tramsay's blog

Since I began designing interfaces in the late 90's, I have been a big fan of Kelly Goto. She is the principle of Gotomedia, and the author of Web Redesign, Workflow that Works. I have seen her speak at a few different events I have attended. When I saw that she was now publishing a newsletter I had to subscribe!

In browsing the archives I found a very interesting interview with John SanGiovanni. He talks about the polarization of designs. WILD, take no prisoner, experimental design on one end...and hard core HCI PHD's on the other end. John then goes on to described what he sees as new class of designer, the "Intuitive Designer" ...finally a label I welcome!

Because design is so subjective it is impossible to say if a design is "right" or "wrong". In the fine art world it is left to the individual to make their mind. In interactive design however, it is left to the user. But since we cannot read the minds of our users, the best measure of this has really been usability testing. Though it would be nice to be able to fully test everything that goes out the door, it is simply not possible. This is where the value of the "Intuitive Designer" comes in.

As someone who has very little formal training, but has grown their skills and abilities through practical application, I can really identify with what he describes. Someone who is effective because they apply their common sense, supplemented by experience, and generally accepted best practices. What you are left with a design that is 80% there... The other 20% can be firmed up through targeted tests that get to specific questions that might have risen as apart of the designer pushing the boundaries a bit (referred to by John as the "micro").

So again I am thrilled to see this new persona articulated, an I hope it begins to gain support throughout the industry.

A Colleague sent me this url today to the IxDG Resource Library.

I think it has some real potential to turn into a very valuable online resource. Design is so subjective, and often times it more effective to talk about things to avoid, or bad design... Something like this though has the potential to be a repository for examples of good things, and I like that!

I just returned from my trip to NYC to attended NN/g's 3 day intensive usability camp. It was a great session with lots of useful information and real world examples. Much of the information just reinforced what I already subscribe to and apply, but there were several new jewels of wisdom that I was able to take away.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

The presenters played a very large role in the success of the camp. Amy Schade, Hoa Loranger, Kara Pernice Coyne, and Dr. Jakob Nielson all spoke on different topics. It was great because each spoke on an area that they were clearly experts in. They were always willing to answer any question that was asked, and really answered the questions. For something that is so subjective to the situation in which it is being applied, they provided answers that seemed globally applicable. You were left with answers, not generalizations.

Jakob opened the camp by going over some basic topics and terminology. This really helped level the playing field and get everyone on the same page prior to jumping into deep more specific topics.

Prior to attending the 3 day camp, I was familiar with many usability testing concepts, but like many of us, rarely had a chance to apply them. Paper Prototyping is just one of these concepts. Paper prototypes are a very fast and cheep way to do low level testing of advanced concepts. It can quickly show you any gaps in logic, flow, labels, and inconsistencies in the design. If you want to try something new/different, paper prototyping is a great way to see if this new idea will make sense to the user, without spending countless hours designing and developing.

 When I have new project that I need to design an interface for, I often will begin by looking at the functional requirements, and drawing something up in Fireworks. I always felt that I was proficient enough with my design software to achieve basically the same thing as paper prototyping, but without all the paper....WRONG! While at the 3 day camp we had an exercise to create a paper prototype of an application and then test it. My group quickly came up with some functional requirements, brainstormed how the interface should be organized, broke up the interface in to parts for the individual team members to create. We then quickly tested it and were able to identify any real usability issues with our new application. This was all done in about the same time it would have taken me just to mock something up in Fireworks.

Another big WOW for me was the statistics that Jakob presented showing the ROI on usability. He also presented on the emerging concept of "Discount" Usability methods. He showed us all how we could stretch a budget and get maximum impact from that budget... All great things to enable me to come back and evangelize the power and positive impact usability testing can have.

Over all I thought the conference was very valuable, and I can highly recommend it to developers, designers, and others who have some informal exposure to the concept, but want to learn more about how to actually do it.