From FOWA London 2009, Francisco Tolmasky shares the thinking behind Atlas, the new visual layout editor/development environment that lets you create Cappuccino applications that run as native apps on Mac and Windows. Check this for a concise intro to Atlas, especially the GUI creator. This is really slick!
Via Carsonified.
The roles of functionality and aesthetics are probably different for every single project, website, or application. Some projects require little more than an easily understood interface that draws the user naturally into its functionality (think Google or Craigslist). Others succeed only when style is given as much or more thought than what the project, website, or application is ostensibly trying to ‘do’: aesthetics can make the difference in whether the user experience is memorable enough to convert, or go away and never return.
As functionality and aesthetics are always up for debate, so too is the place of the designers and developers involved in the effort. This discussion at readwriteweb with some noted design/development types on UI design, and what’s working and what’s not working in 2009, is worth checking out. A sample:
One of the telling differences between an application design that is handled by a designer and one that is handled more by a development team is spacing. Developers don’t usually think much about how element should sit on a screen together, so you see a lot of items crammed together or unevenly distributed. This is the kind of thing an average user can’t put their finger on, but on a subconscious level, it bothers them and gives them a negative opinion of the application.
Website builders like Devhub won’t put developers out of work any more than prefabricated structures threaten carpenters. But there is room for a way to help non-tech types put up a site quickly. I’ve used a few site builders for niche sites and Devhub is the best I’ve used so far– in my opinion it’s way ahead of Weebly, for instance. Superb execution here: if you need a site, not a blog, Devhub will host it for free and give you a slew of monetization options and other visual and functional elements (local directory/news) that may be appropriate for what you’re building. Not only have they created a product that really delivers, they cut expenses/increased revenue right as the financial crisis hit and are just about viable financially now. Good story of success in hard times.
Digital Media Minute has posted about free mind map software before, but I have to say, for elegance and ease of use, Mind Node is unbelievable. I’m actually looking for reasons to use it! I’ve found the freeware version to be very adequate for my needs so far. Mac only, unfortunately.
I’ll spare you the details of my epic sock drawer rearrangement plan, and offer you this video instead:
We’ve done posts on GUI mockups before, and at the end of the day it’s hard to beat their speed and efficiency. Still, it’s hard not to like this stainless steel iPhone stencil kit. Slick. Come to think of it, it’s probably pretty quick to use too, and great for impressing the ladies down at the pub.
Have you seen or used Balsamiq Mockups? Looks like a very cool and easy-to-use tool for creating mockups of GUIs, fast. I’m going to have fun playing with the demo this weekend.
Particletree has an amazing post on Visualizing Fitts’ Law. Fitts’ Law is a guiding principal of HCI and understanding this concept is essential if you consider yourself an Interaction Designer or User Experience guru.
This video was making the rounds shortly after Apple announced it’s new iPhone device. It is a quick video where Jeff Han demonstrates his intuitive, “interface-free,” touch-driven computer screen. The computer can be manipulated using gestures made by your fingertips, and responds to varying levels of pressure. If you haven’t watched this video before, it is really amazing.
UXmatters recently performed an analysis of different Label Placement in Forms. Their study used eyetracking technology to attempt to determine if label placement had any impact on the time it took a user to fill out the form.
Garrett Dimon suggests that The Time is Now for Front-End Architects. In his post he discusses the skills that a front-end architect requires and some of the pitfalls to watch for when designing front-end for our web applications.
