Interface Design Discussions
at 37Signals
by Luke Wroblewski
Luke Wroblewski was the guest poster at 37Signals' Signal vs. Noise Web log during June 2003. The following is a collection of some of his interface design realted posts and subsequent discussions. (For current topics, check out Functioning Form.)
Visual Impact and the Web
June 2, 2003
Though most people's idea of visual impact isn't complete without bright
colors and big pictures, there are other ways to get your audience to
take notice. Subtle colors, a unique layout, altered perspective, and
more can often engage an audience more effectively than a barrage of
focal points. Web interfaces in particular can't rely on multiple visual
pleas for attention: there are too many points of interaction on your
typical Web site or application. As an example: version1
(180 KB jpg) vs. version2
(220 KB jpg). What works to engage yet not distract and how important
is that "first impression"?
View Discussion
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Unsung Heroes of Interface Design
June 3, 2003
Though you'll find Amazon's UI praised in nearly every Web design book,
it's quite rare that you hear about the designers behind the scenes
making it happen. Who's behind exemplary interface design?
Here's one: Colleen Bushell. Colleen designed the original interface for the Mosaic browser. Home, back, and forward: key components of the browsing metaphor. Navigator, Explorer and the rest of today's browsers are just bloated versions of that elegant solution to moving through information. She also came up with the spinning globe you know see in the upper right hand corner of your browser- letting users know something was happening as they waited for pages to download.
Colleen worked with Edward Tufte on the redesign on the severe storm modeling visualization that graces the cover of his book, Visual Explanations. She wrote Design Requirements for Hypermedia in 1995, a seminal piece which presented new media design guidelines based on principles from scientific visualization, cartography, and book design. These include: provide an overview that communicates both qualitative and quantitative information, provide a sense of context, show several representations of the information space, provide a method to directly interact with the representations in order to move through the space.
Colleen is still
active and I have had the pleasure of working with her on many interesting
projects.
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Web Creep
June 5, 2003
"These projects, not to mention the experience of watching TV lately,
have convinced Greenberg that Web design is seeping into the broader
visual culture." - The
Web Changes Everything
It's all well and good to have Flash-like animations on ESPN, but pop-up
ads during the Simpsons? CNN
TV looking more and more like CNN.com?
The Web is influencing other mediums, that's a given. But when or where
is that a good thing? A bad thing?
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Those Darn Designers
June 9, 2003
Finally, my very own instruction manuals.
How
to (and not to) Work with a Designer -In an ideal world all clients
would play by these “rules.”
5
Ways to Get the Most from In-House Designers
Better
Graphic Design -Graphic artists vs. Graphic designers.
How
Designers Work -Long and cognitive.
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Logo Design 101
June 17, 2003
How to make a good
logo:
1> Select a shade
of Blue.
2> Add a
swirl or two.
3> Make sure it communicates the right message about
the company.
4> Bask in its radiance.
View Discussion
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<spam>:(</spam>
June 19, 2003
So now Microsoft
joins AOL and our
government in the fight against spam. Call me a skeptic, but I don't
think our legislators will be coming through any time soon: if America's
army of lawyers is having a hard time getting
one "cyber villain", how will they stop thousands?
So I look to technology for the cure. Email filtering programs can
help, but spam mutates, and filtering solutions have to get more complex
to account for the new variations. The best bet is a simple solution.
For instance, those
pesky telemarketers can be repelled by dropping just the first note
of the "disconnected
tone" on your answering machine. When telemarketer computer programs
dial you up they hear the tone, assume your number is no longer valid
and erase you from their database. Soon enough you are no longer afraid
of picking up the phone. Wouldn't it be nice if bulk emailers had a
similar Achilles Heel?
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Content (Management) is King
June 27, 2003
Most every Web presence design/redesign I get involved with these days
has a content management component. Long gone are the days of calling
your Web Design firm to update your news page or product descriptions.
Here’s a nice variety of CMS I’ve recently applied on projects:
ASP/PHP & On-line forms (PDF) -most often a custom development job works best: more streamlined and frequently just as fast to set up as a “in the box” solution.
WebGUI by Plainblack -if you want to go with an open source solution WebGui is a good bet.
Macromedia Contirbute -features one of the best UIs for CMS, but…
Quicksilver
Quickflex -an ASP solution that drops edit buttons in areas where
authorized users may edit content.
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