Information Design
I’ve been meaning to write up my experiences with a couple of mobile phones for a while. I used a Nokia 6682 for a year or so and recently switched over to a Sony k790a.
My experience with the k790 is a great lesson in why product managers and designers continue to fight about whether features or experience should drive product development. I bought the phone primarily because I wanted a phone with a “real” camera and at the time it was (arguably) the best cameraphone out there (3.2 megapixels, auto-focus, xenon flash, etc.). I did lots of research and so on and bought it primarily on a features basis. After using the phone and camera for a few weeks, however, I realized that while the k790 has an amazing camera for a phone, especially for stills, it’s going to be a while before any cameraphone is going to hold a candle to a decent dedicated point-and-shoot camera (e.g. Canon Elph) let alone a digital SLR. So much for features.
So, you’d think I would have been disappointed but in fact I had already grown to love the phone based solely on the software interaction design. It’s among the most impressive pieces of small-device UI design I’ve encountered (and that includes the iPod which is obviously amazing, but has a much, much easier job description). It’s far from perfect, of course, and there are some patently silly things as with all phones (for example, when looking up contacts, you can only search by first name rather than first or last, so typing “JO” gives me “John Zapolski” but not “Oliver Johns”). But, there are so many places where the designers got it right. And, what I mean by getting it right is that they understood the context the phone would be used in, figured out the most likely thing or things that you’d want to do, and then designed the interface to make those things either extremely easy or automatic. I regularly find myself pleasantly surprised by the interface which is rare indeed, as we all know from countless bad experiences. And, as an interaction designer myself, I can tell you that it is incredibly difficult.
It’s the little things like when scrolling vertically through a list of your contacts you can then scroll horizontally through their different contact methods (home phone, work phone, email) and choose the one you want. It (mostly) just feels incredibly fluid.
By contrast, the Nokia suffers from having to support a lumbering, generalized operating system so that I have the option of downloading lunar calendars, golf handicapping systems, and all kinds of other pseudo-useful Symbian applications but at the expense of doing the things that matter with any degree of subtlety.
(Note: This was all written pre-iPhone, which generally out-fluids the Sony.)
Thau pointed out these excellent Data globes. Someone should make a globe-shaped (globular?) display which can display these!
Interestingly, this Tufte outline is all text. (does being a patron mean not having to link?)
I just discovered musicplasma.com yesterday (thanks to boing boing) and after an initial “that’s cool!” and then a bit of annoyance with the navigation model I started wondering if it’s better than (or even as good as) a simple text list like on allmusic:
or amazon’s “also bought”:
It is, of course, somehow more fun, but if all I’m trying to do is find new music, I’d think the visualness of the interface would just get in the way (without adding any significant information - Yes, the size of the circles indicates popularity and proximity supposedly indicates strength of relationship, but what do the lines signify? The colors?). Still, I have to admit it’s significantly more fun than a text list. Which makes it another example (along with flickr) of the power of play in product design.
Nice bit of information design on Yahoo maps these days. Traffic conditions and the surprisingly useful ability to find restaurants (and other things) by vicinity:
I’m pretty sure they could have done better than this: 
Line drawings of “subway systems of the world, presented on the same scale”. Gee, my hometown BART system sure is skimpy. (via)
I’d swear I’ve posted a link to the Turntablist transcription method before, but I can’t find it… and notation systems are way interesting, so I’m posting it again.
Christina’s Widgetopia collects, annotates, and categorizes web UI tools (“article tools”, “ratings”, etc.).
A calendar is just a linear clock. Right?
Update: Andrew sent me the wonderfully-pithy suggestion that a clock’s point is to show state, and a calendar is really to show context. Of course if you think too carefully about Time, you’ll go completely mad.
While Learning to Love the Pixel: Exploring the Craft of Icon Design is ostensibly about designing icons, it is the discussion of craft in interface design that I find most satisfying. I have long felt craft to be undervalued in the context of corporate design projects. The article does a nice job of beginning the discussion of the role of craft in user experience design while implicitly raising the higher-level question of where it makes the most sense to prioritize craft in an interface design project.
Matt has planted the seeds of a collection of timelines.
Self-defence with a Walking-stick: The Different Methods of Defending Oneself with a Walking-Stick or Umbrella when Attacked under Unequal Conditions (PartI) (via caterina)
A few pixels can go a long way, as demonstrated by the tight little graphic that accompanies baseball lines on ESPN.com, showing men on base and number of outs:
Even more impressive is the killer MLB Gameday applet, which nests information (previous at bats, pitch count, etc) and even shows pitch location throughout each at bat (as you can see, Webb made a location mistake over the fat part of the plate, and as it turns out Ray Durham smacked a home run, giving the Giants a 1-0 lead):
Every single project, I find myself having to explain to someone what a “blurb” is… Maybe Blurbs: Writing Previews of Web Pages will help. (via xblog)
How Do People Evaluate a Web Site’s Credibility?
“When evaluating the credibility of a Web site, participants commented on the design look of the site more often than any other Web site feature.”Take that you usability hardliners!
To be fair, the study also found that “After Design Look, the next category that people commented on in assessing credibility was the structure of the site’s information.” (thanks, Susannah)
Lotsa good linkage (been watching too much Buffy the Vampire Slayer) in InfoDesign Resources
Janice Crotty Fraser’s overview of registration process information design—Registration Revamp—applies to much more than just registration. Good basic info design. (via iaslash)
I like collections like Victor’s gallery of blurb treatments. Maybe I’ll start a collection of IAs’ collections.
I like collections like Victor’s gallery of blurb treatments. Maybe I’ll start a collection of IAs’ collections.
What sounds like common sense but probably isn’t about info design for FAQs. (via tomalak)
A collection of login/register screens. (via iaslash)
I went to a great BayCHI talk last night called “Experience Modeling” (although it was really about concept modeling in general). Among the panelists were Sandy Speicher and Harry Sadler of MetaDesign, who were terrific, providing more useful ideas and perspectives than you usually get from a whole conference. Among the ideas:
They prefer thinking of User Experience as the context in which we work rather than something we can explicitly design. (I take some issue with this. I agree we can’t fully design people’s experience, but we can greatly influence it through our design and it’s our responsibility to do so).
There are various uses of conceptual models, including:
- visual models can make complex concepts (relatively) transparent (on a similar theme, check out the xplane elephant page)
- models can “hold state” of a design, by aggregating a bunch of decisions
- modeling helps you focus on a subset of the myriad aspects of a problem
- models are a medium for thinking, a support for conversation, by making design ideas tangible
- models force out inconsistencies, gaps
- models can serve as specs
Some simple models teach (here’s how it is), other more complex models are used to “support a conversation that’s been going on a long time.” (I love that idea!)
Things we can model include:
- brand (color study, image collage)
- relationships (between customer and company)
- interaction (scenarios of use)
- interface (prototypes, layout grid models)
- an entire project (picture a single map made up of all the separate individual models you used throughout a project)
Someone suggested showing a client multiple models of the same concept and having them choose the one they like and want to design around.
What has input into formation of a model (e.g. of a web site):
- client (business goals, design preferences)
- user (needs, goals, expectations)
- context (competitors, technology, location of use, etc.)
- designer (past experience, aesthetic preferences, preferred tools)
URL as UI.. the King James bible, all accessible via the URL:
For example, the 10 Commandments would be http://bible.conman.org/kj/Exodus.20:1-17
Let the florida-mocking begin…
You’d already seen the WWW page-length debate from Jorn, but I hadn’t.
Wow, there are geeks for everything, including bulleted lists (via mersault)
Drue Miller on information design basics. So what if it’s from early 1999? It’s still good!