For anyone interested in UI Design
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I have just found this[^] site from those nice people at Infragistics. The site contains all sorts of design related topics, reasons for using a particular gadget/style and so on. I've only just found it, but so far it seems very interesting and useful.
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
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I have just found this[^] site from those nice people at Infragistics. The site contains all sorts of design related topics, reasons for using a particular gadget/style and so on. I've only just found it, but so far it seems very interesting and useful.
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
Thanks for the heads up.
Software Kinetics - Moving software
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I have just found this[^] site from those nice people at Infragistics. The site contains all sorts of design related topics, reasons for using a particular gadget/style and so on. I've only just found it, but so far it seems very interesting and useful.
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
Excellent link, thanks! It's one of the best arguments for Silverlight/WPF-ish UIs I've seen so far. Very easy to use, gets out of the way of conveying the patterns, the UI draws you in almost like it's seducing you into browsing through its contents. I'll have to go through all the patterns this weekend. Too good to miss!
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I have just found this[^] site from those nice people at Infragistics. The site contains all sorts of design related topics, reasons for using a particular gadget/style and so on. I've only just found it, but so far it seems very interesting and useful.
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
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For my money, the definitive work on this topic is "About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design" by Alan Cooper. This is a must-read. Short (very) note on Alan Cooper is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Cooper[^] Jim d.
Nice link. Thanks! Out of interest, can't afford any new books right now, I looked it up on Amazon. They had: About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design (1995) About Face 2: The Essentials of User Interface Design (2003) About Face 3: The Essentials of User Interface Design (2007) Are you aware of any substantial differences. I mean that if I had the money I could get the original for < £5, as opposed to the most recent for £21 ish. Would I be missing much by getting the earlier version?
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
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Nice link. Thanks! Out of interest, can't afford any new books right now, I looked it up on Amazon. They had: About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design (1995) About Face 2: The Essentials of User Interface Design (2003) About Face 3: The Essentials of User Interface Design (2007) Are you aware of any substantial differences. I mean that if I had the money I could get the original for < £5, as opposed to the most recent for £21 ish. Would I be missing much by getting the earlier version?
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
The one I have is version 1 (1995). I haven't seen the newest version. The elements of a user interface may have changed but the principles should remain the same. I think if you get the 1995 version you will get more than your money's worth. Go for it.
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Excellent link Henry. I am always interested in user interface design patterns. I have bookmarked it for future reference. Take my five. Best Wishes, -David Delaune
You're always looking for some new to bookmark :P
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Nice link. Thanks! Out of interest, can't afford any new books right now, I looked it up on Amazon. They had: About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design (1995) About Face 2: The Essentials of User Interface Design (2003) About Face 3: The Essentials of User Interface Design (2007) Are you aware of any substantial differences. I mean that if I had the money I could get the original for < £5, as opposed to the most recent for £21 ish. Would I be missing much by getting the earlier version?
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
For some purposes About Face 3 may be inferior to 2, I own both. The "About Face 2" had some very detailed nuts-and-bolts discussions using cute terms like "Latching Butcon" for the button which sticks in "Bold" or "Not Bold". Definitely at least some of this super-detailed-stuff is gone from the 3-version, it is more "high-level", if that's what you want, but not me ! I don't own the very first version.
pg--az
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Excellent link Henry. I am always interested in user interface design patterns. I have bookmarked it for future reference. Take my five. Best Wishes, -David Delaune
Randor wrote:
I am always interested in user interface design pattern
Have you then also noticed http://designinginterfaces.com/[^] ? I bought the book first, and while it's easier to flip thru a dead-tree-interface, a lot of the stuff from the book is on this site. Author Tidwell has insightful discussion on stuff like preattentiveness, but first prize for human-factors still goes to Jef Raskin's "Humane Interface". Googling (( Quince Tidwell )) I found a post by Martin Heller [^] which acknowledges "The Quince site builds on work by Jenifer Tidwell and others", although the Quince site itself only grants her a footnote on a pattern or two.
pg--az
modified on Friday, April 17, 2009 2:58 AM
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For some purposes About Face 3 may be inferior to 2, I own both. The "About Face 2" had some very detailed nuts-and-bolts discussions using cute terms like "Latching Butcon" for the button which sticks in "Bold" or "Not Bold". Definitely at least some of this super-detailed-stuff is gone from the 3-version, it is more "high-level", if that's what you want, but not me ! I don't own the very first version.
pg--az
Thanks for that. :)
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
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I have just found this[^] site from those nice people at Infragistics. The site contains all sorts of design related topics, reasons for using a particular gadget/style and so on. I've only just found it, but so far it seems very interesting and useful.
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
You really need to be careful with the suggestions on this site though. The very first suggestion about left-aligning labels is for a very specific case. The reference article that the suggestion came from confirms that left-aligning labels is the worse way to design a UI in most cases. The suggestions attempt to use a problem/solution type approach but don't bother to convey that some of the suggestions apply to special cases. One line problem statements are too vague. This particular suggestion (left-align labels) in my opinion violates one of the cardinal rules of UI design (ironically): make the most common/obvious case the default. Hence the suggestion should have said that you should left-align above or right-align labels by default. It could then explain the special cases where left-aligning labels is more beneficial. IMHO.