As the end cut tagline says: “killing good ideas can harm your future”. Would focus groups be a thing of the past? According to what we have been exposed to at TU Delft, healthier research approaches are composed not only of what people say, but rather a combination of what people say, do and make.
Stone Age Focus Groups :)
May 18th, 2009Video Walkthroughs
May 12th, 2009
This technique of demonstrating an interface using video comes up more and more often these days. It’s basically a combination between paper prototyping, video recording and then eventual sharing of it using online video web sites. Perhaps seeing the interface change with the help of real people and voice overs feels a lot more engaging then just looking at a wireframe document stack alone.
Future of Wireframes
May 5th, 2009In The future of wireframes, Isaac Pinnock writes about where the wireframe is heading. Some of the possible directions include:
- Shortening of the lifespan of a wireframe
- Widening of the audience being able to contribute to wireframing
- Object-orientation and component approach, making adjustments easier to manage
- More visual than functional
- More exploratory
- Widening of the possible spectrum of wireframing tools (supporting wider ranges of fidelity)
I think I agree with most points. What I am trying to do with fluidIA is to tackle the problem of the shortening wireframe lifespan by means of making changes a great deal more easy to accomplish (through object orientation).
Face Gesture Interaction
April 21st, 2009Just found an April fools link about the Opera browser supporting face gesture interactions. Looks quite funny and some of the gestures look a bit difficult to master. Laughing aside however, I still think this has some really interesting interaction potential. FaceAPI has been developing the technology to make this possible.
Human Centered Design (in 2min)
April 6th, 2009
Lists of Prototyping & Wireframing Tools
March 25th, 2009Quite some articles appeared in the last few weeks going over prototyping and wireframing tools and resources.
- Rapid Prototyping Tools (Adaptive Path)
- Get Wireframing: The All-In-One Guide (Grace Smith)
- 16 Design Tools for Prototyping and Wireframing (Sitepoint)
The Life of a Prototype
March 24th, 2009
The life of a prototype can vary. On one hand the time before a prototype expires and is thrown away can be very short like in wizard of oz paper prototyping. In this case the prototype also usually requires a great deal of hand holding and filling in the blanks. It requires someone to be present to breath life into it for the user to experience it during evaluation. In some way, the presence of the evaluator and short life makes such an evaluation more sterile or artificial.
On another hand, prototypes can also live longer on their own and be self-sustaining. These types of projects are visible in such things as labs prototypes which over the last few years have become quite popular. Such prototypes are very much close to finished products, yet the people behind them still see them as experiments worthy of being thrown away. More so, they allow the user to experience the prototype during a longer time frame making the evaluation of them closer to reality.
Good Design Stretches the Design Space
March 15th, 2009
Very much related to the posts on alternatives, here is a quick sketch about one snapshot of what I believe constitutes good design. The sketch underlines the importance of stretching the design space by means of exploring alternatives. The wider the design space, the richer the pool of ideas from which the best can be selected by means of evaluation. (This sketch has been inspired by 90percent of everything, Bill Buxton and evolutionary design.)
Patterns, patterns and more UI RIA patterns
February 18th, 2009Nice find of 30 common patterns of rich internet application controls. – via Konigi. Ahhh… can’t get enough of jQuery samples. Last week I also came across the UI Pattern Library which also launched recently I believe. The site contains a nice collection of even more patterns and is scheduled to grow.
onProximity Behaviour with Regeneration
February 1st, 2009
Thinking of how to hide the user interface when not needed, I came up with this little rough experiment. This idea explores two combined interactions. First, a ranged interaction onProximity rule has been written which increases the opacity or transparency of an element the closer the cursor is to it. It also hides the element if the cursor if further away. The assumption here is that if the user is working (moving the mouse) in the central space, he or she does not need items cluttering the interface on the sides at that particular moment.
In order to increase the item’s discoverability, a second rule has been put in place, which after some inactivity of the mouse regenerates the hidden element. This way, the user is reminded subtly that the interface element is available if needed.
