Category: Interface

Some people like to do “designer bashing” from time to time. I was just in the mood to do some “developer bashing” today. There are a number of reasons why user interfaces of many software packages fail. I assume (slightly unfair and inaccurate), that in many cases there is no interface designer involved with user…

Ingo Hinterding pointed to the SphereXP project and Sun’s Project Looking Glass. Sphere looks quite easy to use – but doesn’t seem to be an incredible enhancement. Sure: you could have open 130 windows and see them all almost at once — if you rotate fast enough! All the 3D approaches I have seen have…

Michelle Levesque contemplates about the role of Interface Design in Open Source Software: The lack of focus on user interface design causes users to prefer proprietary software’s more intuitive interface. Open Source software tends to lack the complete and accessible documentation that retains users. Developers focus on features in their software, rather than ensuring that…

Paul Thurrott runs a site that discusses Windows UI (esp. XP and Longhorn): “Now, because I present this information, I’m somehow labeled a Microsoft lover and/or an Apple basher. That’s silly. But Apple has done very little to make its UI better per se, beyond simple enhancements to what is, again, a classic desktop OS.…

»Read it to Me creates a playlist of MP3 files in iTunes from your unread items in NetNewsWire using Apple’s Text-to-Speech that you can sync to your iPod.« [inessential.com]

A great visual analisys and reflection on how to use images in order to shape people´s minds: News delivery in this country (USA) is increasingly comprised of carefully crafted displays of visual information. As consumers of information, however, most of us have never been taught to critically read or decode images and other graphic displays…

Bruce Tognazzini: »The following principles are fundamental to the design and implementation of effective interfaces, whether for traditional GUI environments or the web. Of late, many web applications have reflected a lack of understanding of many of these principles of design, to their great detriment. Because an application or service appears on the web, the…

There seems to be what Worlds.com or ActiveWorlds (formerly »Alphaworld«) always meant to be. I was once asked to do a concept for a similar project called Nikoworld. The company hired 80 people that were working on 3D enviroments and high-end machines – no concept. To deliver a concept I asked to set up my…