Articles

Design Tools

• My Design Tools – Part I
• My Design Tools – Part II
• Using Prototypes
• UI Toolbox: Capturing and Editing Screenshots – Part I
• UI Toolbox: Capturing and Editing Screenshots – Part II

Simplification

• What Does "Simple" Mean?
• Anti-Simplification – How to Make Life Harder for Users
• Reducing Complexity
• Error Prevention Comes First
• Don't Let Your Interface Lie
• Don't Let Users Suffer from System Weaknesses

Interaction Design

• Bridging the Gap – Part I
• Bridging the Gap – Part II
• Bridging the Gap – Part III
• Did You Make Your Selection? – Part I
• Did You Make Your Selection? – Part II
• Did You Make Your Selection? – Part III
• Did You Make Your Selection? – Part IV
• The Software Works The Way I Think: Beyond Point and Click
• A Layman's View on Interaction Styles – Part I
• A Layman's View on Interaction Styles – Part II
• Selecting Objects By Attributes – Part I
• Selecting Objects By Attributes – Part II

Screen Design

• The Art of Hiding – Part I
• The Art of Hiding – Part II
• Screen Layout – Part I: General Considerations
• Screen Layout – Part II: Layout Hierarchy
• Screen Layout – Part III: Examples

Design Process

• The Construction Cycle – Another Way to "Organize" the Design Process
• User Feedback
• What Does User Integration Mean for Software Design?
• Mapping a Conceptual Interface to a Physical Interface

Hierarchies

• Hierarchies - Categories vs. Vectors
• Fighting (with) Hierarchies –
  Part I: Basics
• Fighting (with) Hierarchies –
  Part II: Presentation
• Appendix: Fighting (with) Hierarchies – Presentation Techniques I
• Appendix: Fighting (with) Hierarchies – Presentation Techniques II

Design Tidbits

Updated: September 29, 2009

The Design Tidbits section offers a growing selection of articles centered around UI and graphic design.

Recent Additions

Bridging the Gap – Part III: Structural Approaches

Sep 29, 2009: In a short series of design tidbits, our author presents a couple of approaches to "bridging the gap" between the requirements that have been gathered for a UI design and the concrete design itself. This third and final article in the series looks at structural approaches.

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Bridging the Gap – Part II: Mapping Approaches

Sep 9, 2009: In a short series of design tidbits, our author presents a couple of approaches to "bridging the gap" between the requirements that have been gathered for a UI design and the concrete design itself. The second article in the series looks at mapping.

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Bridging the Gap – Part I: Introduction

Sep 01, 2009: In his editorial Finding Common Ground... published at the beginning of 2008, our author touched on the following issue: In the user interface (UI) design field a gap still seems to exist between the requirements that have been gathered for guiding a design and the concrete design itself. In a short series of design tidbits, our author will present a couple of approaches to "bridging the gap." The first article in the series introduces the approaches, two further articles will take a closer look at the approaches themselves.

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Human-Computer Dialog: How Good Does "Good Enough" Need to Be to Appear "Perfect"?

Aug 7, 2009: Humans seem to be fairly tolerant to the weaknesses of their human dialog partners, but how do they react when their dialog partner is a computer? Our author's personal impression is that we are not as tolerant with computers as we are with humans – at least he is not. In this article, he will first explore the possible reasons for this lack of tolerance and then collect a few well-known rules that can help reduce the number of times our tolerance is put to the test. With this is mind, he will look at two areas where dialog exists between humans and computers: screen texts and system messages.

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Refreshing Three HCI Laws: Fitts' Law, Hick's Law, and the Power Law of Practice

Aug 5, 2009: When a colleague of our author attended a workshop, she took part in a tutorial held by Bruce Tognazzini, or Tog for short. Among others, Tog presented Fitts' law (also known as Fitts's law) and was eager to mention that he probes job applicants on this law. Therefore, and because a number of colleagues failed the test, our author would like to offer a short refresher of Fitts' law and include two other "classics," Hick's law and the power law of practice.

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Examples of Poor Responsiveness

Aug 4, 2009: In a number of articles, our author has discussed various issues regarding human performance at the computer. Until now, however, he has not provided a list of representative responsiveness issues in one place. With this article, he would like to close this gap and put together a list of examples of responsiveness issues, most of which are based on his own personal experience.

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Related Editorials

• Is there such a Thing as Perceived Quality?
• Have You Ever Heard of Performance-Oriented (UI) Design?
• The Three Pillars of Human Performance at the Computer – Which One Fits Best?
• Finding Common Ground...
• Performance – Merely a Technical Problem?
• To Err Is Human – A Two-Sided Issue...
• The Blessings of Large Displays...
• What Matters Most?
• What is an Application Design?
• Usability Levels – Three Ways to Care for Usability
• Stumbling Blocks for Good Application Design
• Which Type of Prototype?
• The Dilemma of Good and Bad Examples
• From GUIs to Narrative Interfaces – From Point-and-Click to Computers Telling Stories

Related Articles from Editions

See Articles by Editions • See also Articles by Topic for a listing of edition articles by topic

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Articles

Visual Design

• Some Color Mysteries
• Some Mysteries of Colored Text
• Animation – The Chili Pepper of the Web
• Appendix: Definitions of the Most Common Types of Animation on the Web

Web, Web Applications, Web Design

• The Web – A Short Introduction
• An Introduction to Designing User Interface Controls at SAP
• From Dropdown Listboxes to Comboboxes
• List Box Tweaks (Part II)
• Concept Statements and Website Messages – Part I
• Concept Statements and Website Messages – Part II

Performance

• Waiting at the Computer: Busy Indicators and System Feedback – Part 1
• Waiting at the Computer: Busy Indicators and System Feedback – Part 2
• Waiting at the Computer: Busy Indicators and System Feedback – Part 3
• Human Performance at the Computer – Part 1: Introduction
• Human Performance at the Computer – Part 2: Making Applications More Responsive
• Human Performance at the Computer – Part 3: Perceived Performance
• Human Performance at the Computer – Part 4: On the Way to Performance-Oriented UI Guidelines
• Addressing a "Design Issue:" Start-Up Time
• Examples of Poor Responsiveness

Miscellany

• Adding Value to Your Interface by Using Simple Math and Matching
• Refreshing Three HCI Laws: Fitts' Law, Hick's Law, and the Power Law of Practice
• How Much Documentation Do Applications Need? – A Simple Example
• Human-Computer Dialog: How Good Does "Good Enough" Need to Be to Appear "Perfect"?
• Narrative User Interfaces
• Golden Rules for Bad User Interfaces
• Universal Usability
• User Interface Controls and Interaction Techniques of Horror