Using Data to Inform Design

Back in November I gave a presentation at DC Refresh titled Designing for One Billion People. One of the strategies I mentioned was being data-informed, rather than data-driven. The idea is that research and testing should be used to test hypotheses and inform decisions, but at the end of the day a designer has to base his or her decisions not just on numbers, but also other priorities like brand identity, business strategy and common sense.

[If you haven't already read it, Jeff Gothelf wrote a great post about this topic: "You vs. The Data: When to Stop Optimizing and Start Thinking."

This week, I have the privilege of joining Craig Green (web strategist at Network Solutions) and Paul Koch (marketing specialist at Viget Labs) on a DC Refresh panel moderated by Motley Fool's Greg Robleto to discuss data-driven design:

"This month’s event focuses on the science of making data-driven design decisions and the art of knowing when to listen and when to ignore the numbers. Join us this upcoming Thursday at Viget Labs for a panel discussion with seasoned experts in design, development and strategy as we discuss techniques, tips, and helpful tools for making calculated design decisions."

If you're interested in attending, we'll be at Viget Labs this Thursday evening at 6:30pm, May 19th. You can register (it's free) at Eventbrite:

• http://refreshdc-may2011.eventbrite.com/

Hope to see you there- be sure to say hello!

No, The Check-In Isn't Dead

Blog post highlighting the argument whether check-ins are an important component feature going forward, or a passing fad (I'd argue the former.)

The author proceeds to posit that a check-in feature is just that – a feature – that exists to tell the app you're doing something, and to share that something with your friends. I suspect there's an affinity component as well – I'm going to be less likely to check-in to a place I don't like, or with which I don't want to associate myself.

Thus, the inverse is true: if I check-in, I'm expressing at least a neutral and more likely positive regard or relevance to me for the "brand" of that place.

Do you agree? Are check-ins a passing fad or here to stay? Do you think checking in means more than just passing along information?

Read more on Business Insider:  No, The Check-In Isn't Dead

This Is What Skype 5 For Mac Should Look Like

Seems there are some very angry Mac users of the latest version of Skype. One person took matters into his own hands, and redesigned their interface for them.

Read more:

This Is What Skype 5 For Mac Should Look Like

A little bit of history repeating

I like to use Things, a task management application, to wrangle all my day-to-day todos and projects. After trying several different applications, I chose Things largely because it seamlessly syncs to my iphone, ipad and mac laptop, and has just the right mix of powerful features that don't get in the way of just wanting to quickly manage todos.

This post from Cultured Code's blog describes the team's approach to designing just one dialog: creating repeating events. This potentially complex interaction has been done very well, and very badly, in various calendar and todo applications. Here's an example of a team that got it right, and how they approached the design process.

Habemus Dialogum – We Have a Dialog


 P.S. For those recognizing the lyrics referenced in the title of this post:

Designing Search: Best Practices

Back in July, Tyler Tate and H. Stefan Olafsson authored a great collection of best practices for designing search functionality: how a search box should be presented, how results should be formatted, and more. (Be sure to check out the section about faceted navigation.)

They reference Marcia Bates' landmark "berrypicking" article from 1989 about search and information retrieval – definitely worth reading if you are interested in search interfaces and interactions.

Read more:

The Scent of Search Johnny Holland – It's all about interaction » Blog Archive

Making User Interface Elements Difficult to Use By Intent

Nice write-up by Jacob Gube describing situations in which it makes sense to design an interface to be harder to use:

1. When using the interface element is costly to the user if used by accident
2. When there’s an overall improvement to the UI as a whole
3. When the cost of maintaining a feature is costly to the provider if used frequently

Read more:

Making User Interface Elements Difficult to Use By Intent

11 Principles of Interaction Design explained

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”

 - Albert Einstein

Paul Seys, a UK-based user experience designer, describes 11 core principles of interaction design, including one of my favorites, Cognitive Load. Put simply, don't make users think.

• 11 Principles of Interaction Design explained

App Icons on iPad and iPhone

Handy for those doing mobile application work for iPad and iPhone:

Technical Q&A QA1686: App Icons on iPad and iPhone

Follow: A New AddThis Labs Experiment

This morning we released a new feature in AddThis Labs called AddThis Follow. You've probably noticed "Follow us on Facebook..." and similar links on various websites you've visited. We thought we'd offer our AddThis publishers an easy way to not only quickly add this feature to their site, but also track clickthroughs to their social profiles right in their AddThis analytics console.

I've added my own Follow menu to this blog, over on the right side of the page.

This new feature supports social profiles on Facebook, Twitter, RSS, LinkedIn, Google Buzz, YouTube and Flickr. Once visitors start using it, I'll be able to go to my AddThis.com analytics, switch from "Sharing" to "Subscribe/Follow" data and track how my visitors are connecting to my various social media profiles.

We'd love to hear what you think of this experiment; would you use it? Are there things you would add or change? Give us your feedback in the AddThis Follow forum.

Get a Follow menu for your own site here:

• AddThis Follow Labs Experiment

Read more:

• Justin Thorp's official blog post

Fun with dynamic features: MSN article template

As I was skimming through the morning headlines and tweetdeck channels, I came across an MSN article about the first hurricane of the season, and was struck by how many dynamic HTML features had been packed into one article template. MSN must be testing these features, because in the time it's taken me to write this, they've added one and replaced another.

Check these out:

First, a persistent global header above "Today's headlines in two minutes"; also note the persistent app drawer at the bottom and icons on the side, more about those in a minute:

As you scroll down the page, "Today's Headlines..." scrolls away leaving the global header (which will scroll away momentarily...):

Each of the icons on the side follow you down the page as you scroll; each opens to provide a link to jump further down what is becoming a very long page:

If you decide at any point to share something, that persistent drawer at the bottom slides up:

And if you keep on scrolling down the page, you'll find the rest of the text behind a drawer control, and encounter rich media like videos (which you could have jumped down to by clicking one of those icons on the side):

But we're not done yet... next, you'll discover comments, with more expandable drawers:

And finally, the pièce de résistance, a draggable timeline of videos:

MSN must be testing these features, because in the time it's taken me to write this, they've added two other features: a storm tracker at the top of the article, and instead of the draggable videos, a trending chart of content:

Rich interactive experience, or dynamic templates run amok? What do you think?

Designing for the iPhone and iPad - A Collection of Pre-Built GUI Kits

 
If you are developing interfaces for the iPhone or iPad and are looking for pre-build GUI resources, check out this comprehensive collection from Speckyboy:

• iPhone and iPad Development GUI Kits, Stencils and Icons - Speckyboy Design Magazine

Mobile Interface Development Tools for Android, iPhone, iPad, Palm Pre

This is a great collection of on and offline tools for developing interfaces for mobile devices, including a Photoshop file for iPad applications. Enjoy!

Mobile Interface Development: Ultimate GUI Toolbox for Android, iPhone, iPad, Palm Pre | Coding | PelFusion.com

hat tip: InspiredMag and PelFusion.com

shared via AddThis.com

Could the iPad make reading easier?

Apple is reportedly purchasing eye-tracking technology that could be used in a future e-reader or iPad that watches where a user's eyes are, allowing the projected text and interface to be modified as the user reads the page. This could not only have ramifications for assisted technologies, but could also be used to augment text as we read it.

Imagine if you were doing a bit of speed reading – skimming first and last sentences, paying attention to key words – and the text helped actually highlight the most important text as you scanned it.

What if supporting resources or rich media could be presented, based on what parts of the text you pay most attention?

For us interaction designers, imagine if it were much easier to obtain eye-tracking data for pages and sites as we designed them!

This kind of technology could add an additional layer of interaction context, significantly enriching the overall reading experience. The potential is pretty exciting; only time will tell where the technology could take us.

Eye-Tracking Tablets and the Promise of Text 2.0 | Epicenter | Wired.com

Guidelines, Tools and Resources For Web Wireframing | W3Avenue

When I worked for Netscape, AOL and Revolution we generally used Illustrator for wireframes. At Clearspring/AddThis, our creative director Jeff Wong and I use Omnigraffle, as we can frequently move directly from flows, to wireframes, to mocks all in the same tool. Much faster. Also, Omnigraffle handles multi-page PDFs rather nicely. I'm also a fan of their Omnifocus Todo app, but that's a different blog post!

This link from W3Avenue includes a huge collection of resources about Web wireframing:

Guidelines, Tools and Resources For Web Wireframing | W3Avenue

What's your favorite wireframing tool? What's been your experience with web wireframing?

Fact and Fiction: The Truth About Browser Cookies

For those looking for a very well articulated summary of cookies, how they work and what they mean, check out this article from Lifehacker.com:

Fact and Fiction: The Truth About Browser Cookies - Cookies - Lifehacker