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, [...]

On March 5, Tufte was appointed by Obama to a panel to advise the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which monitors the way the $787 billion in the stimulus package is being spent. Tufte’s initial work will be on the recovery.gov website, which is the primary way the board will conduct business transparently to the [...]

“Designing well is not easy. The manufacturer wants something that can be produced economically. The store wants something that will be attractive to its customers. The purchaser has several demands. In the store, the purchaser focuses on price and appearance, and perhaps on prestige value. At home, the same person will pay more attention to [...]

This 10 web design rules that you can break article, made me realize that “Rules you should break” or “Standards you shouldn’t follow” articles appeal to everyone rebel side. Some of you guys may wonder what Jakob Nielsen would say to “Breaking the rules is okay when a design calls for it”. I think rules [...]

Checkout the story of redesign of the ubiquitous prescription bottle led by Deborah Adler I really enjoyed the article’s approach to guiding the reader through the process, and the result is stunning…Just far enough out of the box to be a real improvement, but not so unfamiliar as to make it un-marketable. I don’t see [...]

Neat visual nav at Stylous.com. Check it out in action to see how it works.

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 [...]

“Usability is always secondary. It’s never the most important thing about an experience. I will accept poor usability if I get what I need, if the total experience is great. I will reject perfect usability if I am not rewarded with a useful, engaging experience.” – Donald Norman, author of “The Design of Everyday Things”

This article takes a detailed look at the design, layout and usability of Craigslist and point out some areas where the author feel change and improvement are possible. This is only one opinion of what could be done to improve the site. The goal was to demonstrate the process of evaluating a website in certain [...]