We, designers, need to consider two things when adding “beautiful” enhancements to our designs. Responsive and intuitive page elements Branding and consistency of theme. Focusing on these two things will give every pixel in a design a purpose and will contribute to the website’s overall usability. Sure, eye candy is important, but it isn’t everything, [...]
Check out this awesome job of explaining user personas through a fun comic created by Brad Colbow. Some topics are more easily understood when presented this way. (at least for me). The comic style brings what is essentially a “slightly” dry subject to life. A list of more resources about user personas and mental models [...]
There is a world of differences to consider when designing for web or designing for desktop applications: From fundamental interactions to keyboard driven navigational paradigms to accessibility issues to screen layout to basic behavior and reaction of buttons, links, etc…we have to consider that a product with a rich client and a web client are [...]
According to Bill Buxton on the article On Engineering and Design: An Open Letter, it might be useful to think of design in terms of four layers, each demanding a progressively larger investment. Design awareness can and ideally should be something that every employee of a company makes their best effort to acquire. I would [...]
According to Alan Cooper, author of About Face 3.0 with Robert Riemann and David Cronin, “The persona is a powerful, multipurpose design tool that helps overcome several problems that currently plague the development of digital products. Personas help designers: Determine what a product should do and how it should behave. Communicate with stakeholders, developers, and [...]
This is a great list of references for user interface design and usability guidelines: Apple Human Interface Guidelines iPhone Human Interface Guidelines Windows Vista UX Guidelines Windows XP Design Guidelines Nokia UI Style/Visual Guidelines GNOME Human Interface Guidelines 2.2 KDE 4.0 Visual Guide Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines Comcast Style Guide Usability.gov Research-Based Web [...]