My coworkers know I recently started using a standing desk (if you can call it that…its a big box stacked on reams of paper on top of my new desk). I did it because I head on a whim that it’s good for you and helps you stay more alert. I figured I’d give it a try and I like it! However, since people ask all the time, I did a little research to see what the actual health risks of sitting are.
My wife asked me to print some coupons for her and I was blown away by some of the UX choices Coupons.com made. For this post, I’m going to let the screenshots and captions do the talking.
Apple.com has been one of the most copied and ripped off website designs and its design elements are scattered across more websites than I can count. It is one of the trendsetting websites that seem to set direction as to how websites should look and interact with the user.
Mobile web is still a relatively new area, and best practices haven’t been established – take everything you hear about mobile, including what I say, with a grain of salt. I’ve heard several times that mobile experiences should be watered down, slimmer experiences than the desktop version meaning that there is less content available on the mobile site than there is on the desktop site. My solutions manager heard this at the Web 2.0 conference he attended, and brought it up yesterday. I believe there are compelling reasons why this is a bad mobile strategy.
Just a quickie here today. Sencha Touch is a mobile development framework. I’d heard about it but never looked into it, until today. I looked for it using my iPhone. Kinda funny though…they don’t have a mobile site! Quick tip, if you make a mobile platform, seems kind of ridiculous to NOT have a mobile version of your site. They do have demo’s of the product, but I was forced to locate it using the desktop version of the site, not optimized for my screen size or touch based interactions. Sorry Sencha.
Due to a recent interest in design and user interaction, its not often that I find a website from a major company that is awful. I found one: Office Depot.
This navigation system is awful. Take a look. Upon clicking one of the buttons in the horizontal bar, you are given a super menu dropdown with two different category lists and two PROMO or AD elements…in a MENU! No more explanation needed. This is a UX fail!
Rapid Prototyping for Mobile (iOS, Android, and More) with Fireworks using TAP -
As I’ve been involved with different mobile projects recently, I’ve run up against some obstacles. It is difficult to design on a desktop screen when the app/site will be used on a mobile device. You MUST preview your design on the device it will be viewed on. This can be a bit of a hassle, sending images to to the device for previewing. Also, interaction is extremely important on mobile devices. We have found that our interactions, when implemented, aren’t as brilliant as we thought they would be when we were working in Photoshop. Unfortunately, so far, the only way to test our designs was to wait until they were marked up.
Yesterday, I discovered a builder called TAP which enables you to use Adobe Fireworks to create interactive prototypes for mobile devices. I’ve recently started using Fireworks over Photoshop for web design because it has tools better suited for web design tasks, allows you to create interactive prototypes and even make pixel perfect designs. It has been great. I was really hoping I could take advantage of these tools to develop prototypes for mobile without having to mark up the designs. However, the HTML export doesn’t display well on a mobile device without some significant tweaking of the HTML, which isn’t ideal for developing prototypes quickly. TAP not only facilitates rapid prototyping, in my opinion, goes above and beyond. TAP supports sliding animations which replicate animations you see on many native apps. It also supports gestures, like swiping. I have tested it on iOS and Android and it works great! I’m surprised I haven’t seen this tool around yet. Go to their website and read more about it: http://unitid.nl/2011/03/touch-application-prototypes-tap-for-iphone-and-ipad-using-adobe-fireworks/
No one likes filling out forms on websites. I recently registered with Bank of America since they now own my mortgage. I thought their password check was helpful and creative.
One of the company cars I use from time to time is a Toyota Prius. The first time I drove one, I quickly realized how much I take for granted a interface design for a car. The Prius was so frustrating to me that it became the inspiration for featuring User Experience Fails on my blog. Keep reading to see more about my experience.
This blog/site has evolved significantly over the years. In fact, this site started as my very first website which was more of a portfolio website back in the days where I did mostly motion graphics and I didn’t know the difference between HTML and CSS. Believe it or not, that was only 2 years ago, almost exactly!!! For those who know me personally, that may seem surprising. The last two years have been quite a journey as I have explored my interests and talents to find a good fit. My interests have been all over the board, but thanks to a full time job, I think I’m finally starting to focus.
I’ve wanted to have a regular blog as a way to explore my interests. Writing, like teaching, has a way of clarifying concepts in my mind. While I do hope someone out there benefits from what I have to say, I’m mostly doing this blog for me.
I’ve always felt that a good blog has focus. My blog has never been good because it lacks focus. Take a look at a sampling of my past posts and you’ll see what I mean. No more of this (hopefully). I want to focus on interaction design, which is a pretty broad subject. I have some fun ideas. I want to showcase good and bad examples of interaction or user design. I’ve got a little backlog already of some. Everything from cars to websites and everything in between.
By the way, I’m still working on the site design. It’s kind of hard to build navigation for content that doesn’t exist, so I’m thinking of letting the blog go for a bit before I add some more navigation elements to help users find articles relevant to their interests. Until then, just enjoy the articles in linear fashion!