software interface design principles
10 pointers to keep in mind when designing an application interface
1. Understand the design
design is not just decoration. Its about communication and problem solving.
- Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works
- Good design is problem solving
- Visual design is about problem solving, not about personal preference or unsupported opinion.
- Components of Usability: Learnability, Efficiency, Memorability, Errors, Satisfaction
- The details are not the details. They make up the design.
- External Inspiration. History, art, other mediums, other professions. Find beauty in everything.
- Field of usability design takes root in cognitive sciences.A combination of psychology, computer science, human factors and engineering.These are all analytical fields. The hidden danger is to neglect areas that are not easily addressed in the framework of science and engineering
2. Cultivate the Culture
- The interface structure of a software system necessarily will show a congruence with the social structure of the organization that produced it.
- The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
- A climate for good design
3. Think Critically
If the question is wrong, the answer is irrelevant.
- State the problem in a way that will allow a solution
- Too often we measure everything to understand nothing
4. Ignore Users
We have to look beyond what people say and understand their real needs
- To design easy-to-use interface, see what users do, not what they say.
- Just listening to user doesn’t mean hearing the user
- People don’t know what they want until you show it to them
5. Document and Code Better
- No matter how much you plan, you’re likely to get half wrong anyway. Don’t do “paralysis through analysis” thing. This slows progress and saps morale.
- Put aside some time to pay off your code and design debt.
6. Avoid Specialization
use specialists for special things
- While specialization has its advantages, it also creates a situation where staffers see just their own little world instead of entire context
- Understanding of both the construction materials and the behaviour of real humans.
- As work passes into hands of specialists, the patterns which they use become more and more banal, more wilful and less anchored in reality.
7. Cut Features
ignore the darned competition
- eg. Cut off all the crap on a race car just to make it look fast. then the car will be really faster.
- Concentrate on things that are really important
- Give users what they actually want, don’t add features just coz competitors have them
- No user will be able to use product of very high complexity.
- keep tool clean and uncluttered. People will figure out how to solve issues on their own.
- Ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.
- Progressive disclosure of the controls and forms …
- Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.
- Making simple complex is commonplace. making complex simple is creativity
8. Deliver the basics
Enough with Ajax and visual effects
- Clear content, simple navigation and answers to customer questions have biggest impact on business value.
- Next few pointers are on keeping site accessible instead of making site accessible
- Copy-writing is interface design.
- If the interface needs instructions there is room for improvement
- Not whether we could, just whether we should
9. Balance context and consistency
need for consistency with need for context
- User spend most of the time on other sites.
- A system’s properties cannot be accurately understood independent of each other.
- Things that look different should act different, things that look same should act same.
10. Fail Fast, Iterate, Explore
this isn’t construction or rocket science
- For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple neat and wrong.
- We begin by something. Some of it works, most doesn’t. We build continually by keeping what works and throwing away what doesn’t.
- However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results
- Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration
I came accross a really great presentation on user interface design on http://www.slideshare.net . It is created by garret dimon http://garettdimon.com/ and summarizes ui design concepts in the book Getting Real: Web Apps http://gettingreal.37signals.com
