Graphic Design Language Consistency

While I have often said that a lot of UI changes are simply eye candy, and add nothing important other than “bling” to a design, not all UI changes fall into that category. However, looking back, I noticed my posts have beat around this huge unaddressed important distinction of UI design that pretty much no company and very few active designers today seems to completely understand, judging from the latest and “greatest” products that are just as confusing for experienced users as they are for newbies.

While, we all seem to inherently understand some form of graphic design language, few aside from UI designers are conscious of it. And even fewer of the professionals understand this graphic design language has rules and conventions based on solid interaction principles. They seem to take for granted, that this control is a certain way without question, and either they use it improperly or worse, they break the convention. Both of these problems are caused because the UI designer does not know the reason behind the convention. I am sure many UI designers will rebuff me — and know the reasons behind certain choices, but not all. The problem is, if the designer has read literature or learned UI from someone else that omitted the explanations and reasoning behind the conventions, they only have half an education.

HTML5 Developer’s Conference Wrap Up

Badges? We do need some stinkin’ badges. Gracias!

HTML5 is here in full swing. With portions of CSS3 reaching recommendation candidate status and ES6 coming, it is critical for web developers to continue to learn not only the new technologies, but also current best practices. Because I try to do the right thing, I went to the HTML5 Developer’s Conference in SF. My Editor was in town and we ended up meeting and while I was enthusiastically telling him about it, he asked me if I would write up an article for DiceNews about what I found.

That would be great, I said. So, I pounded out a quick one the next day. You can read the article by clicking this link http://news.dice.com/2013/04/15/lessons-learned-at-html5-dev/if you so desire.

Feel free to comment here or there. But please forgive my generalizations. I know people are making full use of animations, and other modern features, but many more are not. And yes, I realize sometimes a page refresh is desired too. With that said, enjoy.

Q: Why Join App.net? A: Privacy & No Advertising

App.net might look like just another social service to some. And, in fact, it currently looks very much like Twitter was when it started: It is just a lot of tech-savvy people talking freely and enthusiastically about app.net and whatever strikes their fancy: No celebrities promoting themselves, no ad-spam, no fake users, no incredibly stupid posts—although there are some stupid posts, there’s no one stupid enough to post public calls to kill government officials as one woman who has disappeared did. App.net is just a lot of signal with very low noise.

I get at least a few invites each month to join a new SoNet. The invites usually get a tossed into the trash almost immediately. Few get me to look at the site. But that’s usually it. Even if I do sign up the to site, I often let it languish and simply forget about it until they start spamming me to use their site, “log in with…” or want me to link my other SoNets to it.

Paying not to Share but Selectively Share

App.net is 180° away from ll of these sites though, because their interests align with my interests:

OS 10.8: Mountain Lion, The Svelte King (Upgrade Advice & First Impression)

Yet another major version release of OS X is out, and I have talked to a few people about it. For the most part, aside from a few “.0” bugs, the response has been pretty positive. I decided to upgrade after I noticed a vast majority of the apps I use regularly released updated Mountain Lion compatible versions within days of its release. Also, there were no reports of data loss (not that I have to worry about that because of the religious fanatic level of backups I have) or any major problems from people that upgraded right away.

My Advice for Upgrading to Mountain Lion: 10.8

So, I followed my own advice previously posted about upgrading. I’ll recap it here. In short:

TouchUI: The Misunderstood Paradigm Excerpts

Part 1 of my 2 part article on TouchUI is now up on DiceNews. In it I talk about the current state of TouchUI in the setting of responding to Josh Clark’s views on it. I want to make it perfectly clear, I think he is on the right track. However, he seems to miss some of what we have learned about user interfaces the past 25+ years.

In order to fit in the format, I pulled a section of the article where I brainstormed about how I believe a TouchUI should work as a foundation for adding custom gestures and interfaces. There are probably problems with some of these ideas, but it is just a cursory glance at what a baseline UI should have. I am throwing it in here for your consideration. As always: intelligent feedback is welcome.

Some are obviously inspired (“ripped off”) from WebOS, and some are from Android and iOS. However, for the most part a cohesive convention of how things should be done that is translatable to all manner of touch screens has not emerged. This is my “first” public swing, but I think about this stuff all the time, especially whenever I am using a frustrating interface.

How I Would Improve Touch Interfaces… Coming Soon to a Browser Near You

I just looked at my almost 1800 word opinion piece I submitted to draft status on Dice this morning, and I feel guilty that my editor will have to read it all and whittle it down to a more usable format. I am pretty sure my wanton dreaming of a new set of UI conventions: “STIG” will hit the cutting room floor. If that happens, look for it here next week.

Stay “tuned” for my thoughts on Touch User Interfaces. (link forthcoming…) My tentative title for it is “TouchUI & The Misunderstood Paradigm.” I think it’s catchy, but SEO might not. :) If you read my blog posts you already know where I stand, this is just more elaboration on how I would make a Touch User Interface, the “SOOMY Tao” Rule and how far we still have to go. In my humble opinion user interfaces have barely scratched the surface of what they could be.

Speaking on Phase 2.5: At some point I will probably write about a new yet old interface that recalls a toy of decades past, that just needs a bit of an update: some styling love and sophisticated circuitry running XLP hardware. It could probably by developed and sold for less than $100. It could also be discreetly embedded in discrete common products to whittle manufacturing costs down to just the chips, circuitry and sensors needed. If you actually included kinetic energy generation you could conceivably power the device primarily through movement. Yup more wanton dreaming… Inspired by SciFi Books and Childhood dreams of Asimov’s “Significantly Advanced Technology.”

UPDATE20120507: The Article has been split in two, and will be run soon.