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Shneiderman's Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design

To improve the usability of an application it is important to have a well designed interface. Shneiderman's "Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design" are a guide to good interaction design.
Shneiderman's Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design

Published: Jul. 7th, 2008. Categorized: Text. Tagged: Interaction design, Interface design

The Great Awakening

But realising the emptiness of our activities leads to a focus on process rather than conclusion. You don't sacrifice the present for some kind of idealised future. The Bodhisattva, for example, takes a vow to liberate all sentient beings. But he or she doesn't then feel depressed because all beings are not liberated. The goal provides direction and we work towards it by focusing on one step at a time.

The Great Awakening - A Buddhist Social Theory

Published: Jun. 13th, 2008. Categorized: Text. Tagged: Process

Multiple Drafts Model

The Multiple Drafts model makes [the procedure of] "writing it down" in memory criterial for consciousness: that is what it is for the "given" to be "taken"... There is no reality of conscious experience independent of the effects of various vehicles of content on subsequent action (and hence, of course, on memory)."

Multiple Drafts Model

Published: Jun. 13th, 2008. Categorized: Text. Tagged: Cognitivism, Physicalist, Theory

My five year old knows Basic

A friend of mine recently called to tell me that he suspected his seven-year-old daughter had a "learning problem.' Six months after purchasing a Commodore Vic-20 home computer he is worried because she just can't seem to grasp the Basic programming concepts of strings and arrays. I asked him what in the world would make him think that she could be capable of understanding a complex concept like that. He replied, "They're learning about computers in school aren't they?'
Poor kids, I can see it all now. In ten years we will be labeling children who cannot successfully and efficiently program in at least two machine languages "computing disabled.' With the current emphasis on computer literacy, many educators are pushing the fact that children should know as much about computers as possible, at the earliest possible age. A recent educational report speculated that 25 years from now children would need the equivalent of a Master's degree in computer science before they graduated high school.

My five year old knows Basic.

Published: Jun. 6th, 2008. Categorized: Text. Tagged: Computing, History, Programming

Liebig's law of the minimum

It states that growth is controlled not by the total of resources available, but by the scarcest resource (limiting factor). This concept was originally applied to plant or crop growth, where it was found that increasing the amount of plentiful nutrients did not increase plant growth. Only by increasing the amount of the limiting nutrient (the one most scarce in relation to "need") was the growth of a plant or crop improved.

Wikipedia

Published: May. 30th, 2008. Categorized: Text. Tagged: Productivity, Theory

Theory of Constraints

According to TOC, every organization has - at any given point in time - at least one constraint which limits the system's performance relative to its goal (see Liebig's law of the minimum). These constraints can be broadly classified as either an internal constraint or a market constraint. In order to manage the performance of the system, the constraint must be identified and managed correctly (according to the Five Focusing Steps below). Over time the constraint may change (e.g., because the previous constraint was managed successfully, or because of a changing environment) and the analysis starts anew.

Wikipedia

Published: May. 30th, 2008. Categorized: Text. Tagged: Productivity, Theory

Uncanny valley definition

... as a robot is made more humanlike in its appearance and motion, the emotional response from a human being to the robot will become increasingly positive and empathic, until a point is reached beyond which the response quickly becomes that of strong repulsion. However, as the appearance and motion continue to become less distinguishable from a human being, the emotional response becomes positive once more and approaches human-to-human empathy levels.
This area of repulsive response aroused by a robot with appearance and motion between a "barely-human" and "fully human" entity is called the uncanny valley. The name captures the idea that a robot which is "almost human" will seem overly "strange" to a human being and thus will fail to evoke the empathetic response required for productive human-robot interaction.

Uncanny valley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Published: May. 29th, 2008. Categorized: Text. Tagged: Robots

The difference between a fifty-year-old carpenter and a novice

The difference between the novice and the master is simply that the novice has not learnt, yet, how to do things in such a way that he can afford to make small mistakes. The master knows that the sequence of his actions will always allow him to cover his mistakes a little further down the line. It is this simple but essential knowledge which gives the work of a master carpenter its wonderful, smooth, relaxed, and almost unconcerned simplicity.

Via 37signals and quoted from 'A Pattern Language'.

Published: May. 29th, 2008. Categorized: Text. Tagged: Craftsman, Expertise, Simplicity

Jonathan Ive on Apple’s Industrial Design Strategy

A rare interview.

For many people working in the creative industries, the bedrock of Mac believers, Ive is a hero, a creative genius: the man who transformed computers from grey boxes to objects of desire, design statements.

That's what D&AD has recognised and rewarded. But you don't have to be a creative purist to appreciate what Ive does. For everyone who loves Macs and iPods and iPhones for their intuition, for their clean aesthetics, for their leading edge, elegant functionality, Ive is the man who made technology both beautiful and accessible.

The function of art

Art is the most complex, vitalizing and civilizing of human actions. Thus it is of biological necessity. Art sensitizes man to the best that is immanent in him through an intensified expression involving many layers of experience. Out of them art forms a unified manifestation, like dreams which are composed of the most diverse source material subconsciously crystallized. It tries to produce a balance of the social, intellectual and emotional existence; a synthesis of attitudes and opinions, fears and hopes. Art has two faces, the biological and the social, the one toward the individual and the other toward the group. By expressing fundamental validities and common problems, art can produce a feeling of coherence. This is its social function which leads to a cultural synthesis as well as to a continuation of human civilization. Today, lacking the patterning and refinement of emotional impulses through the arts, uncontrolled, inarticulate and brutally destructive ways of release have become commonplace. Unused energies, subconscious frustrations, create the psychopathic borderline cases of neurosis. Art as expression of the individual can be a remedy of sublimation of aggressive impulses. Art educates the receptive faculties and it revitalises the creative abilities. In this way art is rehabilitation therapy through which confidence in one’s creative abilities can be restored.

László Moholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion, Chicago 1947, p.28.

Published: May. 14th, 2008. Categorized: Text. Tagged: Art

A Primer in Social Media

Although definitions vary, a few key characteristics are common amongst social media platforms. Most of these properties thrive on the notion of participation and making connections. Part of this is informed by the notion of a flat community, in which all parties engage in open dialogue. Influence and credibility are prized in this arena, as the user’s reputation can often be a key motivator for one to remain active in the dialogue.

Link

Published: Apr. 22nd, 2008. Categorized: Text. Tagged: Social media, Social networking

Monocle: design notes

if you’re interested in the honest craft of website work, almost deliberately old-fashioned ‘classical’ web design - and how to ally this with innovation in magazine publishing - the following should provide a decent account of several of the key decisions in this particular project.

cityofsound: Monocle: design notes

Published: Apr. 14th, 2008. Categorized: Text. Tagged: Design thinking, Experience design

We are borg

By 2020 the terms "interface" and "user" will be obsolete as computers merge ever closer with humans. It is one prediction in a Microsoft-backed report drawn from the discussions of 45 academics from the fields of computing, science, sociology and psychology.
It predicts fundamental changes in the field of so-called Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).

By 2020 humans will increasingly interrogate machines, the report said.

In turn computers will be able to anticipate what we want from them, which will require new rules about our relationship with machines.

Computers to merge with humans. Via Swissmiss.

Published: Apr. 7th, 2008. Categorized: Text. Tagged: Interaction design, Interface design

Exertion interfaces

We are going to soon carry out sports activities with our friends even when they are not in the same physical place as we are. More generally, computers will be increasingly used to persuade us to physically exercise and to make exercise more fun. At CHI 2008, Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller and Stefan Agamanolis have organized the workshop on Exertion Interfaces which is taking place today, and I asked them four quick questions before the workshop start.

Luca Chittaro: EXERTION INTERFACES. An interview with Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller and Stefan Agamanolis

Published: Apr. 7th, 2008. Categorized: Text. Tagged: Interaction design, Interface design

Design Is Dead

Philippe Starck apparently apologizes for the waste his design career has caused.

“I was a producer of materiality and I am ashamed of this fact.Everything I designed was unnecessary. I will definitely give up in two years’ time. I want to do something else, but I don’t know what yet. I want to find a new way of expressing myself …design is a dreadful form of expression…. In future there will be no more designers. The designers of the future will be the personal coach, the gym trainer, the diet consultant.”

Starck: Design Is Dead, Sorry on PSFK. Via Swissmiss.

Published: Mar. 30th, 2008. Categorized: Text. Tagged: Design, Designers

Comparing blogs to other Communication Tools

One of the most common areas of confusion about blogs is in understanding how they're different from the other technology you might already be using on your website. If you've got someone saying "We're doing forums, isn't that just as good as a blog?" then you can use this section as a cheat sheet for responding to them.

Movable Type Docs

Published: Mar. 25th, 2008. Categorized: Text. Tagged: Blogs, Tools

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