just as good as you take potshots at it and tell you all the ways it can be improved. The first dozen or two times this happens, especially on something you really care about, it feels like your heart's being torn out. After that, you learn to be a bit detached from your design artifacts. You still care deeply, but you can let go and look from a place of perspective when your work is being critiqued, and join in yourself. Design school lets you get these first heartbreaking experiences with critique going in a safe environment. You're not going to get fired if your classmates can't get behind your work. You learn to step back. You learn to take it. I worked on a team of designers a while back where nobody else came out of a studio environment or graphic/industrial design school. I wanted to introduce critiques but didn't want them to be threatening. So we experimented by meeting every couple weeks to critique something else - an external website typically - that none of us had worked on. It's not the same as a session focused on work that comes out of the team, but it's a starting point. After a couple of those, I volunteered to have one of my current design projects critiqued, and the team began to be more comfortable and knew what to expect. Like music or any other craft, it takes practice to develop critique skills to a sensitive and useful level. But the group mind is very powerful and everyone on the team will grow as a result. Michael Micheletti *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?
On Jan 25, 2008 3:00 PM, Jared M. Spool [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A fart in the wind, when well placed, can certainly matter. A couple more syllables in the second clause and you've got a fine Haiku, Jared :-) Michael Micheletti *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
These examples are great. I really like the use of simple illustrations on the Zonneman site. Another example sent me off list is the Old Navy site, which has simple rollovers to show shirts in different colors: http://www.oldnavy.com Would love to see even more examples if you know of them - they're giving us lots of ideas on how to simplify and do a good job. Much appreciated, Michael Micheletti *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
On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:26:30, Justin English [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I would not call a person who wants free design and coding work a friend. Justin, I have had an active volunteer practice going on now for more than 10 years. During that time, I've engaged in many free design and coding projects, making new friends in places as far away as Botswana, Albania, and Kyrgyzstan. In volunteer work, schedules are forgiving. New technologies or design approaches can be pursued. Your portfolio grows more interesting. Plus your world view may expand. I'm paid well by my employers for professional design services and don't have any real need to make money on side projects, so I usually turn away paid freelance requests to avoid any conflicts of interest. Volunteer design work can be very satisfying; if your day job ever gets stale, consider helping others in need as a way to keep engaged in your craft. All the best, Michael Micheletti *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] FW: Sharepoint
On Jan 18, 2008 1:36 PM, frank dahle [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But It's more interesting to ask you if you know of any good examples of this kind of concept based on Sharepoint - OR other platforms for that matter!? It would help to show any concept like this that really works and is available online.. iGoogle lets you move self-selected content chunks around on the page. Content includes gmail, this-and-that-of-the-day, news streams, all sorts of fun stuff. This might be a good proof-of-concept demo to show your devs: http://www.google.com/ig Michael Micheletti *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] Ajax product configurator examples
I'm helping a friend who has a small business (total employees: 1, total budget: $0 or maybe less) brainstorm ideas for a custom product configurator for his website. Similar sites might allow you to see the clothes on a model and change shirt colors, add various designs to a t-shirt, or customize your new Mercedes colors, wheels, etc. He's curious to find out if this sort of product configuration can be done well using Ajax/Web 2.0 technologies. He'd like to avoid Flash if possible. I've found these two examples so far: Levolor store beta (pick a product and configure wall and window colors, etc): http://www.levolor.com/store/ This was pretty fun to play with. Zazzle t-shirt designs: http://www.zazzle.com/cr/design/pt-shirt?style=basic_dark_tshirtcolor=black Not quite as direct and interactive. Can you guys think of other similar examples? Even better, do you know of any existing free or affordable code libraries that do something like this? Thanks for your help, Michael Micheletti *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] Icons VS Labels and Localization ...
On Jan 9, 2008 12:04 PM, Grady Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 1. Which are better, Icons or Labels? Are icons perceived differently in different languages? I don't know about better or not, but when faced with the same decision last year at our company, I worked up a set of icons that could be used on our controls. It took a long time and many review cycles. We made tooltip text localizable for the graphical controls. The application originally had the worst of all worlds: text displayed in graphics on control surfaces. It's my understanding that using symbols instead of text for controls is periodically attempted as a way to avoid localization of control surface text, but that these efforts are not always successful. I ended up doing a fair amount of research into international symbols along the way to try to avoid pitfalls. I might not have made the same decision if I was creating an application for a kiosk, or for a pop-in-and-out-of-it web page. Ours is a communications application for trained operators, so it's understood that some hop-on-board time is needed. I've also had some previous experience designing icon symbol sets for specialized applications, so I mostly knew what I was getting into. Unexpected benefit: the eye-candy aspect of making the symbols light up pretty for the various control states got our dev team excited about the redesign. Hope this helps, Michael Micheletti *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] Is user research a band-aid for the listening deficit?
On Jan 8, 2008 4:13 AM, Jared M. Spool [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In our research, it's all about the measures and rewards. What gets measured, gets done. What gets rewarded, gets done well. Jared, thanks for sharing this. It knit a few tangled threads together for me. Up on on my whiteboard now as the day's quote. All the best, Michael Micheletti *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?
On Jan 7, 2008 8:43 AM, Benoît Meunier [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
- If Arial is smaller than Verdana, why do we use arial for the majority
of
web apps?
Hi Benoît,
Many websites have screen real-estate issues. Arial is a narrower font than
Verdana, so using Arial permits a greater number of characters in the same
area width at the same font size. Arial is also something of a habit for
many web developers so simple inertia carries it. Consider also Tahoma and
Geneva if you are searching for a readable sans-serif font.
One of the more challenging things to do in web typography is to trust your
eyes. There are so many opinions out there. When creating a site template or
stylesheet, try it out with several of the different browser fonts and see
which looks best. Ask others to evaluate which of two or three well-realized
choices they prefer.
This page is a good resource of which fonts are currently available on
common operating systems and browsers:
http://www.ampsoft.net/webdesign-l/WindowsMacFonts.html
Whichever font is prefered, be sure and use CSS callouts that include
secondary and default fonts. That will make sure that site visitors with
various operating systems see something agreeable. For instance:
p.lovely {font: normal 1em Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;}
I hope this is helpful. All the best,
Michael Micheletti
*Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah*
February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Poorly designed product detail pages
Hi Dan, You've selected a topic with considerable room for improvement. I've seen some strange operations from product detail pages: - Missing links to global functions like shopping cart - Different operations when you have an item in your cart or not - Keep shopping link takes you to a mysterious random place after placing an item in the cart Other frustrating quirks: - Inability to bookmark a product detail page URL (flash site, product goes away, etc) - Popup windows (for enlarged views) that don't popup Thanks, Michael Micheletti On Dec 31, 2007 7:27 AM, Dan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://www.thedough.co.uk/blogCan anyone think of any other pitfalls of the Product Detail/Information page, as I am currently working on one now ;-) *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] Design in Interaction Design?
I haven't run into many folks with psych backgrounds in the design or coding worlds. Many more artists, musicians, mathematicians, academics. I've heard of sociologists and anthropologists, but haven't worked with them personally. Where I worked with people with psych degrees years ago: bucking rivets on the wing line at the airplane factory. Swing shift. I was ok with the idea of musicians having crummy jobs to pay the rent, but folks with masters degrees? Got some good book recommendations though during breaks, when the insane noise quietened enough where we could actually hear each other speak. Michael Micheletti On Thu, 20 Dec 2007 04:27:07, Lucy Buykx [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 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? *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] Interesting tab navigation example
Not sure I've seen navigation tabs with a scroll bar before. You'll want to narrow the width of your browser window to get the full effect. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vs2008/default.aspx Comments? Michael Micheletti *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
On Thu, 20 Dec 2007 16:22:01, Jake Zukowski [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm shooting from the hip here, but my guess is developers aren't going to have a screen resolution below 1024 x 768 if viewing the site on a CRT, flatscreen, or other monitor type. Why bother going through the effort of putting the overflow to auto? I would prefer them spend the time thinking about what primary navigation is truly important. Hi Jake, I found this screen while trying to setup Visual Studio 2005 on my vista tablet/laptop. The screen res is 1024x768 max. Yes, I'm insane, but my main machine has a calibrated display and I need to be able to build a dev-stage app on my uncalibrated laptop so I can see just how awful the colors will look to everybody else, and then fix them. If the Spyder2Pro people had a way to switch their display calibration on and off, I'd be set, but alas. BTW the operation took three DVDs (updates of updates) and half my free disk space, and doesn't exactly work yet. But that just might be me, and I've only spent six hours on it. I've learned over the years that the MSDN site is full of IE-only functionality, so poor Mister Firefox waits outside in the parking lot when I go troll for answers to development questions. Glad you all enjoyed the distinctive web navigation design as much as I did, Michael *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!!
So I didn't read the screed, but I did download the usability study. It was eye-opening for me, and I have some experience at crafting accessible websites. The NNG did a careful study of visually and physically disabled people attempting to perform common web tasks (look up a bus schedule, buy a CD) on existing public sites. The study participants had a hard time of it, and clued me into some accessibility issues I hadn't previously know about. I'm carefully reviewing a volunteer side project I'm working on at home in light of this report; it's a website redesign with improved accessibility one of the key goals. Thanks for posting this link, Jeff; highly recommended reading. Michael Micheletti On Dec 17, 2007 10:59 PM, Jeff Seager [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 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 *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] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?
My first inkling was eleven or twelve years ago when I created a Visual Basic UI to the phone queues of a technical support call center. It was a huge project - we thought it would be a simple integration exercise and it turned into more of an invention (a year late, untested phone switch interface, patents, you know the drill). I had access to a small usability testing lab and asked them to test my onscreen phone controls. In the FIRST THIRTY SECONDS OF THE FIRST TEST it became clear that my modal popup window was not an ideal design for a customer service telephone UI. Sigh. Simultaneous with thinking Now we're a year and a month late... I was thinking that I needed to learn how to make better decisions about application interfaces. I started chatting up other developers who did well at it, and eventually learned that there was a creature called a designer, and that maybe that's what I was in the process of becoming. Now rather more circumspect with modal popups, Michael Micheletti On Dec 18, 2007 12:35 PM, pauric [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think many of us took the long winding path actually. I was wondering if we could hear some stories about those pivotal moments in our careers where we changed from being 'X' in to Interaction Designers *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] Your favorite rating interface
There's another scheme in work on Pandora (http://www.pandora.com). It seems to work pretty well for tuning a station (music stream). There are two basic rating icons/choices, plus three other related actions associated with the rating system and station. The choices are identified by the (icon) images listed below. Ratings: (Thumb Up) I really like this song - play more like it! (Thumb Down) I don't like this song - it's not what this station should play. Related: (zzz) I'm tired of this song - don't play it for a month. (?) Why is this song playing? (+) I want to add more kinds of music to this station. Pandora is one of the rare websites/web services that all the demographics in our house love. I think that's partly because it's so easy to rate content. Thumb's up or thumb's down. Michael Micheletti On Dec 16, 2007 10:16 AM, Bryan Minihan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What would be really nice is if they captured the relationship of different songs to each other. I tend to listen to iTunes in sessions, so when I sit down for a few hours to work, I play work songs. *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
Hi Bärbel, I do production graphics work for interfaces as well as interaction design. I've done some print-based graphic design also. We won't go into my coding background here. For print-based design, there is so much focus on materials, color correction, resolution, layout, brand. There are some universal design concepts you can carry over into interface or web design work, but much you should leave behind. For instance, I've seen companies pick rich Pantone colors for their brand that have lots of black in them. These colors look great on t-shirts at the Gap or printed on glossy stock, but may not carry over well to the screen, where they can look murky and dull. Where print-based design often has you working on large formats (300dpi A3 flyers), when you do graphic work for screen interfaces you often must work with exceptionally tiny canvases (14x14 pixel icons, etc.). For print graphics, you and your print shop work close for the first couple of jobs to get color correction right through the entire cycle. On screen, you may have your own monitors calibrated, but nobody else will, and what you create can look wildly different on any three random screens you bring it up on. Still, it is a natural transition to grow interactive design skills from an existing strong graphic design base. Some of the ways you can do this might include: - Take classes in Flash or HTML/CSS and get some practice in a supportive environment. - Volunteer to help someone with a project. They might be HTML/Flash person, you can do screen graphics. Join an open source team. Help a charity. - Create a new skin for a reskinnable application like Winamp. Go the distance and do all new buttons, meters, indicators, etc. - Create a great portfolio website to display your print work. All the above cover dip-your-toes-in-the-water skills for print-based graphic design moving to screen-based graphic design. Another option that seems widely respected by the members of this list is to do graduate study in product design, interaction design, or human factors. Your existing graphics background and skills plus a masters degree in one of the related design fields will make you an interesting job candidate. I hope this is helpful, Michael Micheletti On Dec 13, 2007 4:59 AM, aleaylin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hey Hey, Currently, I am thinking about how does graphic design(ers) change into interface / interactive media based design(ers), or is it for you still the same apparently fitting in different media? *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] FW: Office or Vista - That is the Question
I agree with you Katie, with one exception: if the company is a small software vendor with a strategic partnership with Microsoft, then doing the whole Office 2007 Ribbon thing may get your program shown off by a very large distributed Microsoft sales team. If I was deciding based upon usability and user acceptance, traditional Windows-style wins, but there may be business reasons for a small vendor to go the other way. Large well-known software houses, specialist leaders in their verticals, web shops, or in-house work can probably safely ignore the '07 Ribbon forever - it's only the little software startups on the edge who may want to take the dare and hope that the Microsoft sales force benefit outweighs the '07 Ribbon annoyance. Michael Micheletti On Dec 11, 2007 3:16 PM, Katie Albers [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At the moment Vista has a very low adoption rate and a very high Oh, my God -- let's go back to Windows! rate...So, I think that at this point it makes a lot of sense to stick with the Windows standards...generally speaking. *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] Suitable icon for freeze
On Dec 3, 2007 8:07 AM, Ari Feldman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: yes, great recommendation! Horton's book is 13 or 14 yrs old but still valid today as it was when it came out. it's a fantastic resource for understanding the theory and practical considerations when designing icons and visual metaphors. I'm not such a big fan of the Horton book. Some design books age well, this one hasn't IMHO. I gave my copy away, and I do lots of icon design work. I recommend instead: Pictograms Icons Signs, Rayan Abdullah Roger Hubner Large and interesting book with examples from many artists and eras. A large emphasis on Olympics variants is understandable since that sort of started the trend. Handbook of Pictorial Symbols, Rudolf Modley Another good sourcebook with lots of pictorial examples If you expand out from these two books on Amazon you'll find lots of similar symbol sourcebooks to choose from. A more modern book on icon design is: Icon Design, Steve Caplin But it's still underwhelming and outdated, even though it was published in 2001. Great color printing though. Two web sources that I keep hoping will be better than they actually are, but in case you don't know about them: The Tango Icon Library http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Icon_Library The Merriam-Webster Visual Dictionary Online http://visual.merriam-webster.com/ If you need to create Windows icons, IcoFX is my favorite of the free icon editors: http://icofx.xhost.ro/ I think there's a real opportunity for a crackerjack designer/writer to create the definitive book on icon and symbol design for software and hardware products. You'll sell at least one copy to me. Michael Micheletti *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] UI Architect vs. Business Manager
Software companies often have a separate Product Manager role or department. This person or group is responsible for setting strategic product direction, determining the feature set to be included in specific product releases, naming of versions, setting the highest level of schedule requirements, and determining the target market segments or customer groups the product is aimed at. Each company organizes responsibilities a bit differently. There are overlaps with designers (both are concerned with product feature sets and target customers). There are overlaps with project managers (both are concerned with schedules and the features to be included in specific releases). There are overlaps with marketing (both are interested in presenting the right product to the right market segment). The difference that I see is that a product manager has a tight business focus rather than technical or informational or design-oriented. A strong product manager with good connections helps shape a competitive product in the marketplace. Weak or non-existing product managers lets designers/developers/marketeers go nuts and build things that nobody really wants. All the above is IMHO - I haven't ever been a product manager, but have worked with some good ones. PMs and friends on the list please correct or clarify if you can. Thanks, hope this helps, Michael Micheletti On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 09:11:57, ELISABETH HUBERT [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In response to Michael what exactly do you refer to when you say the product management side? *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] UI Architect vs. Business Manager
Hi Lis, I work for a small software company where we all seem to wear several hats at times. I'm helping now to create the software requirements documents for the next version of our software. The work is collaborative, involving our product manager and software architect. I did not create the initial feature list, so I'm mainly acting as a facilitator and writer at the moment. I'll transition into design mode once our requirements are finished, level-of-effort estimates are assigned, and the remaining requirements are validated (after we weed out the implausible wishes). It sounds like you have a more strategic role than I do, pushed further to the product management side of the business. IMHO someone with a design background and solid business skills/education would be a real asset as a product manager. The whole know your user/customer thing we all go on about will continue to serve you. Good luck with your new role, Michael Micheletti On Nov 28, 2007 5:38 PM, ELISABETH HUBERT [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ...Meaning I'll bring the project teams the requirements, make sure they are fulfilled. In these cases our strategy team really is the business. I'm curious as to whether anyone else out there has the same type of role or if this is some unique case? Thanks! Lis *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] Some form fun, to lighten the mood
On Nov 29, 2007 8:38 AM, Bryan Minihan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My only problem with it is that it could make you enter the same information (spouse and dependent names) up to three times, when it could just ask for it once and let you select them from a list later on down the form. Perhaps your spouse as you begin the form isn't your spouse when you're finally finished with it? And maybe they should also ask for your address several times, in case you move before you're done. :-) Michael Micheletti *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] Paper is not a prototyping tool
A couple-few careers ago I was an aircraft mechanic at Boeing, first in the mockup shop, then on the flight test modification crew. I installed, removed, tweaked, measured, and cussed at a lot of very early stage designs. Sometimes those designs came from engineers who got it, like the two guys who designed the very complex over-wing emergency exit doors on the 757. I must have built three or four iterative miniature versions in the mockup shop with those guys looking over my shoulder and talking with me a couple times a shift until they were happy with the prototype. Years later this stands out in my mind as an example of a great prototyping collaboration. And then there were prototype modules I needed to install, say beneath an airliner's cockpit in a very confined space, where it was plain that the design engineer had never before held a screwdriver and hadn't the faintest clue in the world how basic mechanical things worked. Same goes with webcraft and software. Maybe you don't need to be an expert Java developer or graphic designer or AJAX guru to design for various platforms, but it will sure become instantly apparent to the implementers whether you know squat about how things work (or not). Software prototyping is one way to bridge the gap between design and development skills. Even if you don't become a serious development threat, through hands-on craft work you gain a basic understanding of some of the concerns and mindset that developers and visual designers will apply to your wonderful wireframes and interaction designs. Your informed designs are more likely to be built as-designed rather than recrafted on the developer's forge or tossed as unbuildable (and take it from me this can sure puncture and deflate your poor old ego). Michael Micheletti On Nov 12, 2007 2:21 PM, Andrei Herasimchuk [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In fact, why would you ever trust an architect who has never picked up a hammer and nail in his life before? I know I wouldn't. I want the guy who built his own house. Or built something with his own two hands. *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] What font organizer do you use?
I believe that someone else on this list recommended Linotype Font Explorer X a while back. I have it installed on my various design machines and it works pretty well. It's still in beta, and every time I've reported a bug to them they replied no it's not, so I gave up telling them stuff, but the price is right (for now at least): free. The program lets you enable and disable fonts or groups of them. It stores the original font files in its own little folder and then activates them as you tell it to. If you have a large number of fonts, you need to spend a fair amount of time arranging them in the application before it is of much use. But after that you can choose to enable all the blackletter fonts for your goth clothing designs and then disable those and activate all your dingbat fonts for icon work. The location on the web: http://www.linotype.com/fontexplorerX It looks like they have a Mac version now too. Michael Micheletti On Nov 9, 2007 7:21 AM, Bryan Minihan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Can anyone recommend a good Font organizer for Windows? Free would be nice but I'd pay for something really useful. *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] Microsoft Sync article in the Seattle Times
There was an interesting article today in the automotive section of the Seattle Times about Microsoft Sync. It's a set of voice-activated controls installed in a 2008 Ford Focus. Mark Phelan, the Detroit Free Press reviewer, thought it worked pretty well (better than the car it was installed in). Don't know if maybe a few 'softies on this list might have worked on the project and would like to comment. For your Friday reading pleasure: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/motoring/2004002472_fordfocus09.html Michael Micheletti *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] What font organizer do you use?
I find it useful to manage fonts when I'm working in Photoshop or InDesign especially. The font lists just get too long and unwieldy otherwise. A fast machine doesn't help much when you need an exceptionally steady hand to pick exactly one of a couple hundred fonts. Much easier to just chop the list down, work from a smaller set, and then reset the font list for the next job. Michael Micheletti On Nov 9, 2007 2:37 PM, Bryan Minihan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I agree that the need for a Font organizer seems to have gone by the wayside over the years. I recently found myself more in the graphic-designer role in a small company, coming from a big one where we only used 2-3 basic fonts for everything. I guess now that I'm closer to the marketing edge, I find myself looking for a way to manage the 1500 or so I've acquired over a dozen years. *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] HTML Prototypers
Dreamweaver. Used to be a Homesite fancier but the more recent versions were such deaders that I decided to take the Adobe/Macromedia hint and use Dreamweaver instead. Michael Micheletti On Nov 6, 2007 8:10 PM, Mike Scarpiello [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What editor do you use? *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
