Save Time & Money – Leverage the expertise by using Design Patterns
Web designers & developers are constantly searching to find the best practices for guiding the user through completing a specific action or task on a website. And as more and more complex applications come online, and there is more and more user interaction with those applications, the problem to present information in a meaningful way for the user to interact with in those applications, becomes increasingly difficult.
But designers no longer have to work in a vacuum to figure out the solutions. They can now leverage all of the expertise, user behavior analysis, and best practices of the great user interface design patterns that are available online.
What is a user interface design pattern?
A design pattern is good design that has been vetted and tested for usability by designers, User Interface (UI) experts, and even the design community that have been proven to work well for very specific user situations and user issues. It is a package of proven expertise that informs the designer of the principles behind the design and what is known to work.
Using known and researched principles in your design will save you time and money and make your applications more intuitive for the user and easy to use.
All design patterns answer the following questions:
- What is the Problem we are trying to solve?
- What is the Solution?
- When and why to use the pattern?
Where can I find design patterns?
- Yahoo Design Pattern Library
Yahoo! breaks down their design patterns into five categories: Layout, Navigation, Selection, Rich Interaction, and Social. Within each category you will find an array of design patterns that not only answer the standard questions of What, When & Why they also provide real world examples, code examples, related patterns, and similar patterns from non Yahoo! libraries. They also have a community where you can discuss the design patterns with people who are trying to solve the same design problems. - Welie.com
The patterns on this site are grouped in a very meaningful way. The main categories are broken down into:
User needs which include navigating around, searching, shopping, making choices
basic interactions, dealing with data, personalizing, making choices, giving input.
Application needs which include drawing attention, feedback, simplifying interaction.
Context of design which include site types, experiences, page types - UI-Patterns.com
This website provides a good number of design patters but what makes it different is that they offer a lot of examples of actual sites that use good design principles via their screenshot collections and their resources. - Open Source Design Pattern Library
This is a community where designers, developers, and other people interested in patterns can come to reference material, collaborate on patterns and designs, and share their knowledge with everyone.
Do you use other resources that I haven’t mentioned? Let me know if the comments!
| Did you enjoy this post? subscribe now to get all of the posts | Comments (1) |
Book Clubs for User Experience Professionals
I’m sure quite of few of you are already in book clubs, but I wanted to recommend one you might want to consider. In your current book club, you probably get together with your friends every so often as an excuse to drink wine while chatting about the plot and characters. But what if you had that same experience except you discussed professional books? Check out a new site the organizes book clubs for user experience professionals.
I work in online user experience for Barnes & Noble, so this is right up my alley. Plus, I’m always hesitant to join book clubs with friends because I can be a little particular about which fiction books I read. This is why the idea of a professional book club appeals to me so much. I have an ever growing list of fiction books I want to one day get to, but I wouldn’t mind a little help from my peers in choosing which books on user experience are the most relevant at this very moment. And I’d be thrilled if a group of peers wanted to read it at the same time and then link up to discuss—especially if it’s done leisurely over a glass of wine.
It looks like I’m not the only one excited about this idea. UX Book Clubs have sprouted in Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, the Middle East, and all over North and South America.
Boxes and Arrows, which features articles on information architecture and design, recently had an article profiling UX Book Clubs. In the article, the founder, Steve Baty writes, “In early Nov 2008, I started to talk to a few people about the idea of a book club in Sydney to discuss User Experience (UX) books….And then something surprising happened, people liked the idea so much that they started doing things to make it happen.”
Even if you don’t have one in your area, or if you can’t attend, you can still benefit. Each group gets an individual page on the site to post its mission and the list of books the group has read. Not every group has a robust page up yet, but still the rest of us can get ideas by digging through the various lists. It’s also interesting to see what the hot UX topic is in different parts of the world.
Here’s how the group describes itself on the website:
The UX Book Club seeks to enhance the abilities and knowledge of user experience professionals from information architects and interaction designers to visual designers and usability specialists to augment their understanding for excellence in UX practice, ixd design theory while building a passionate local community. Subjects of interest to this club span design theory, design research and user experience research practices and processes. The books include the strategy and business of design, UX design theory and history, methodology, usability research, and the ethics of UX professionals, while networking and having some fun….
And if you don’t see your city on the list, go to the UX Book Club site to start your own!
| Did you enjoy this post? subscribe now to get all of the posts | Comments (0) |
Better Experiences for Online Games
Online gaming is huge. I tried to find out just how huge is huge, but I had a hard time getting up-to-date statistics. According to an article on BNET about online gaming statistics, 200 million people were playing online games in August of 2007. Most of those people were playing action/adventure/roll-playing games, puzzles, and sports.
But with so many companies climbing on board to produce games, many end up with sub-par user experiences. Mark Hurst of Creative Good started a list of games with great user experiences. It’s a lengthy list of games ranging from 2005 to present. He has even taken the time to jot down if the game has a long or quick playtime.
There are of course the classics, like Hearts. But Mark has taken the time to identify his favorite version of online Hearts: Yahoo! Hearts. But Mark has also found odd games like Fishing Girl. As the site describes, in this game you get to “[r]eel in those fish one by one as you attempt to save a boy who’s trapped on the other side of the ocean.” Here’s what Mark says about this game: “Very nicely designed fishing game with a clever payoff.”
For anyone thinking of following the trend, take a look to see what sets some online games apart.
| Did you enjoy this post? subscribe now to get all of the posts | Comments (0) |
Experience Last Month’s IA Summit Online
In today’s world, it’s hard to take time out of work and life to attend conferences. And in today’s economy, many of us are opting to save the money needed to attend these conferences. But for anyone who missed the 10th Anniversary IA Summit that was held in Memphis, TN on March 20 through 22, you can still catch some of the sessions online.
Several of the staff at Boxes and Arrows captured many of the main sessions and posted them on their site. As of now, they seem to have posted everything except Days 2 and 3. But they have a message up saying that more sessions should be rolling in over the next two weeks, so hopefully those will get filled in soon. The conference theme was “Expanding Our Horizons”.
Michael Wesch opened the conference with a keynote address about “fresh and ambitious direction for all designers”. I also like how Boxes and Arrows embedded the IA Summit’s music theme at the top of each page. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a conference (at least not a usability conference) with it’s own jingle.
For anyone who isn’t familiar with the IA Summit, here’s a brief description from the summit’s website:
The Information Architecture Summit is the premier gathering place for information architects and other user experience professionals. It’s grown from a special interest group’s efforts to define an emerging field, to a rich and expanding community of practice shaping and informing multiple disciplines. You don’t have to be an IA or User Experience professional to enjoy the Summit. You simply have to love the art and science of structuring information.
| Did you enjoy this post? subscribe now to get all of the posts | Comments (0) |
SXSWi 2009 - Lots of Sessions, Lots of Networking and Lots of Fun!
Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending the SXSW Interactive conference in Austin, TX. My colleagues and past attendees told me it was a “must attend” event and I have to tell you that it was great fun, exciting, inspiring and, of course, productive. Full disclosure - Webgrrls International was a media sponsor for the event
The SXWSi team put together an amazingly well organized and coordinated conference featuring five days of thoughtful and thought provoking sessions, amazing people to meet and really fun parties. According to the SXSW team, “the event celebrates the best minds and the brightest personalities of emerging technology”. Kudos to the entire SXSW team…I though it was great…
As a first-timer, the conference could have been overwhelming had I not attended the How to Rawk SXSW: The Basics, which is a panel geared to first-time attendees, and focuses on how registrants can leverage all the different elements of the event to achieve personal and professional goals…I recommend this panel for all of the first-timers next year.
Lot’s of Sessions….
I attended sessions every day…for five days. Some of the sessions that really stood out to me were:
- Journey to the Center of Design led by Jared Spool, founding partner of User Interface Engineering. Jared discussed how user research affects design, the importance of measuring the right things, how to measure brand engagement, and 3 core UX (user experience) attributes for great experience. Watch the highly edited version of the presentation: Part 1 & Part 2
- Building Your Brand with Web 2.0 Tools with Saul Colt of Freshbooks, C.C. Chapman of The Advance Guard, Chris Brogan of New Marketing Labs and Loic Le Meur of Seesmic. The expert panel discussed the importance of building your brand and how easy it is to do it now with all of the social media tools accessible to everyone. They also mentioned that not every social media tool is right for every brand and the importance of choosing the right tools for your brand. Check out a the blog post from Kate who live blogged the session.
- How to Protect Your Brand Without Being a Jerk! With Twanna A Hines (funkybrownchick.com), Elena Paul Exec Dir , VLA, Oren Bitan Atty, HIQI Media, Eric Steuer Creative Dir, Creative Commons, Danny O’Brien eff.org. The panel discussed ways to protect your brand & content from copycats. Check out this detailed outline for the session.
There were many more session that were great but these are the ones that stood out in my mind. You can also explore all of the archives of the daytime programming for this year’s event by checking out videos and audio podcasts.
Lot’s of Events and Lot’s of People to Meet….
There were so many parties to attend and I did my best to attend the best one’s…and I think that I did.
- The TechSet Meets The Rat Pack at SXSWi – this was my kick off party hosted by and brought together Microsoft.
- Frog Design – with wine and beer all around, this party was a huge gathering of almost every one at SXSW in attendance (at least it seemed it)…I had a lot of fun and met the most people.
- Conversify – with SweetRiot chocolates and MiddleSister Wine to set the tone, the conversify women threw an intimate soirée for a few of their closest friends…
- Kirtsy – this was an amazing gathering hosted by the Women of Kirtsy and Guy Kawasaki of Alltop. I reconnected with all of the friends I made at the Mom 2.0 Summit and made some new ones.
- Tumblr – Tumblr hosted another huge event that was great fun and I met a lot of people who have become some new great friends
Here are some photos that I have taken of my week in Austin.
I found the most value in meeting the attendees, making new connections and re-connecting with the people that I already knew. I met some great people in the hallways between sessions, in the TechSet Lounge, at the parties, and even on the streets there were people to meet.
I have to say that the SXSW conference is a “must attend” event and I look forward to next year’s event and to seeing you all there….
| Did you enjoy this post? subscribe now to get all of the posts | Comments (2) |
Next Page »
