UI Design Discussions
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A little off-topic here-- Does anyone know of any good message boards (EZboards, webforums, whatever) that host active discussions on User Interface Design? I don't mean MFC, QT, VC++, etc, but the actual interaction design of a program. Interaction Design addresses these sorts of topics: What sort of controls to use for capture certain types of data Where to layout controls in your window How to use colors & graphics Disscecting simular interactions (on different data) into common UI paradigms. I'm looking for a board where neither the programming language nor UI toolkit are important, but rather what it is you want your program to do.
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A little off-topic here-- Does anyone know of any good message boards (EZboards, webforums, whatever) that host active discussions on User Interface Design? I don't mean MFC, QT, VC++, etc, but the actual interaction design of a program. Interaction Design addresses these sorts of topics: What sort of controls to use for capture certain types of data Where to layout controls in your window How to use colors & graphics Disscecting simular interactions (on different data) into common UI paradigms. I'm looking for a board where neither the programming language nor UI toolkit are important, but rather what it is you want your program to do.
Joel is always worth a read on the subject. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000057.html[^] The discussion board there also touches on the subject, if you can get past the old fashioned look and feel ;-) Michael 'Logic, my dear Zoe, merely enables one to be wrong with authority.' - The Doctor: The Wheel in Space
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A little off-topic here-- Does anyone know of any good message boards (EZboards, webforums, whatever) that host active discussions on User Interface Design? I don't mean MFC, QT, VC++, etc, but the actual interaction design of a program. Interaction Design addresses these sorts of topics: What sort of controls to use for capture certain types of data Where to layout controls in your window How to use colors & graphics Disscecting simular interactions (on different data) into common UI paradigms. I'm looking for a board where neither the programming language nor UI toolkit are important, but rather what it is you want your program to do.
Using colours - its often a big help to know when not to use colours ! Elaine :rose: The tigress is here :-D
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Joel is always worth a read on the subject. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000057.html[^] The discussion board there also touches on the subject, if you can get past the old fashioned look and feel ;-) Michael 'Logic, my dear Zoe, merely enables one to be wrong with authority.' - The Doctor: The Wheel in Space
The best reference I know on the topic is About Face 2.0 The Essentials of Interaction Design by Alan Cooper & Robert Reimann. It's not just an interesting read, it's vital. I think every developer out there should read it. The book touches on the basic tennents of what good software should do, and describes some interesting new UI designs for old concepts For example: Calendar controls that break away from the physical constraints of real-world paper calendars, and display the days/weeks of the year in a more natural flowing format. Unique controls that aim at solving just ONE problem very, very effectively. We usually use Comboboxes, Edits, and Pushbuttons to solve EVERYTHING. Imagine a custom control for indicating hotel vacancies, that started with a map of each floor and displayed numbers & icons in each room to indicate its occupancy state. Sometimes its better to get low-level and come up with something completely new, and then maybe add it to your repetoire of controls. I'm looking for a forum where I can ask "how can I do THIS?" and people respond "Well I once tried this". Maybe a FAQ or compendium of these solutions, refined and retried over time.