user experience
I’ve long believed that the design of your software has a profound impact on how users behave within your software. But there are two sides to this story: * Encouraging the “right” things by making those things intentionally easy to do. * Discouraging the “wrong” things by making those things intentionally
usability
If you’ve ever wrangled a user interface, you’ve probably heard of Fitts’ Law. It’s pretty simple – the larger an item is, and the closer it is to your cursor, the easier it is to click on. Kevin Hale put together a great visual summary of Fitts’ Law,
user experience
Despite Apple’s historical insistence that the computer mouse should only have one button – which led to the highly unfortunate convention of double-clicking – most mice have more than one button today. In his classic book The Humane Interface, Jef Raskin revisits the earliest days of his involvement with the Mac
ui design
I bought my copy of Alan Cooper’s classic About Face in 1995. I remember poring over it, studying its excellent advice, reveling in its focus on the hot new UI paradigms standardized in Windows 95 – toolbars, menus with icons, tabbed dialogs, and so forth. Seems quaint now, if not
human-computer interaction
Fitts’ Law is arguably the most important formula in the field of human-computer interaction. It’s... Time = a + b log2 ( D / S + 1 ) ... where D is the distance from the starting point of the cursor, and S is the width of the target. This is all considered on a 2D
software development
Have you ever noticed how many people keep a physical calculator next to their computer? The irony is almost palpable. My favorite is the calculator mousepad. Jef Raskin, in The Humane Interface, defends the practice of keeping a pocket calculator next to your PC: It’s true. Many of us