User Interface design

[heist]

Hola. As a developer, i'm conscious of the fact that i'm often expected to handle UI design. I have years of experience at both using software, and developing software, and my interfaces don't suck too badly as a result.

But i'd really like them to shine. Any tips on some reading or best practices? Is there a way of making sure my interfaces are really working, other than just sending it out the door with a "well that feels about right" ?

[tuna]

...Any tips on some reading or best practices? Is there a way of making sure my interfaces are really working, other than just sending it out the door with a "well that feels about right" ?

It depends what interface elements you are talking about. There are standard best practices for most. These are now commonly documented in the area of IxD or UX as design patterns.

There are a stack of books that relate to these areas, especially form design or more complex ajaxian style interfaces.

If budget allows you should be looking for input from you users or at least UX testing to some degree. A UI can be technically perfect and still suck badly in the UX area, and this is what will annoy the user and send them away.

[kay]

I've got that Steve Krug book "don't make me think". Most of what's in there you're probably doing already, but it's worth a read anyway. It has good clear examples and doesn't, um, make you think too much :D

[temp]

expert review can help a lot. Analytics and testing can show you what's working, but if you just want to add a bit of QA to your design before you launch, you can use a simple checklist. Run through each screen in your app and check through the list.. anything that doesn't get full marks gets closer attention and needs a rationale for breaking the rules.

If you're working in a design-averse culture, you can propose using UI reviews as a quality measure, analogous to code reviews.. just fit it in with the dev process.

[tuna]

Web Form Design - Luke Wroblewski (pub - Rosenfeld) is worth a read if you are looking at Forms in general.

[neoartifact]

With my experience with interface design, i strongly believe it all depends on the type of user that will use the interface and how you adapt to their habits, and not coercing the user having to adapt to a new interface unless it is very necessary. So if you understand that you would like to target a corporate IT market, you may want to make the UI more straight forward and to the point rather than a very creative if not almost abstract interface. You probably won't go as far as to make a flash menu for example that has a lot of animation and obscure themes and sounds. Rather, you would help the 'corporate IT' user navigate through the website and also add a little flavour to it (Corp Identity, helpers, etc). It all depends on who is going to use it e.g. visually impaired people need a specialised UI based on contrasting colors and large font as well as good support for text reading software. You may also need to prioritise the layout of elements on a website aimed at visually impaired people. There are a few accepted standards for website layout which helps aid navigation.

Research the habits, attributes and capabilities of your intended audience and the UI will be much easier (and faster) to design. If you are unsure about a particular UI you have designed, there are plenty of people both here and outside this forum that can help you out.

Most importantly, don't let your UI get lost in your graphic design/visual design. I have seen excellent UI frameworks on some websites, but then its obscured by visual elements that 'override' the core semantic visual queues of the navigation systems.

There is plenty of talk on this subject and loads of books but proactively, make some of your own UI's and trial them on a 'guinea pig' audience (set up a blog that you visually and systematically redesign every now and then). Using some analytics software, observe how effective a menu can be compared to it's previous version for instance. You can get a lot of general UI development information, but effectively also consult other experts for a second opinion etc.

A general rule is, 'a simple path is a successful path'. Don't increase the chances of your audience not being able to find the content they are after because they have to search all over the page for menu's and links or they have to go through endless link chains. This results in people getting frustrated and then closing the tab/browser in favour of looking at similar websites :)

Cheers

[jexley]

While I think Grant's post creates 16-horsepower stiffies because it's all about testing and checklists and QA and all the stuff I was going to say, Kay's mentions a book that encapsulates my thoughts on all my years of Proj Mgmt and Product Mgmt... Dude, don't make me think, I don't wanna think.

And happy belated berfday cutietoots, sorry we couldn't get babysitting.

[ashul]

dunno ben - Can you really be equally good at development as well as UI design - Winforms you can probably get away with to a certain extent but rich web interactivity? - hard ask.. Not sure if there is a secret tip or way to be equally über good at both - not that I have seen in my few years of exp..

[alexpooley]

Just copy what other people do and fit your UI to their world view.

Consider this gross generalisation:

You can buy a button up business shirt with a collar.

You can buy a buttonless shirt without a collar.

You can't buy a buttonless shirt with a collar.

People like familiar.

If you want to shine though, you'll probably need to bolt on a touch screen. Maybe sprinkle in a few accelerometers if you have the budget. It also helps if you have a wealthy brother called Herb.

http://forums.port80.asn.au/attachment.php?attachmentid=96&stc=1&d=1234914018

[heist]

dunno ben - Can you really be equally good at development as well as UI design - Winforms you can probably get away with to a certain extent but rich web interactivity? - hard ask.. Not sure if there is a secret tip or way to be equally über good at both - not that I have seen in my few years of exp..

absolutely i can.. ui design follows rules as much as development does, all i need to do is familiarise myself with the conventions and follow them.

[heist]

Just copy what other people do and fit your UI to their world view.

Consider this gross generalisation:

You can buy a button up business shirt with a collar.

You can buy a buttonless shirt without a collar.

You can't buy a buttonless shirt with a collar.

People like familiar.

If you want to shine though, you'll probably need to bolt on a touch screen. Maybe sprinkle in a few accelerometers if you have the budget. It also helps if you have a wealthy brother called Herb.

http://forums.port80.asn.au/attachment.php?attachmentid=96&stc=1&d=1234914018


haha nice


tencharacters