Yearly Archives: 2012

Users Characteristics and UI Design

Successful User Interface Design requires more than a professional knowledge of design patterns and aesthetics, it also requires an expert understanding of the cognitive ability of the end users. Aspects such as age, education, and level of experience play heavily into having a complete understanding of the characteristics of the type of user for which…

Mobile devices offer unique opportunities in User Interface Design

Mobile devices now have an established presence in the marketplace and society. With it comes new ways for users to interact with information, and thus new territory and opportunities within the UI and UX Design industry. As designers, are we taking advantage of the new challenges that mobile devices bring, or are we relying too…

User Interface Design quotations

“I’ve been amazed at how often those outside the discipline of design assume what designers do is decoration.” Jeffery Veen “Because every person knows what he likes, every person thinks he is an expert on user interfaces.” Paul Heckel “Design is art optimized to meet objectives.” Shimon Shmueli

Task-based User Interface design process

Users often get frustrated with User Interface systems that do not adequately support them in their work. Even if the software is of high quality internally, if the system does not match the users’ tasks and needs, internal software quality becomes irrelevant. Users will try to avoid using such systems if possible or may end…

The foundation of successful UI Design

“Successful UI Design has a foundation built from research, not from opinion.” Research is the difference between using a metallic light blue that appeals to a younger demographic, and using a light blue that is a client’s favorite color. It’s understanding why the “Done” button should be placed in a specific location. It’s presenting the…

The importance of interaction styles in User Interface Design

Click here for the latest update for different interaction styles (2023):  Exploring User interface Design… The style of the interaction utilized in a UI system plays an important role in the usability of the interface. It should be relevant to the context of the tasks being accomplished and the environment in which they are being…

Merging the right User Interface Designer with the right project

uxmagazing has a good write-up concerning “navigating the line between beautiful design and usable IA.” In this article, the topic of discussion centers around how the goals of “beautiful” and “usable” in design are often at odds, and how to avoid having User Interface designers and Graphic Designers at cross purposes. Mostly, it seems to…

User Interface Design quotes

“Designers shooting for usable is like a chef shooting for edible.” – Aarron Walter “Clutter is a failure of design, not an attribute of information.” – Edward Tufte “It’s art if can’t be explained. It’s fashion if no one asks for an explanation. It’s design if it doesn’t need explanation.” – Wouter Stokkel

Efficient task completion in UI Design

Efficiency is defined as the speed in which users can accurately complete the tasks for which they use a product. To achieve maximum efficiency in a user interface, we should define the tasks from the user’s point of view instead of as individual actions. Making the right choices for efficient use of the software depends…

Criteria for Usability in UI Design

The definition of usability in the ISO 9241 standard is: “The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use.” For optimum usability, every product should meet some basic criteria. The product should be useful, effective, intuitive, learnable,…

UI Design: separating love of your work from love of what works

User Interface designers generate numerous concepts for any given project, brainstorming with team members and clients to flesh out ideas that will lead to an innovative and intuitive UI system. It is important for UI designers to not become too attached to early iterations of their work, allowing the constraints and issues learned during the…

UI-17: User Interface 17 Conference

The User Interface 17 Conference is taking place this year in Boston on November 5–7, 2012. A wide range of topics will be covered including content strategies, use case scenarios, adaptive content in UI design and rapid prototyping. While some designers may use these types of conferences mainly as networking opportunities, UI-17 does provide the…