gdp's Comments

Dexo Design - Russell Wilson's Blog on UI Design and Engineering : Is software design a luxury?

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:02:21 +0000

Lindsay - thanks for commenting. I read your article and wanted to comment on two things you said: 1) "Graphic designers make things look cool... you can hire them on freelance and save yourselves lots of money" This is only a small part of the picture. Graphic designers do make things cool, but they are also make things easy to use through visual design. Visual hierarchy draws the eye to more important content and improves efficiency. Layout and visual alignment also help the brain organize information and reduce cognitive load. I could go on... don't sell graphic designers short. 2) "To employers and product managers out there – hire a UI/UX person to work with the users..." You seem to propose (and I may be wrong) black-box or expert design, something that I personally have failed at numerous times. It was a hard lesson to learn. The best designs come from iterative meetings with input from cross-functional teams. I typically structure teams consisting of designers, developers, subject-matter-experts, and of course users. The designer's (or UX professional's) job is not to design in isolation, or generate every good idea, but rather to apply their skills, training, expertise, and talent to the creative input from everyone, and to synthesize that input into the best design possible. Does that make sense?

Dexo Design - Russell Wilson's Blog on UI Design and Engineering : Design Process at Facebook

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:37:34 +0000

Jay, I have had a lot of success with the "design team delivers code" model and I really think it makes sense. Some of the challenges of course are managing joint schedules and deliverables, but it has solved many of the problems designers face such as getting specs correctly implemented and gaining buy-in/camaraderie with dev. With your design coders in dev, has their been any impact to synergy with the design team or no? I assume the design coders no longer report to the design manager correct? That would concern me...

Dexo Design - Russell Wilson's Blog on UI Design and Engineering : Why Microsoft’s ribbon sucks

Mon, 7 Sep 2009 03:04:25 +0000

> to write "Why *I THINK* MS ribbon sucks" Everything I write on this blog is what "I think"... :-) > your way of thinking is different then majority of people How would you know that? Do you have statistical data to support that? (I have not seen any good statistics on this yet) > interface designer and think of it from that perspective...instead of looking at it from a user perspective What???? My JOB is to look at things from a user's perspective! That's what UI designers/developers do.

User Interface Trends : Command Line Interfaces: Don't Call it a Comeback

Fri, 4 Sep 2009 01:52:48 +0000

CLI's are superior (to GUI's) in scenarios where someone is highly skilled with an application and needs to squeeze out every bit of efficiency they can. Interaction with the mouse can actually slow you down in these cases.

User Interface Trends : I Like Big Buttons and I Cannot Lie...

Wed, 2 Sep 2009 22:16:19 +0000

Are you referring to the dimensions of the buttons or their visual weight/emphasis? In the first example the button isn't that big really but you do see it right away.

Dr. Alison Marr : Is that a praying mantis in your pants or are you just happy to see me?

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:19:32 +0000

totally awesome... ha ha...

Dr. Alison Marr : Angry Airport Jeff

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:15:41 +0000

This is the Jeff I know... ha ha...

Dexo Design - Russell Wilson's Blog on UI Design and Engineering : UI Design Guiding Principles

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:00:23 +0000

Several colleagues pointed out Bruce Tognazzini similar list: http://www.asktog.com/basics/firstPrinciples.html

Dr. Alison Marr : Never a bad time for a vacation.

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 22:07:06 +0000

Come back now.

Dr. Alison Marr : Prepping For Belize

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:39:42 +0000

I hope you two have a wonderful trip! I'll be thinking of you both while driving home from work in 105deg heat... Hugs, Russ

Dexo Design - Russell Wilson's Blog on UI Design and Engineering : The Ultimate Mac Setup for Web Designers (60 Apps)

Wed, 8 Jul 2009 18:33:16 +0000

I haven't tried that one yet. I'm going through the list one by one myself... (experimenting with the interesting ones)

Dexo Design - Russell Wilson's Blog on UI Design and Engineering : Where is the Sign In on Amazon.com?

Mon, 6 Jul 2009 17:42:08 +0000

That's just it - when "personalized recommendations" is highlighted I expect that to take me to recommendations; not to sign me in. I'm thrown off by "sign in" not being highlighted.

Dexo Design - Russell Wilson's Blog on UI Design and Engineering : Results for Most Preferred UX/UI Title Poll

Wed, 1 Jul 2009 15:55:26 +0000

Wendy - I completely agree. Very few people (other than us) have any idea what these titles really mean.

Dexo Design - Russell Wilson's Blog on UI Design and Engineering : Where is the Sign In on Amazon.com?

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:44:08 +0000

From Anne Hjortshoj and Diego Moya (with their permission) on the IxDA list: Anne: I'd be willing to bet it's a direct reflection of their registration process, which (I think?) follows the more -recent- convention of "don't make the user register until there's a clear benefit to doing so," i.e., until there's a clear contextual reason to do so -- buying a book, for example, or saving items to a wish list. What's the benefit of an obvious call to sign in, vs. the way Amazon currently does this? Other than the sense that having a sign-in button is a convention and something that people (or specifically, web designers) expect? Diego: Maybe they have read *this* and wanted to collect their $300,000,000... The $300 Million Button http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_bu... (Short answer: forcing buyers to register cost sales, so that convention doesn't work for stores).

Dexo Design - Russell Wilson's Blog on UI Design and Engineering : Where is the Sign In on Amazon.com?

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:39:32 +0000

I'm guessing that "signing in" is an abstract step along the path to what the use really wants and they are attempting to bypass it. In other words, as a user I never really want to "sign in" - what I want is to look at past orders or see personalized recommendations. BUT, signing in is so much a part of popular convention that it is expected. Amazon's way may theoretically be better but it forces users to retrain themselves and modify their behavior/thought process for Amazon's site versus other sites.

Dexo Design - Russell Wilson's Blog on UI Design and Engineering : Results for Most Preferred UX/UI Title Poll

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 06:01:11 +0000

Nick, does that mean that people in our field should just design and not build? Do we stop at specs but not deliver any HTML/CSS? And if we deliver HTML/CSS (and maybe even Javascript or Flash) aren't we building/engineering at that point?

Dexo Design - Russell Wilson's Blog on UI Design and Engineering : Results for Most Preferred UX/UI Title Poll

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 05:55:00 +0000

I think "User Interface" is a good term. Interaction is also good but no one outside of our field gets it (yet). When I was promoted to a VP position I was given the choice to customize my title and I chose "Product Design" because "User Experience" was just too nebulous. Also the other terms just don't seem to fit at higher levels... VP of Usability? VP of Interaction Design?