cog + sprocket » design

The opposite of simplicity

alexis — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:34:22 +0000

I can’t imagine a news site I’d want to use less.

Mobile simplicity -> Web simplicity

alexis — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 15:20:33 +0000

You know what I really like? I mean really? I like iPhone-optimized websites. Often lately, I will find myself browsing a website on my laptop and wish that it could have the simplicity of its iPhone sibling, but with the features that I like best about browsing on the desktop: speed and resolution.

It’s a tricky problem though, for a designer. If you’re going to design a very simple, iPhone-like app for the desktop, what do you do with all that space? It seems like there are a couple of options:

1. Really big (and I mean really big) text
2. Lots of white space

I’m trying to think of websites that achieve this kind of simplicity and look really good and I’m coming up short, especially when I try to think of sites that have a lot of content (as opposed to web-based tools or apps). The new delicious redesign is pretty good, but still gets a bit busy with all the navigation up top. Muxtape was pretty and simple. That’s about all I’m coming up with off the top of my head, and both of those are web-based apps/tools. I can’t think of a single content site that achieves that kind of mobile simplicity while taking advantage of being on the desktop. Do you know of any? Please post suggestions/links in the comments…

Touch screen design

alexis — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:27:57 +0000

This morning, I read an interesting discussion of Pentagram’s UI overhaul for Wells Fargo ATMs. You generally don’t see a lot of discussion of the unique UI design challenges inherent in working with a touch screen or kiosk. A kiosk user experience generally needs to be a very quick one, thus the number of choices and steps should be reduced to a bare minimum. Simplicity is key. And visual design can be challenging, since our fingers require much larger buttons than a mouse pointer does. While these issues aren’t addressed specifically in the article, it’s still nice to see a case study of what goes into this kind of design.

UI design of FriendFeed, Gmail, etc.

alexis — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:56:21 +0000

An interesting interview with Kevin Fox on his UI design work for FriendFeed and Google. While I have my doubts about the visual design on all of the products he discusses, the interaction design is quite good, and the interview with Kevin is worth a read.

In the interview, he also mentions an older side project, Randompixel, in which he distributed disposable cameras with the instruction to take a few pictures and pass it along. When the last photo is taken, the camera is mailed back to Kevin and he uploads all of the photos to a website. I love projects like this for their sense of serendipity, and for the cryptic glimpses into the everyday lives of random strangers.

House of the future

alexis — Wed, 14 May 2008 20:10:49 +0000

A new concept house of the future in Brussels. Most of the ideas have been seen in one form or another in other “house of the future” projects, but they are very nicely executed here from a design perspective. In particular, I want one of those pods!

Video: Inside the House of the Future

The option key: Where Apple’s iconography fails

alexis — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:42:14 +0000

I’m a big fan of Apple design under most circumstances, and their iconography, where used, tends to be pretty good. I think the most challenging icons to design would be the three for Control, Option, and Command, since these are pretty abstract concepts with no immediate symbolic correspondence. So, let’s take a look at them:

Shift: Okay, an up arrow…this has been the shift symbol since the days of manual typewriters. Easy, no biggie.

Command: ⌘ In typical Apple fashion, they’ve taken something abstract that doesn’t make any inherent sense and made it intuitive fairly quickly as you learn the system (a la the ipod click-wheel). The fact that the symbol is actually ON the keyboard key itself as well certainly helps. It’s also a unique icon that won’t be confused with anything else.

Option: ⌥ And here lies my beef with Apple. Maybe it’s just me, but after using Macs for nearly 15 years now, I STILL struggle to figure out what the hell this icon means. For a long time, I thought it was the shift symbol — the ramp between two levels in the symbols somehow implied that in my mind. I eventually figured it out, but it’s far from intuitive.

Now, you would think this would be the same principle as the command icon — a meaningless symbol that quickly gains meaning and becomes intuitive to the user. However, there are two important differences: 1) the symbol is not also on the keyboard key itself, and 2) the icon itself is not immediately unique and recognizable. Instead, it is somewhat kludgy and busy.

In order to be a constructive critic, I’m working on some better option icon suggestions…More on that later.