Mastery, Mystery and Misery of the User Interface
Grok Headline matches for Mastery, Mystery and Misery of the User Interface
"Mastery, Mystery, and Misery: The
Ideologies of Web Design"
"Mastery, Mystery, and Misery: The
Ideologies of Web Design"
08/31/2004 08:45 PMMastery, Mystery, and Misery: The
Ideologies of Web Design (Jakob
Nielsen's Alertbox)
Mastery, Mystery, and Misery: The
Ideologies of Web Design (Jakob
Nielsen's Alertbox)
08/30/2004 08:53 PMMastery, Mystery, and Misery: The Ideologies of Web Design .. Jakob
Nielsen's latest essay
useit.com/alertbox/20040830.html
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site | 3 links
On Beyond Help: User Assistance and the
User Interface
On Beyond Help: User Assistance and the
User Interface
09/09/2002 06:29 AMZooming User Interface (ZUI)
Zooming User Interface (ZUI)
08/17/2004 04:46 PMHere's a
fascinating rap on a new way to do UI's.
It's called ZUI.
Always interesting in that.....
Found via
Advogato
Other pages on OS X user interface
Other pages on OS X user interface
06/05/2005 11:39 PMOther developers write about walking the user interface
line—trying to be consistent but also having to create custom
widgets to stay modern.
Michael Dupuis: “Sure there are
‘lesser’ elements available to us as developers, but they
often don’t have the ‘bling’ that users come to
expect.”
Dan
Wood: “We have to walk the line in our user interface
decisions all the time, trying to make an application look consistent
with the Mac interface, and also ‘modern.’”
User Interface Design
User Interface Design
06/14/2002 12:15 PM"(...) good design always involves a process of compromise."
The Zooming User Interface
The Zooming User Interface
08/15/2004 08:45 PMEven in the present day, the desktop metaphor still pervades, but
with increases in the amount of information available to any one
person, this metaphor is felt to be in need of a reworking. The
zooming user interface (ZUI) is an idea first discussed by Bederson
(1993) as a radical change to the way in which a person interacts with
a computer. This paper will initially discuss how a ZUI works,
followed by a review of the empirical literature available.
History of the Graphical User Interface
History of the Graphical User Interface
11/25/2002 09:54 AMResolver User Layer Interface 0.22
Resolver User Layer Interface 0.22
05/31/2004 05:41 AMRULI implements a library aimed at querying DNS SRV resource records.
User Interface System Requirements
User Interface System Requirements
05/22/2004 11:12 AMResolver User Layer Interface 0.25
Resolver User Layer Interface 0.25
06/09/2004 05:18 PMRULI implements a library aimed at querying DNS SRV resource records.
Palm OS User Interface Guidelines
Palm OS User Interface Guidelines
12/06/2002 08:01 AMMac User Interface Design for New
Developers
Mac User Interface Design for New
Developers
10/10/2002 09:55 AMXUL Defines New User Interface Options
XUL Defines New User Interface Options
10/28/2002 11:23 AMUser Interface Design for Programmers
User Interface Design for Programmers
05/31/2004 11:33 PM
I read Joel
Spolsky's book over the weekend: "User Interface Design for Programmers." This is an
excellent guide to usability — for client apps and for Web
development.
The strength of the book is that it doesn't start by presenting
many hard-and-fast rules, but instead concetrates on general concepts
that you really need to understand to develop an effective user
interface. People Can't Read. People Can't Remember. People Can't
Control the Mouse. Design for Extremes. These principles then
naturally lead to more specific guidelines.
For example: you know how when you first learn CSS, you put a
textarea rule in your sheet to change the font in text boxes from that
ugly monospaced, Courier font to some slick variably-spaced font?
Looks nice, sure, but Joel demonstrates how hard it can be to edit for
some people. Sure, it's fine for you, but you're young and you have
an optical, USB mouse, and you've been using computers since you got
out of diapers.
Sadly, however, everyone isn't you. Some users don't have your
eyesight, motor skills, or experience, and your tiny little
variably-spaced font is now a problem for them. Lower-case L's, for
instance, are now just one pixel wide. A lower-case I differs from a
lower-case L by only a single pixel. If two lower-cased L's are next
to each other ("allegory"), there's only one pixel of "gutter" space
between them — ever tried getting the text insert cursor to land
exactly between them? You're literally trying to hit a 1-pixel wide
target.
Upon reading this, I went back to an app I was writing and changed
all text inputs and text areas to Courier New, 12px. It doesn't look
as nice, but I'll concede that it's easier and clearer to edit.
Sometimes usability comes at the price of how things look, but so it
goes.
Joel touches on the user model and system model that I read about
earlier this year in Don Norman's "The Design of Everyday Things." Simply put, a user
forms a model in his or her head about how your app works. That model
may have nothing to do with how it really works (the system model),
but that's your problem, not the user's. Your goal as an interface
designer, is to make the implementation model (how the interface
represents the system model) match the user model as closely as
possible.
The book is full of good ideas and really solid, non-frilly advice.
Joel's obvious experience saturates every page (I gather he did the
UI for the ISP Juno, and was on the Microsoft Excel team). It's
full-color with glossy pages and scads of screen caps.
I'll finish here by hand-typing an excerpt that's so good I'll risk
the copyright lawyers. It addresses a point I talked about a while ago when I was struggling with the non-confirmity of
the Linux interface.
I've seen companies where management prides themselves on doing
things deliberately different from Microsoft. "Just because
Microsoft does it, doesn't mean it's right," they brag, and then
proceed to create a gratuitouisly different interface from the one
that people are used to. Before you start chanting the mantra "just
because because Microsoft does it, doesn't mean it's right," please
consider two things.
One, even if it's not right, if Microsoft is doing it in a popular
program like Word, Excel, Windows, or Internet Explorer, millions of
people are going to think that it's right, or at least fairly
standard. [...and] if you refuse to do it on some general religious
principle that Bill Gates is the evil Smurf arch-nemesis Gargamel then
you are just gratuitiously ruining your program so that you can feel
smug and self-satisifed [...]
Two, don't be so sure it's not right. Microsoft spends more money
on usability testing than you do; they keep detailed statistics based
on millions of tech support phone calls; and there's a darn good
chance that they did it that way because more people can figure out
how to use it that way.
As much as I hate to admit Microsoft is right, amen to
that.
Click here to comment on this entry
Resolver User Layer Interface 0.23
Resolver User Layer Interface 0.23
06/03/2004 06:48 PMRULI implements a library aimed at querying DNS SRV resource records.
IBM Reflexive User Interface Builder
1.0.0
IBM Reflexive User Interface Builder
1.0.0
08/09/2004 11:49 PMA user interface building tool for Swing and Eclipse GUIs.
nmap Graphical User Interface
nmap Graphical User Interface
06/15/2004 08:17 AMNmapSi 0.2 Beta is Released!!
Report: User Interface Issues
Report: User Interface Issues
03/14/2005 05:07 PMinconsistencies in Apple software, various design issues
GLUI User Interface Library
GLUI User Interface Library
03/26/2005 09:25 PMGLUI webpage has moved
UIDK (User Interface Development Kit)
UIDK (User Interface Development Kit)
10/29/2003 11:26 AMHomepage
Resolver User Layer Interface 0.29
Resolver User Layer Interface 0.29
08/15/2004 05:59 AMRULI implements a library aimed at querying DNS SRV resource records.
Location X gets tweaked user interface,
more
Location X gets tweaked user interface,
more
10/30/2003 01:40 PMShareware authors Alex Keresztes and Greg Novick have updated
Location X, the
US$20 location manager for Mac OS X, to version 2.0, which offers a
new user interface, new customization options and more.
User-Interface Designers Take Note
User-Interface Designers Take Note
06/05/2005 10:47 PMSpencer
Critchley is going to travel with a hammer from now on.
Watch Out!
Resolver User Layer Interface 0.28
Resolver User Layer Interface 0.28
06/30/2004 07:24 PMRULI implements a library aimed at querying DNS SRV resource records.
EZ-execute A Graphical User Interface
for PSExec
EZ-execute A Graphical User Interface
for PSExec
07/29/2004 01:15 PMApple gets iTunes user interface patent
Apple gets iTunes user interface patent
05/12/2004 02:52 AMApple Computer Inc. has been awarded a patent by the U.S. Patent and
Trademark office for the iTunes interface. It's the latest in a series
of patents Apple has applied for specific to its music software
technology, according to
Cnet. Apple
has previously been awarded patents for other parts of iTunes,
including the ability to stream songs over a network to another copy
of the program.
UGENE: User-interface GENeration Engine
UGENE: User-interface GENeration Engine
01/22/2004 11:07 PMUGENE Alpha1 Released
GUIdebook: Graphical User Interface
Gallery
GUIdebook: Graphical User Interface
Gallery
12/19/2004 03:25 PMGUIdebook: Graphical User Interface Gallery
http://www.aci.c
om.pl/mwichary/guidebook/index
The world of religious
icons and other illustrative and symbolic elements is well-documented
both in print publications, and to a lesser extent, in various online
archives and exhibitions. But what about the world of graphical user
interfaces, such as the icons that populate many of our computer
screens? Curious visitors will find their fill at this online museum
of graphical interfaces, many of which even some long-time computer
users may have forgotten about. Divided into categories such as icons,
sounds, components, and interfaces, the site contains over 2675
pictures and 651 icons from 51 interfaces. Visitors may want to browse
through some of these sections, especially ones like the "Splashes"
area where they can view some of those iconic images that are (or
were) displayed while various programs are in the process of
launching. Here visitors can view such classics as those splashes
created for Netscape Navigator 2.0 and Microsoft Word 1.1. Also, even
the most stoic user may shed a tear while listening to some of the
"classic" sounds of such platforms as Windows 95, which are also
available here. Rounding things out here are a selection of historical
articles on graphical user interfaces, and a few advertisements from
the not-so-distant past, including one featuring a certain Harvard
drop-out-turned billionaire. [From The Scout Report, Copyright
Internet Scout Project 1994-2004.
http://scout.wisc.edu/]
Tiger Mail screenshot and user interface
Tiger Mail screenshot and user interface
03/30/2005 05:35 PMI find the
screenshot of Mail
for OS X 10.4 fascinating.
The first thing I notice is that the mailboxes aren’t in a
drawer anymore, which I think is a good thing.
A few other things:
1. The toolbar background appears to be some sort of gradient. As in a
metal window, there is no line between the top of the window and the
toolbar buttons. But it’s not metal. It looks new. (The
screenshot of
system preferences has the same look.)
2. The toolbar icons appear to be embedded in some kind of new button.
Whether it’s a new button style or just a look for the Mail
toolbar icons I can’t tell from the screenshot.
3. The mailbox list has a background color. This may or may not be
customizable—you can’t tell from the screenshot.
It’s a good guess that, if customizable, the color shown is the
default color. This is interesting because I can’t think of any
other source lists from Apple that have colored backgrounds by
default.
4. The vertical splitview dividing the mailboxes from the rest of the
window is not a standard splitview. (Unless it’s new in OS X
10.4.) (Actually, I’m just assuming it’s a splitview.)
Note how the apparent thickness of the divider is zero. The horizontal
splitview looks more like a standard splitview—though I’ve
squinted at it a bit and started to wonder if that’s true.
5. I don’t see a status bar. (It could be that, like Safari, the
status bar is hidden by default. Or it could be that it was added
after this screenshot was taken. Or maybe there just isn’t one.
I don’t know.)
So... what do you think?
(Note: remember to respect any and all non-disclosure agreements.
We’re just looking at public screenshots. And these screenshots
may or may not resemble the final, shipping versions.)
Create a Custom User Interface with PPX
For Pocket PC
Create a Custom User Interface with PPX
For Pocket PC
12/30/2003 12:06 PMBrightHand Dec 30 2003 11:21AM ET
Longhorn's ''task based'' user interface
Longhorn's ''task based'' user interface
12/02/2003 01:45 AMIn this
Longhorn FAQ,
Paul Thurrott touts Longhorn's "task based" user interface as superior
to traditional desktop user interfaces. I'm sure there are better user
interfaces, but I doubt of this is it. For anyone who thinks a task
based user interface is a good idea, I offer two words:
Java’s Basic User Interface Components
Java’s Basic User Interface Components
10/28/2003 11:06 PM
To simplify user interaction and make data entry easier, you
can use java controls. Controls are components, such as buttons,
labels and text boxes, that can be added to containers like frames,
panels and applets. The Java.awt package provides an integrated set of
classes to manage user interface components.
Wave Goodbye to the Ordinary User
Interface
Wave Goodbye to the Ordinary User
Interface
05/04/2004 11:57 PMOpen the door to Andy Wilson's room, the home of a modern day wizard.
No bat's toes or eel skins here. Plenty of wires, webcams, a ceiling
mounted laser pointer, speakers, pieces and parts from disassembled
computers, and a collection of lamps. Serious toys for a man who found
his passion combining hardware and software.
Group for User Interface Research -
DENIM
Group for User Interface Research -
DENIM
01/06/2004 02:40 PMDenim is a really interesting-looking early prototyping tool for web
sites. You need to watch the video to really understand it.
Unfortunately (but smartly) it really is designed for tablet input,
which I don't have, so it's kinda hard to try out.
Microsoft Research: User Interface
Prototypes
Microsoft Research: User Interface
Prototypes
09/20/2004 10:35 PMDaniel
C. Robbins is a 3D User Interface Designer working at Microsoft
Research. His current projects include visual presentation of large
information spaces and scenarios for intelligent environments.
Perl/Mason User Interface Developer
Perl/Mason User Interface Developer
06/14/2004 06:13 PMPlatform Trust Team, Amazon.com - United States, WA, Seattle
(2004-06-14)
Java’s Advanced User Interface
Components
Java’s Advanced User Interface
Components
11/11/2003 11:39 AM
Last time, we mastered some basic UI components and worked on
how to add them to panels, organize their layout, and manage their
events. Having covered all the basic techniques that we’ll need to get
started with Java interface programming in our first article,
Java's Basic User Interface Components,
we will move on to some advanced UI components. Today, I’ll be
covering scrolling lists, scrollbars, and canvases, and their
functionality. It is amazing to see how many of complex tasks are
simplified with the help of these advanced user interface components.
DiscBlaze 3.1 offers revamped user
interface, more
DiscBlaze 3.1 offers revamped user
interface, more
04/23/2004 08:05 AMRadical Breeze has released DiscBlaze 3.1, a "major update" to its
popular CD/DVD burning utility for Mac OS X...
Grok Description matches for Mastery, Mystery and Misery of the User Interface
GrokA matches for Mastery, Mystery and Misery of the User Interface
Mastery, Mystery and Misery of the User Interface
