Boxes and Arrows

As you pointed out, Usability Post is one of my favorites, and SvN is clearly a leader. Boxes and Arrows (http://www.boxesandarrows.com/) is also pretty rad. I keep an eye on Subtraction (http://subtraction.com/), Khoi Vihn's mostly personal blog, too. He's the interaction designer for NYTimes, second to none...other than our own Loc Ngo, of course.

This is just PR, literally. In a magazine. Just as TimBL, and the other claimants of hypertext/network/technology pieces in the comments below. The story is not unlike the one about going to the Moon. Verne wrote about it. Physicists judged it too, to be easy (just fill in F=ma so that you escape Earth with enough thrust -- only need to build a rocket large enough). Engineering/Engineers are the last thing being given credit to. Who actually fulfilled the dream. But my personal favourite is the Belgian. For ADD-ers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwRN5m64I7Y A nice story: http://www.archive.org/details/paulotlet in text: http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/forgotten_forefather_paul_otlet

I really like PowerPoint because you can simulate interactivity, it's easy, and it's flexible. A few links: http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/interactive http://www.krisjordan.com/2008/09/07/10-minute-mock-prototyping-tips-f… http://www.istartedsomething.com/20071018/powerpoint-prototype-toolkit… There are tools specific to GUI-prototyping that have other upsides/downsides, a great list is here: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?GuiPrototypingTools

Great read, but it seems like the article overlooks a few other pretty significant reasons for Javascript's current dominance: (a) jQuery and (b) Apple keeping Flash out of iOS made from the start. Say what you will about the relative inelegance of jQuery, at the time of its release it certainly made JS--particularly DOM manipulation and AJAX--very accessible and cross-browser compliant. It definitely made articles like this seem quaint. [1][2] At about the time of jQuery's release, Flash development was a viable alternative for smaller sites. I was doing bits and pieces of freelance around 2007 and after the iPhone came out, even my least tech-saavy clients stopped talking about Flash. Pretty sure that these two bits made it so that every front end dev/ designer in the world was at least passably decent at Javascript by the time Node arrived. [1] http://boxesandarrows.com/htmls-time-is-over-lets-move-on/ [2] Also, Mootools and Prototype and YUI etc, but jQuery is the one that became ubiquitous

Possibly the image from this article? http://boxesandarrows.com/designing-screens-using-cores-and-paths/

Here's a pretty good article I came across a while back, more about the user testing side of Ui, but still helpful! http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/dont_test_users_test_hypotheses

Here are a couple pages I found in my bookmarks that contain some data. "Blasting the Myth of the Fold (2007)" http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/blasting-the-myth-of "The myth of the page fold: evidence from user testing (2009)" http://www.cxpartners.co.uk/thoughts/the_myth_of_the_page_fold_evidenc…

I went to an art school in brooklyn & learned 3d design as part of a formal spatial program. The big insight that was beat into us is to start by simply symbolizing an object - squint at it until the rest blurs away - and then gauge/adjust/repeat the relationships between the pieces you're left with. Persist until it's second nature and it'll be powerful magic for a designer in any field. Abstraction can be rather useful, in a conference room or a startup. here's some background: http://www.rowenafund.org/about/rrk_about_rowena.html http://boxesandarrows.com/view/foundations-of

Oh, lord. Go do layout for a newspaper. There IS NO FOLD... http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/blasting-the-myth-of

I think this works extremely well when your users are familiar with the tasks associated with the type of thing your making. But if you're creating something entirely new, they'll need more guidance from the designer to get users started. One thing to watch out for though is that you can't always rely on what people tell you they like or want to use. There is a huge difference between what people say and what they do. Again, this difference is further magnified if the thing you're creating is something new. It is very hard for people to imagine their life with it. Other strategies for involving your user in the design process which work very well are: contextual inquiries (to understand what things your audience needs) http://www.usabilitynet.org/tools/contextualinquiry.htm, think aloud studies (to understand how well your product is meeting those needs) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_aloud_protocol, and card sorting (to understand how the user expects the product to be organized) http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/card_sorting_a_definitive_guide.

Here are a few links from my bookmark folder on the subject, in no particular order: How to use contrast to your advantage- http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/rule-three-contrast-contrast-con… Use colors that have varying intensities, not just differnet colors. Focus on how it looks in greyscale http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/becoming-a-master-designer-rule-… Visualizing Fitt's Law http://particletree.com/features/visualizing-fittss-law/ Software Has personality. http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2007/09/lightrooms_goals_1.htm… Copy sites you like, such as: http://orderedlist.com/articles/single-line-css#comments or http://www.joyent.com/ How to make your designs suck less: http://jimwhimpey.com/blog/2007/simple-ways-to-help-your-design-suck-l… Load faster, by doing a low-res version first. http://www.wait-till-i.com/index.php?p=464 How to do sound design http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/why_is_that_thing_beeping_a_sound_d… More on Sound Design http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2007/03/22/how-to-make-user-interfaces… Use smart color pickers http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=6434 Whitespace Matters! http://alistapart.com/articles/whitespace You can make a UI feel responsive, by minimizing the number of clicks http://tantek.com/log/2007/02.html#d19t1813 Write Production UIs, never use…