Jim said:
Go back even further. I heartily recommend a
study of heraldry %u2014 coats of arms. Layering
of colors, readability at a distance,
points of difference%u2026 there's a lot of good
basics there that have been around for
1000 years.
Agreed! In a different context, look even
For many years we stayed away from the design part -- now see both as
very intertwined - user research, wireframe, usability test, repeat ...
Usability results can be harder to communicate without a design to
talk to. Talking to the design or leading up to communicating the
design around
At least a few posts seem to suggest that design is more art than science.
This is a serious -- and possibly widespread (in the community, may not be
in this forum) -- misconception, and is founded on a misunderstanding of the
term 'design' which deems the terms 'art' and 'design' to be near
[I sent this earlier today and apparently left off the ixda list as a cc.
Jared, perhaps you haven't seen it either.]
Jared,
Allow me to apologize. My tone has been confrontational rather than seeking
to find common ground. But you got my hackles up when you, not once, but
twice in the same
I wasn't trying to say that being a usability professional is like being a
movie critic in terms of **specific** methods. I was using the movie
critic as one example of the age old debate as to whether being able to
critique, evaluate, measure, analyze a domain, bestows on one the ability to
*Good* designers are, in fact, more enlightened about
good design than *good* usability practitioners and it is that indefinable
something that separates art from science that makes it so.
H. Not all of us live in that dichotomous world that divides art from
science. We may have to
So I didn't read the screed, but I did download the usability study. It was
eye-opening for me, and I have some experience at crafting accessible
websites. The NNG did a careful study of visually and physically disabled
people attempting to perform common web tasks (look up a bus schedule, buy a
On Dec 18, 2007, at 2:21 PM, Jared M. Spool wrote:
What it sounds like you're trying to say is that somehow designers
are more enlightened about good design than usability practitioners.
I think this is a fallacious argument (and, to some, probably
insulting).
Generally speaking good
Nicely summarized, Murli.
BTW, one could conceive of such a thing as:
Design for Unusability -- think security devices: you might want them to be
unusable (by the bad guys). Or is 'unusability' merely a special case of
'usability' where 'usability' = 0 or a negative value, in a
These conversations are why I have joined this list and find this to be the
best professional group I have found in a long time.
These conversations are painful, but they should be! To be successful we need
to synthesis all of our backgrounds into this practice of interaction design.
If you
On Dec 19, 2007, at 2:00 PM, Andrei Herasimchuk wrote:
On Dec 18, 2007, at 2:21 PM, Jared M. Spool wrote:
What it sounds like you're trying to say is that somehow designers
are more enlightened about good design than usability practitioners.
I think this is a fallacious argument (and, to
Jared,
I appear to have touched a nerve. My comments below:
If a designer isn't more enlightened about good design than a usability
practitioner, than I would have to say they probably shouldn't be designers.
I'm not sure why this has to sound like it would be insulting to usability
On Dec 19, 2007, at 10:17 AM, Nick Iozzo wrote:
The Industrial revolution created a need for Industrial designers.
The information revolution (ugh, but what else to call it?) has
created a need for Interaction designers.
For consistency, I would phrase that as: The digital revolution has
On Dec 19, 2007, at 12:51 PM, Jared M. Spool wrote:
Why is it important that designers distance themselves from the
evaluation side? Where is this coming from?
I'm not sure it's important. I only distance myself from the likes
of Nielsen simply because he has never built or designed
On Dec 19, 2007, at 4:11 PM, Joseph Selbie wrote:
I appear to have touched a nerve.
Yes. You have. I read what you've written and think your promoting a
design approach that is based on an outdated understanding of what
modern usability practice is.
It comes from two assertions in your
On Dec 19, 2007, at 4:40 PM, Andrei Herasimchuk wrote:
What I need are
people who can not only give me feedback, but feedback I can actually
do something with, or ideas that can be implemented or meet the same
design constraints I have to use in designing the solution. Feedback
that I can't
Sorry, but I disagree. This is an age old debate. But there is no question
in my mind that it is harder to write a book than to write a book review.
It
is harder to make a movie than to write a movie review.
With all due respect, this is a terrible analogy. Usability analysis and
research is
Robert,
The word harder has become an issue here that I really never intended.
I was only trying to convey the notion that designing is the rarer talent,
because it is an amazing synthesis of both left brain and right brain
processes. I personally don't find it hard. I would find
On Dec 19, 2007, at 4:03 PM, Allison wrote:
Actually, I don't know that that's true. If you consider that
Alertbox is a newsletter meant to be opened (or not) from an inbox,
then the articles titles are 'designed' to get my attention and
explain the article's content quickly. If only everyone
On Dec 19, 2007, at 5:54 PM, Jeff Seager wrote:
On Dec 19, 2007, at 4:03 PM, Allison wrote:
Actually, I don't know that that's true. If you consider that
Alertbox is a newsletter meant to be opened (or not) from an inbox,
then the articles titles are 'designed' to get my attention and
On Dec 19, 2007, at 4:03 PM, Allison wrote:
Actually, I don't know that that's true. If you consider that
Alertbox is a newsletter meant to be opened (or not) from an inbox,
then the articles titles are 'designed' to get my attention and
explain the article's content quickly. If only
/accessibility
Jeff Seager
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 04:06:09 +
CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
What Jakob is best at is causing a stir! He's been doing it for years
/accessibility
Jeff Seager
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 04:06:09 +
CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
What Jakob is best at is causing a stir! He's been doing it for years
On Dec 18, 2007, at 8:16 AM, Murli Nagasundaram wrote:
I hope I am making sense.
Hi Murli,
You are making sense.
However, you're not correct. In particular, this statement:
Usability is about ensuring that your design is NOT BAD -- i.e.,
does not
in any way impede, restrict, prevent,
Jared,
Are you suggesting that the domain of usability is growing? Nearly everything I
have read and most of what I have heard about usability is in fact 'working to
make the interface transparent' - which implies staying out of the way, or
making the interface 'not bad'. It does not seam the
Murli,
I think that's a really useful distinction -- good design versus not-
bad design.
Perhaps unusually for a designer, I long ago put myself in the not-
bad design camp. To flourish as a designer and business person, I had
to let go of the conceit that every job has to be award-winning
PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mark
Schraad
Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 9:29 AM
To: Jeff Seager
Cc: ixda
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss!!
Hi Jeff,
You elude to an important point for clarification. That one is an expert in
usability, does
Kim, to reinforce your point, I was sent a link to a simple flash-based game
that I passed on to friends and family. It's a very simple, very
crudely-designed game, but has turned out to be so addictive that it has led
some to joke that it's threatening to tear apart families and destroy
Correct me if I am wrong here, Joseph, but from your perspective the term
Usability should be used only with regard to Testing and Evaluation. Am I
right? (I'm not challenging your perspective, only trying to determine if
there is a consensual or at least majority view here.)
On 12/19/07,
Correct me if I am wrong here, Joseph, but from your perspective the term
Usability should be used only with regard to Testing and Evaluation. Am I
right? (I'm not challenging your perspective, only trying to determine if
there is a consensual or at least majority view here.)
That is a good
It appears to me that you are equating transparent with conforms
to a set of known standards and to me that makes no sense.
I see no inconsistency at all in doing something better than the norm
and building a transparent interaction.
I understand that you aren't disagreeing with the idea of
Us All alertboxes.
Cheers =]
Bryan
http://www.bryanminihan.com
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Katie
Albers
Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 3:08 PM
To: 'ixda'
Cc: 'ixda'
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] The mighty UX guru has spoken - Discuss
Mark,
I don't agree with the conclusion that usability is always about
'staying out of the way' or making the interface 'not bad'. I think
it's about ensuring that the
design and features are helping the users (and the business) move
toward their goals, rather than hindering them. This is as
Thanks, Mark. I agree. I also believe that usability may be the core
component of all design (I don't care if my house/car/computer/website is sleek
and pretty if it doesn't function). And though I occasionally praise Nielsen's
usability evangelism, this is one of those fields in which I
What we have here is a failure to communicate.
Comparing 'usability' to 'design' is like comparing 'cooking' to a
'watermelon'. It's a non-sensical notion, in my mind.
Usability is a quality of a design, like performance or elegance. It
can only be thought of relative to other designs. One
I don't agree with the conclusion that usability is always about
'staying out of the way' or making the interface 'not bad'. I think
it's about ensuring that the
design and features are helping the users (and the business) move
toward their goals, rather than hindering them. This is as likely to
Katie said:
Transparency is more nearly synonymous with highly learnable than it is with
standard. For example, the interface of a book is so transparent we seldom
think of it as having one, but the process of learning to use it is quite
extensive.
*Brilliantly* illustrated in this hilarious
Jeff said:
In terms of usability and design both, the challenge I see again and again
is that most people create for themselves and their peers, with very little
consideration given to those invisible unknown people out there somewhere
who perceive and function differently. I've observed the
The latest from Jacob Nielsen's Alertbox
AJAX, rich Internet UIs, mashups, communities, and user-generated content
often add more complexity than they're worth. They also divert design
resources and prove (once again) that what's hyped is rarely what's most
profitable.
Perhaps Mr. Nielsen would rather we return the user to a clunky,
non-contextual, individual page refresh era.
he did not say that, nor do I think that's what he's implying.
Here's the summary of the article, in bullet points
- simple websites do not need RIA
- community/social feature
I didn't say that he said that - I was making a joke :-)
I did receive an alertbox though with the subject: Alertbox: Web 2.0
Can Be Dangerous
Summary:
AJAX, rich Internet UIs, mashups, communities, and user-generated content
often add more complexity than they're worth. They also divert design
I haven't read the entire article, just the summary, a quick scan and
years of reading Nielsen is enough :-) He does have a point though -
design/development teams deploying new technology just because it's,
well, new technology is always a dangerous thing. But that certainly
doesn't make it
Replace Web 2.0 with Flash and were back to 1999. :)
He used the Iron Chef - Facebook analogy and Mr. Nielsen said that:
The Iron Chef competition makes for great TV, but has nothing to do with
running a restaurant as a successful business.
Facebook has much drama that makes for good press
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