One of ten pages from Craig Marion's Software Design Smorgasbord. The others are:
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This page contains information on interface design itself as well as its preliminary activities such as task analysis and requirements gathering. For information on interaction design (how interfaces behave, as opposed to what they contain and how they look), please see
As I stated when I first posted this site on May 1, 1997, I want to be on record as endorsing the viewpoint Alan Cooper articulated clearly in About Face (1995):
My four years at Strohl Systems (1997-2001) showed me very clearly that while developers can sometimes do excellent design work, it's impossible for them to maintain the standpoint of users adequately while they're doing development work, and that this viewpoint needs to be represented on design teams. Interaction designers, usability specialists, or whatever other title they're given are necessary to ensure that this standpoint is never lost. |
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| Especially Recommended | |
| ACM SigChi Home Page | ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) SIGCHI (Special Interest Group on Computer Human Interaction) "brings together people working on the design, evaluation, implementation, and study of interactive computing systems for human use." Interactions is their excellent bi-monthly magazine for designers of interactive products. The SIGCHI bulletin also contains valuable information. Their bibliography is huge. (Posted 5/97, Updated 3/03) |
| AIGA Experience Design | A community of interest for an interdisciplinary community of professionals within the national AIGAorganization. Some of the presentations on the right hand side are the best I'm aware of: the roles of interaction designer and usability specialist, for instance. Also quite valuable is the experience design case study archive. (Posted 5/02) |
| Interaction Design Group | An international community of people who are practicing, teaching, and studying interaction design. The discussion group is the best I'm aware of in this area. You can view the archives without participating. (Posted 12/04) |
| Other Selected Sources | |
| UIML.org | User Interface Markup Language. A language to define the location and interaction of actual interface elements -- the buttons, menus, lists and other controls -- that allow a program to function in a graphical interface. Tutorials are presented. UIML was originally developed at Harmonia and Virginia Tech, and is now being evolved at OASIS (Posted 9/99, Updated 07/04) |
| WARIA | Workflow And Reengineering International Association. Chartered to identify and clarify issues that are common to all users of workflow and those who are in the process of reengineering their organizations. (Posted 5/98) |
| Workflow Management Coalition | Established in August 1993 as a non-profit international body for the development and promotion of workflow standards. (Posted 7/97) |
| IA Summit 2008 |
April 10-14, 2008. Miami.
"The 2008 theme of “Experiencing Information” shifts the focus back to users. A user experience exists only to allow people to “do things” (in the broadest sense ... buying books, sharing photos with friends, looking something up on wikipedia, etc). What dimensions of information do users typically experience while “doing things”, and how can we design information environments that best support these users and activities?" These are links to previous confedrencs, where many presentations and audio is available. (Posted 3/08) |
| pdc2008 | Sept. 30-Oct. 4, 2008. Bloomington, Indiana. Participatory Design (PD) is a collection of principles and practices aimed at making technologies, tools, environments, businesses, and social institutions more responsive to human needs. The conference theme for this Participatory Design Conference, PDC 2008, is Experiences and Challenges. (Posted 3/08) |
| User Interface 13 |
October 13-16, 2008. Cambridge, Massachusetts.
UIE's Jared M. Spool and his team of usability researchers created User Interface 13 for designers, information architects, and usability professionals who need to tackle their biggest design challenges. (Posted 7/08) |
| 21st ACM UIST Symposium | October 19-22, 2008. Monterey, California. "UIST (ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology) is the premier forum for innovations in the software and technology of human-computer interfaces." (Posted 3/08) | Previous Conference Sites Still of Interest |
| Webstock 06 and 08 Session Recordings | Webstock08 was held in Wellington, New Zealand, on February 11-15, 2008. It was attended by over 500 people and consisted of three days of workshops followed by two days of the conference proper. These are videos of the presentations, plus those from 2006. (Posted 5/08) |
| IUI2008 |
January 13-16, 2008. Canary Islands, Spain.
"The principal international forum for reporting outstanding research and development on intelligent user interfaces." These are links to past conferences. (Posted 8/07) |
| DUX 2007 |
November 5-7, 2007. Chicago.
Changing roles & shifting landscapes "Social media and networks are creating new design challenges. How do we inspire and enable people's ability to contribute, create, personalize, and share experiences? How are design roles changing in the face of this shifting landscape." (Posted 8/07) |
| Oz IA Conference & Retreat |
September 30 - October 1, 2006. Sydney, Australia.
A conference/retreat on information archticture. This is the program. (Posted 9/06) |
| PDC 2006 |
July 31- August 5, 2006. Trento, Italy.
Participatory Design Conference. The theme is Expanding Boundaries in Design. "Participatory design (PD) is a diverse collection of principles and practices aimed at making technologies and social institutions more responsive to human needs. A central tenet of PD is the direct involvement of people in the co-design of the systems they use. The PD Conferences have been held every two years since 1990." These are links to previous conferences. Sponsored by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. (Posted 5/06) |
| IA Summit 2006 |
March 23-27, 2006. Vancouver.
These are the main sessions along with downloadable slides and papers; this is the conference blog; and these are the boxes and arrows summaries of the sessions. Many of the presentations and handout materials from from the 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, and 2000 conferences are available online. (Posted 6/05, Updated 8/06) |
| O'Reilly Emerging TechnologyConference |
March 6-9, 2006. San Diego.
These are the sessions. (Posted 3/06) |
| DUX05 |
November 3-5, 2005. San Francisco.
ACM SIGCHI, ACM SIGGRAPH, and AIGA collaborate in this Designing for User eXperience conference. (Posted 9/05) |
| Web Essentials 05 |
September 29-30, 2005. Sidney, Australia.
This is the program, but don't miss the podcasts of the sessions. (Posted 11/05) |
| Adaptive Path User Experience Week |
August 22-25, 2005. Washington, DC.
This is the accompanying weblog. (Posted 10/05) |
| Interaction Design and Children |
June 8-10, 2005. Boulder, Colorado.
"Children are becoming frequent and experienced users of technology. As this trend continues, it is increasingly important to understand both the needs of children and the nature of technological design for young people." This is the IDC 2004 site. (Posted 2/05) |
| UIST2004 |
October 24-27, 2004. Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Seventeenth Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology. "UIST is the premier forum for innovations in the software and technology of human-computer interfaces. Sponsored by ACM's special interest groups on computer-human interaction (SIGCHI) and computer graphics (SIGGRAPH), UIST brings together researchers and practitioners from diverse areas that include traditional graphical & web user interfaces, tangible & ubiquitous computing, virtual & augmented reality, multimedia, new input & output devices, and CSCW." (Posted 9/04) |
| Intelligent User Interfaces 2004 |
Jan 13-16, 2004. Island of Madeira, Portugal.
IUI is an annual conference that "has served as the principal international forum for reporting outstanding research and applications in intelligent user interfaces." This year it is being held in conjunction with CADUI, a triennial conference that has been the reference point for outstanding research and development of tools, environments and middleware for automating the design of user interfaces. The IUI Library contains papers from this and past conferences. (Posted 11/03. Updated 2/04.) |
| User Interface 9 Conference |
October 11-14, 2004. Cambridge, Massachusetts.
"The best conference to learn the latest design techniques." Strong group of speakers and links to articles and interviews with them. This is a description of the program. (Posted 7/03, Updated 2/05) |
| For Use 2003 |
October 19-22, 2003. Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Second International Conference on Usage-Centered Design A Conference on Usage-Centered, Task-Oriented, and Performance-Centered Design for Software and Web Applications The theme this year is "Performance by Design." This is the program. These are the speakers. This is the 2002 conference. (Posted 1/03, Revised 2/05) |
| The Conferences on Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces |
June 23-26, 2003. Pittsburgh.
"As people become more sensitive to the aesthetic and emotional dimensions of products that go beyond traditional aspects of usability, the need to understand and create resonance between people and products increases." (Posted 2/03) |
| Especially Recommended | |
| Adaptive Path | "We help businesses maximize the value of their investment in product development by crafting effective user experiences with an emphasis on measurable results." See especially their publications page, which features articles by Jesse James Garrett, Jeffery Vreen, Peter Merholz, and others, their case studies, their workshops, and their training. (Posted 3/05, Updated 3/06) | Cooper Interactive Design | Alan Cooper is one of the most respected user interface designers. Look at the process his organization uses. (The modeling phase includes the use of personas, a technique he has championed.) Cooper Interaction Design's monthly newsletters are also excellent, and the featured section contains articles by and about their work and people. (Cooper's Goal-Directed Design (1996) is a classic. (Posted 5/97, Revised 3/03) |
| LukeW Interface Designs | Luke Wroblewski's website. Luke is the author of Site Seeing: A Visual Approach to Web Usability. See especially his portfolio and within it, his web applications that "move beyond simple information delivery and provide valuable services with the ability to create, collaborate, collect, and more." Many other resources, as well. I especially liked his recent post on Google vs. Yahoo! Interface Design. (Posted 7/05) |
| ForUse | The Web site for practitioners of usage-centered design. By Larry Constantine and Lucy Lockwood, two prominent members of the HCI community who published their methodology in Software for Use (described in the middle of the page). Don't miss their excellent collection of articles. They also have some interesting design tools available. (Posted 4/99, Updated 3/05) |
| LevelTen Web Design | Strong samples in web design and Flash multimedia. (Posted 6/05) |
| In Context Enterprises | Karen Holtzblatt and Hugh Beyer's consultancy. Specialists in Contextual Design. Their publications page contains very good material, including Apprenticing with the Customer: A Collaborative Approach to Requirements Definition , Representing Work for the Purpose of Design, and the first description of contextual design published, Making Customer-Centered Design Work for Teams. (Posted 7/97, Updated 3/03) |
| Volere | "We provide business analysts, requirements engineers, systems analysts and similar with resources and training for effective requirements management." This is their template. The site has pages listing articles and resources and provides a large number of other resources on the home page. (Posted 4/03) |
| Cognetics Corporation | Valuable perspectives on user interface design, the redesign of legacy systems, and and knowledge management. See also their LUCID design framework. It's a clear and strong methodology. Dr. Charles Kreitzberg is the founder of Cognetics. (Posted 6/99, Updated 3/03) |
| Gomoll Design | Simple, friendly, and elegant site of Kate Gomoll's consultancy. "We're experts in user-centered design." The Process information is especially clear and well-presented. The site could benefit, however, from examples of work rather than just a client list. (Posted 4/01) |
| GUI Guy | The Makeovers are very well done. (Posted 9/97, Updated 3/03) |
| Other Selected Sources | |
| Task-Z.com | "Executive Resource for User-Centered Design." Contains basic information and the company's original take on user-centered design, usability engineering, and a number of related topics. The section I enjoyed most was a series of case studies that wasn't mentioned on the home page; links were provided on several "Show Resources" tabs. See especially the "Graphic View" where it's available. (Posted 8/01) |
| AM&A | User-interface and information visualization design consulting. The project presentations they give are very strong and include downloadable demos. There are also a number of fine articles by Aaron Marcus, and the selection of design-related websites is also strong. (Posted 9/00, Updated 3/03) |
| Especially Recommended | |
| Microsoft User Interface Information | MSDN resources on user-centered design and related topics. (Posted 11/97, Updated 2/03, Link Updated 2/05) |
| The TaskGallery | A "3D research prototype user interface that expands the desktop into an entire office with an unlimited number of desktops. The screen becomes a long gallery with paintings on the walls that represent different tasks, and the user moves quickly and easily from one to another with a simple series of mouse and keyboard commands." This is an explanation of its overall design. (Posted 11/06) |
| The WaterSluice software engineering methodology | A Ph.D. thesis dated 12/14/1998 by Ronald LeRoi Burback of the CompSci department at Stanford presenting a new methodology based on the spiral and waterfall methodologies. Also contains a discussion of established methodologies. (Posted 6/02, Updated 3/03) |
| LUCID design methodology | Logical User-Centered Interaction Design. Developed at the Cognetics corporation under the leadership of Dr. Charles Kreitzberg. Contributors included Whitney Quesenbery, Scott Gilkeson, Janis Morariu, Dr. H. Rex Hartson and Dr. Deborah Hix. (Posted 6/02, Link Updated 2/05) |
| Other Selected Sources | |
| The elements of interface design | This site from Virginia Tech focuses on four of them: usability, visualization, functionality, and accessibility. The list of sites providing examples to emulate in the lower right is very nice. Part of the design shop resource for effective web-based teaching. (Posted 5/02, Link Updated 3/03) |
| User Interface Design | from the Common Front Group at Cornell. An introduction to the process, contents, and elements of UI Design. (Posted 11/97) |
| Group for User Interface Research |
University of California at Berkeley.
Much of the research focuses on NotePals: Sharing and Synchronizing Handwritten Notes with Multimedia Documents and Sketching Storyboards to Illustrate Interface Behaviors. The links page lists six interesting classes, all of which contain extensive online materials. (Posted 1/99) |
| NYU's Center for Advanced Technology | "A bridge between the New Media Industry and New York University." See especially the technology and projects page, which includes a number of demos. (Posted 1/99, Updated 3/03) |
| Especially Recommended | |
| Attributes and Behaviors of Performance Centered Systems | This 1995 article, explaining 19 attributes of performance- centered systems, has become a classic. Originally published in Performance Improvement Quarterly, Vol. 8. No. 1. (Posted 5/97, Updated 7/99, Link Updated 2/05) |
| Adaptive Path Essay Archives | Essays from the consultancy that has one of the best collections of information designers working together anywhere. Also note that emeritus Jeff Veen offers his classic as a PDF download. This important book is now dated in its context but still on target in its perspective. (Posted 3/06) |
| Introduction to Web 2.0 | By Bokardo/Joshua Porter. Excellent annotated set of links to descriptive articles. (Posted 8/07) |
| A List Apart archives | Articles from back issues of A List Apart, "for People Who Make Websites." You can search by category. (Posted 5/02, Link Updated 3/06) |
| Attributes of Performance-Centered Systems: What Can We Learn From Five Years of EPSS/PCD Competition Winners? | By Craig Marion. Looking at the the 35 award-winning entries in the first five years of this competition both clarifies Gloria Gery's 19 Attributes of Performance-Centered Systems and suggests some new ones. Originally published in the November 2002 issue of Technical Communication (Vol 49, No. 4, pp. 428-443). Winner of STC's 2002 Frank R. Smith Outstanding Journal Article competition for Distinguished Technical Communication. (Thanks to Gery Associates for obtaining permission from STC to make this article available online and hosting it.) (Posted 12/02, Updated 4/03) |
| Making Personas More Powerful: Details to Drive Strategic and Tactical Design | By George Olsen. Extremely helpful piece on the development of personas. Contains an important critique of the Cooper approach. See especially the toolkit that George has developed. (Posted 10/04, Updated 3/06) |
| UIWeb | Scott was a program manager for Microsoft for 10 years and now consults on project management, web design, and usability. His essays are thoughtful and interesting, and he hosts several discussion groups. (Posted 7/01, Updated 6/03) |
| Articles on Usage-Centered Design | See especially Instructive Interaction: Making Innovative Interfaces Self-Teaching By Larry L. Constantine and Lucy A. D. Lockwood and From Usage Scenarios to User Interface Elements in a Few Steps by Hermann Kaindl and Rudolf Jezek. From Constantine & Lockwood's ForUse site. (Posted 1/03) |
| Interactive Prototyping | By Dave Rogers. Part one is about PDF prototyping, and part two is a step-by-step look at creating PDF prototypes and using them in usability testing. This is the sample PDF creating using Visio 2003 and Adobe Acrobat Professional 6.0. via elearning post. (Posted 6/05) |
| Current Web Style | By Ben Hunt, Scratchmedia "This is where I try to sum up the current state-of-the-art in graphic design for web pages, and identify the distinctive features that make a web page look fresh, appealing and easy to use." See also Ben's Web 2.0 how-to design guide. (Posted 7/08) | What is Performance-Centered Design? | by Craig Marion. An overview of PCD and the case for implementing it. (Posted 3/97) |
| Navigation | By Elizabeth Boling. Unique approach: modular and visual. Very nicely done. Via epss infosite. (Posted 5/01) |
| Website Production Management Techniques | Misnamed, this is actually a full-blown seven-phase website development methodology. By Adobe (formerly Macromedia). (Posted 3/06) |
| Other Selected Sources | |
| Wireframing with Patterns | by Lindsay Ellersby. "Wireframing in patterns does away with the necessity of reinventing the wheel each time and brings greater consistency to our designs." (Posted 4/07) |
| Remote Contextual Inquiry: A Technique to Improve Enterprise Software | By Jeff English and Lynn Rampoldi-Hnilo. How to use simultaneous web conferencing and teleconferencing to uncover the design issues users encounter with customized software. (Posted 6/05) |
| Sitepoint articles | These design and layout articles are grouped under the categories usability and information architecture. accessibility, design principles, design practice, design tips and tricks, software tutorials, and flash tutorials. (Posted 3/05) |
| IA One Sheeters | "One-Sheeters are quick and easy marketing tools for information architects. They're like mini brochures to advertise IA deliverables." Via xblog. (Posted 6/07) |
| The Principles of Beautiful Web Design | By Jason Beaird. "Anyone, no matter what level of artistic talent he or she has, can come up with a design that works well and looks good--all it takes is a little experience and a working knowledge of some basic layout principles." Via elearningpost (Posted 5/07) |
| The Web's Best Interface Design | Mike Rundle's 10 best sites. Via xblog (Posted 4/07) |
| Photos: The birth of the Lisa and Mac interface | Four sets of photos and captions modified by the book Revolution in the Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made by Andy Hertzfeld. Via iaslash. (Posted 6/06) |
| Sketchboards: Discover Better + Faster UX Solutions | By Brandon Schauer of Adaptive Path. A bare bones rapid prototyping technique, complete with a brief video showing its implementation. The description contains links to models of deliverables. Via E-Learning Post. (Posted 1/08) |
| Papers by Ian Alexander | Ian works with requirements and scenarios. His web site contains many of his papers and book reviews. (Posted 2/05) | information design | Cryptic notes, with interesting integrated links, by Valerie Casey, "visual designer and teacher extrordinaire." Part of a larger Web Design Tutorial. (Posted 5/99, Links Updated 2/05) |
| HFCareers.com | "The Human Factors and Ergonomics career source," with additional listings in usability, interface design, HCI, and information architecture. (Posted 5/05) |
| Narrative User Interfaces | By Gerd Waloszek. User interfaces that attempt to mimic the communication behavior of people by using humanoid representations that have realistic facial expressions, lip-synch speech, and can express emotions. (Posted 4/03) |
| Contingency Design | "Maximizing Online Profitability By Helping People When Things Go Wrong." A downloadable 17 page, 510K PDF White Paper Report. Written and published by 37signals. See also Design Not Found, their set of website critiques. (Posted 9/02) |
| Increasing ROI through Visually Representing Requirements | By Rick Oppedisano. How to create a key deliverable to streamline and improve the design process. Presented at the American Society of Information Systems and Technology (ASIST)'s IA Summit 2002. (Posted 10/02) |
| How People with Disabilities Use the Web | W3C Working Draft, 4 January 2001. Edited by Judy Brewer. See especially Scenarios of People with Disabilities Using the Web , Different Disabilities that Can Affect Web Accessibility , and Assistive Technologies and Adaptive Strategies .(Posted 8/03) |
| information architecture case study | Case study of Information Architect Nathan Shedroff's work on Herman Miller's Red site. (Posted 4/02) |
| Palm OS User Interface Guidelines | How to design software for the Palm interface. (Posted 8/02) |
| User Interface Design for Ubiquitous Computing | By Andreas Zeidler. Presents an architecture for software for small devices like mobile phones. Via camworld. (Posted 3/02) |
| Design as Storytelling | By Thomas Erickson. Non-formal, playful, exploratory methods interaction designers use to begin the process of design. The focus is on the role of storytelling in the process. A more extensive treatment of these themes appears in Notes on Design Practice: Stories and Prototypes as Catalysts for Communication. (Posted 11/99) |
| Maximizing Windows | by Bruce Tognazzini. The story of how a single screen went through seven design iterations. (Posted 8/98) |
| Principles of Good GUI Design | by James Hobart. A concise statement of principles on both the causes of both bad and good design. (Posted 5/98) |
| philosophe.com | "A thoughtful approach to web site quality." See especially Getting to Know Your Audience and Considering Search: Search Topics. (Posted 3/00, Revised 2/05) |
| A Heuristic Evaluation of a World Wide Web Prototype | By Michael D. Levi and Frederick G. Conrad . A study from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The evaluation work at the end of the study is especially useful as a prototype. (Posted 11/01) |
| Especially Recommended | |
| boxesandarrows | "The definitive source for the complex task of bringing architecture and design to the digital landscape." It's "a peer-written journal dedicated to discussing, improving and promoting the work of this community, through the sharing of exemplary technique, innovation and informed opinion." (Posted 4/02, Updated 8/03) |
| Digital Web Magazine | "An online magazine intended for professional web designers, web developers and information architects." The contributor's page is innovative and helpful. (Posted 5/03, Updated 2/05) |
| A List Apart | An online weekly on Web design. It's published a number of especially interesting articles, such as Usability Experts are from Mars, Graphic Designers are from Venus by Curt Cloninger and Experience Design by Bob Jacobson. (Posted 3/00, Updated 9/00) |
| Smashing Magazine | "Founded in August 2006, Smashing Magazine delivers useful and innovative information for web-designers and web-developers. Our aim is to inform our readers about the latest trends and techniques in web-development - clearly, precisely and regularly." See especially their showcase section, which analyzes and presents examples of site features such as navigation menus, blog designs, and shopping baskets. . (Posted 3/07, Updated 3/08) |
| Cooper Journal of Design | "The latest articles by Cooper designers. It's full of good ideas about design, research, and the business of innovation." (Posted 10/02, Updated 11/07) |
| uidesign.net | The focus is on Practical Interaction Design: the processes, the strategies, the patterns and the aesthetics of Interaction Design and Interface Implementation. By David Anderson. See especially the article User Interface Analysis from February, 1999 and the interview with Alan Cooper from February 2000. (Posted 4/00) |
| Other Selected Sources | |
| Ask Tog | A growing collection of pieces by Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini, many structured as answers to questions. Also contains a list of recommended consultants. (Posted 9/98) |
| UI Garden | A bilingual webzine (English and Chinese) dedicated for professionals in the UI and usability_related fields. Via InfoDesign. (Posted 2/05) |
| How to Design | By Leah Buley, Adaptive Path. The presentation is actually titled "How to Be a UX Team of One," but it's really about how to do design. Via elearningpost (Posted 7/08) |
| Capturing the Whole User Experience | By Indi Young, Adaptive Path. "The key to creating a business that addresses the entire spectrum of user experience is to build empathy with your customers. An effective way to do this is to create a mental model, one that considers all the different ways an organization interacts with its users: stores, account statements, customer service calls, product ordering websites, packaging…everything." Indi's slides and audio are both available. This presentation illustrates the approach Indi develops in her book Mental Models/. (Posted 7/08) |
| Kieth Instone presentations | Large list, with a number of downloads. (Posted 12/06) |
| BumpTop | "BumpTop is a fresh and engaging new way to interact with your computer desktop. You can pile and toss documents like on a real desk. Break free from the rigid and mechanical style of standard point-and-click desktops. Interact by pushing, pulling and piling documents with elegant, self revealing gestures." Look at the YouTube video first. With over 2,000,000 hits, it's the most watched video on YouTube ever. Via Nooface. (Posted 9/07) |
| Data-Driven Design Research Personas | Todd Warfel's introduction to his UPA 2007 presentation, plus the presentation slides and blog comments. Slides 51-64 contain some good examples. Via InfoDesign. (Posted 10/07) |
| Slideshare presentations on Web 2.0 | A collection of presentations on the topic of Web 2.0. (Posted 10/07) |
| Functional Specification: What and Why | by Allen Smith. "The job of the Functional Spec to take (a) high level view (of what the client wants the applicattio to do) and provide the details of what it does, how it is used, and what it looks like. Via Infodesign. (Posted 12/01) |
| Deliverables that Clarify, Focus, and Improve Design | By Richard Fulcher, Bryce Glass, Matt Leacock. "The representations we choose for UI design affect both how we think about the design and how others understand it. Concept maps, wireframes, storyboards, and flow-maps speak to different audiences at different stages of the development cycle. This presentation provides examples of these documents and a toolkit for producing them." (Posted 3/06) |
| Closing Plenary IA Summit 2006 | By Peter Morville of peterme.com and Adaptive Path. Peter shares his personal take on the development of information architecture over the past 14 years. There's an audio file of the 41 minute presentation plus a PDF with lots of screenshots and commentary. Via elearningpost (Posted 6/06) |
| Web2.0Slides | "A self-running slide show of over 1,400 of the best Web2.0 sites. It's categorized by tags and sorted alphabetically." You can click on any site in the left-hand column to pause the slide show and surf around. When you're done, simply you resume the show by clicking PLAY. (Posted 6/06) |
| Design Patterns: Defining and Sharing Web Interface Design Languages | By Luke W. Excellent introduction to design patterns and work being done in the area. (Posted 5/07) |
| Designing User Interfaces | James Landay (UC Berkeley) talks about designing tools that support the best practices of user-centered design. 58:12. From the Research Channel. (Posted 11/06) |
| The Future of Information Architecture | A 2004 presentation by Christina Wodke. Via Elegant Hack. (Posted 7/07) |
| Evaluating the User Interface | By Eileen T. Kraemer, Asst. Professor of Computer Science at the University of Georgia, Athens. Nice basic intro. (Posted 5/00) |
| CS160 Fall 1998: User Interface Design, Prototyping, and Evaluation | By James A. Landay. See especially Design Principles & Guidelines, Task Analysis, and advanced user testing, although many of the other presentations under 'classes' are also excellent. (Posted 9/00) |
| Scripting the User Interface | by Nadav Savio This is a narrative version. (Posted 12/00) |
| Filling the Gap: Rapid Prototyping as Visualization in the IDS Process | by Elizabeth Boling and Barbara Bichelmeyer. "Rapid prototyping brings people with different skills together early in the design process." (Posted 5/98) |
| Especially Recommended | |
| Usability.gov | Extremely valuable site. Their Web Design and Usability Guidelines are well-written and pertinent (and has been made more easily accessible here. They're available in PDF format here. And don't miss their visual overview of the usability cycle and their lessons learned in Designing Educational Booklets for the Web. (Posted 2/01, Updated 2/07) |
| Functioning Form | "Functioning Form is a blog about interface design. That is to say, it is where art and technology emerge as experience, where message and medium meld, and where interactions are useful, usable, and enjoyable." Luke Wroblewski is the driving force behind the blog. Here are his articles and papers. I also find Luke's compilation of user experience diagrams very useful. (Posted 12/05, Revised 8/06) |
| Web Design from Scratch | "Web Design from Scratch is for everyone involved or interested in creating web sites - whether novice or expert. It will help you understand what makes web sites succeed or fail, and what can be done to increase the chance of success." Useful, straightforward approach. Lots of good information. (Posted 3/06) |
| Yahoo! User Intrface Blog | "News and articles about designing and developing with Yahoo! libraries." (Posted 11/06) |
| welie.com: patterns in interaction design | Very helpful collection of patterns for web design, gui design, and mobile UI design. Also a collection of literature and links. By Martijn van Welie. (This is Martijn's Ph.D. Thesis on Task-Based User Interface Design (2001).) (Posted 11/01, Updated 7/05) |
| Yahoo Developer Network Design Pattern Library | The second of periodic release, many items of which include pointers to the Yahoo! User Interface Library code, providing patterns and code for the design and development community. (Posted 3/06, Updated 9/06) |
| Search Patterns | "A sandbox for collecting search examples, patterns, and anti-patterns. Please add tags, notes, and comments, and suggest new examples." Via E-Learning Post. (Posted 5/08) |
| User Interface Design Patterns | "This collection consists of user interface design patterns (interaction patterns) that seems to be recurring problems when trying to make design based on the user's goals. These design patterns have been analyzed during the past five years by going through hundreds of designs, to give instructions and design examples to the students of design courses at the University of Helsinki." (Posted 10/03) Via InfoDesign. |
| THEBESTDESIGNS.COM | "The best of web design." The new designs, masters, and resources are excellent. See also the additional resources at the bottom of the page. (Posted 6/05) |
| UI Designer | "Information, ideas, research, opinions, and lessons learned about user interface design (UID), user centered design (UCD), usability testing & research, task analysis, card sorting, usability heuristics, information architecture (IA), web design, interactive design, graphical user interface (GUI), software design, web applications, user experience, and intranets. (Posted 9/04) |
| Interaction By Design Thumbnails | By George Olsen. "A place to capture short thoughts about user experience design and try out new ideas." You can post feedback. You can also comment on George's small but good annotated bibliography. Via Beth Mazur's IDBlog. (Posted 8/01) |
| Ajax Patterns | The publicly editable repository of all things Ajax. (Posted 8/06) |
| Diemen Repository of Interaction Design Patterns | Patterns help us solve design problems - problems that occur time and time again, and are being solved time and time again by designers. Patterns describe practical solutions to these problems and how to apply them in different situations. (Posted 12/03) Via InfoDesign. |
| CPH127.com | "CPH127 is a community sense-making initiative. We aim to create a open dialogue around the profound understanding of design, leadership and innovation." The views page contains streaming interviews. (Posted 10/05) |
| Patterns for Personal Web Sites | Patterns distilled over the last few years from the most interesting personal Web sites the author, Mark L. Irons, has found. Via InfoDesign. (Posted 12/03) |
| jnd.org | Don Norman's jnd website. Books, essays, interviews, recommended readings, good design examples, Q&A, and more. (Posted 8/05) |
| linkdup | "It can be difficult to know where to look to see the best sites, so we collect and categorise them for you and save you the time and effort." (Posted 11/04) |
| Cool HomePages.com | Grouped in 27 categories. Also contains design resources and a worst sites archive. (Posted 8/00) |
| SAP Design Guild | A portal to a variety of resources on user-centered design. See especially Narrative User Interfaces by Gerd Waloszek. (Posted 10/00, Updated 4/03) |
| Other Selected Sources | |
| UI Patterns | "While other pattern collections are useful, they are far from coherent and complete. The purpose of this site is over time to fill some of the gaps - especially by providing code examples as to how how the different patterns can be implemented: to join theory with practice." Via InfoDesign. (Posted 3/08) |
| Konigi | "This site is also about demonstrating the idea that not only is it our job to give users what they expect and think they want, but more importantly it is to give them what they need and might not be able to express. I think some of the examples I showcase here do that exceptionally well." Via InfoDesign. (Posted 3/08) |
| Feng Gui | "Feng Shui for graphic user interfaces." "The ViewFinder Heatmap service is one of the next great wave of innovation in Internet tools based on a system that uses some degree of artificial intelligence to address specific requirements of users and designers." (Posted 3/07) Via InfoDesign. |
| Web Guild Silicon Valley | The home page is a blog for web designers. The site features ratings and reviews by members. (Posted 1/08) |
| OK/Cancel | "A comic strip collaboration co-written and co-illustrated by Kevin Cheng and Tom Chi. Our subject matter focuses on interfaces, good and bad and the people behind the industry of building interfaces - usability specialists, interaction designers, human-computer interaction (HCI) experts, industrial designers, etc." (Posted 7/06) |
| Design Patterns | Random findings of consistent interfaces and design across the web. Via xblog. (Posted 5/07) |
| Top 100 User-Centered Blogs | By Jessica Hupp. These are Jessica's picks for the best sites focusing on "user-centered web design, a topic that covers accessibility, web standards, and interfacing." Via InfoDesign. (Posted 11/07) |
| Patterns and Software: Essential Concepts and Terminology | Broad selection of topics related to patterns. This is the index. (Posted 7/05) |
| The Web Developer's Handbook | Wide variety of topics and links by Vitaly Friedman. (Posted 2/06) |
| Protolyze | "Essential Web tools in one place." General, CMS, CSS, Javascript, Ajax, PHP, Flash, and Ruby tools. By Tony Yoo. (Posted 6/06) |
| Web Developer's Handbook | By Vitaly Friedman. Many links. No annotations. (Posted 3/07) |
| scottberkun.com | Scott was a program manager for Microsoft for 10 years and now consults on project management, web design, and usability. His essays are thoughtful and interesting, and he hosts several discussion groups. (Posted 7/01, Updated 6/03) |
| Web Design References | Accessibility, Associations, Books, Cascading Style Sheets, Color, Dreamweaver, Evaluation & Testing, Events and conferences, Flash, Information Architecture, JavaScript, Misc, Navigation, PHP, Sites & Blogs, Standards, Tools, Typography, Usability, and XML. From the University of Minnesota Deluth. Via LUCDESK. (Posted 2/04) |
| webdesignpractices | "A site devoted to helping designers understand what design practices are currently in use on the Web—and aims to gather research about the usability of commonly-employed design practices." Via iaslash. (Posted 3/04) |
| Adobe Web Publishing | A source for forums for Adobe products. There are lots of tutorials for the products, too. (Posted 2/01, Updated 2/05) |
| Bokardo | "Writings on interface design." A blog by Joshua Porter. See especially Talking about Web 2.0 with Designers. (Posted 10/05) |
| Tomalak's Realm | Jacob Nielsen has recommended this source. So does Steve Krug. It's the most comprehensive scouring of the Web for what the author, Lawrence Lee, calls "strategic Web design." Well annotated, and updated daily. (Great site -- last updated 11/05 -- CM 08/07.) (Posted 1/01) |
| Paul Hibbitts' Links | No annotations, but a very comprehensive list. (Posted 8/05) |
| ACM SIGCHI Intercultural Issues | Lists of sites addressing issues involving international user indexes. (Posted 8/98, Link Updated 2/05) |
| Pocket PC thoughts | "Daily news, views, rants and raves" on develoments for the Pocket PCs (using the MS Windows CE operating system). (Posted 8/02) |
| Information Architecture | Overviews, tutorials, affinity diagrams, card sorting, free listing, prototyping, wireframes, comprehensive sites, articles and related links from the University of Minnesota Deluth. (Posted 12/03) |
| DonnaM | Information architecture, user-centred design, usability and other things. These are the IA posts. I found the entries on card sorting particularly helpful. Interesting book reviews, too. (Posted 5/03, Updated 7/05) |
| Resources for . . . Creating . . .Web Pages | Actually, "Resources for Learning HTML/XHTML and Creating World Wide Web Pages" by Kieth Stranger. (Posted 11/04) |
| Kelake | By Clark MacLeod. Clark has a unique and broad perspective on design, and a background in music that he brings to it. (Posted 2/04) |
| THE GAME DESIGN PATTERNS PROJECT | The focus of the Game Design Patterns project is on studying computer games in terms of interaction, components and design goals with the intension of creating the basis for a common language for game designers. Via Infodesign. (Posted 5/03) |
| Especially Recommended | |
| UI Patterns and Techniques | "Patterns can be a description of "best practices" within a given design domain. They capture common solutions to design tensions (usually called "forces" in pattern literature) and thus, by definition, are not novel. They aren't off-the-shelf components; each implementation of a pattern is a little different from every other." Via LucDesk. (Posted 11/02) |
| Site of the Week Archive | Thoughtful commentary on a large number of sites. From Design Interact. (Posted 6/02) |
| Podcast of BayCHI Events | Audio and visual recordings of BayCHI events are available here for the benefit of the HCI community. Via InfoDesign. (Posted 9/05) |
| Apple Style Guide | "The Apple Publication Style guide provides editorial guidelines for text in instructional publications, technical documentation, reference information, training programs, and the software user interface." Via InfoDesign. (Posted 4/06) |
| CSS Zen Garden | "A demonstration of what can be accomplished visually through CSS design. Select a design on the left to reconfigure the page. Or use this larger list of possibilities. CSS resources are also available. (Posted 7/04) |
| Better Practice Checklists | These checklists, from the Australian Government Information Management Office, were created "to help web managers, business unit owners, and others quickly enhance their understanding of a range of issues associated with the provision of services online. The checklists are short documents which provide information in a simple, non-technical manner." Via elearning post. (Posted 7/04) |
| Good Experience Games | Online games that, in the opinion of Mark Hurst, offer a "'good experience'" - good game design with an overall attention to quality. Unless otherwise noted, they're all free, online, and available right now." From Mark's Good Experience site. (Posted 4/06) |
| 2006 bloggies | 6th annual weblog awards. These are the awards from 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002 and 2001. (Posted 4/06) |
| Learn CSS and Web standards | Since 1998 Westciv has hosted one of the best places on the web to learn CSS and web standards. Dave Shea, of CSS Zen Garden fame calls it "the place to learn CSS" This is their CSS Tutorial. (Posted 8/06) |
| Other Selected Sources | |
| Apple Human Interface Guidelines | Provides authoritative information on the theory behind the Macintosh "look and feel" and the practice of using individual interface components. This book includes many examples of good design and explains why one implementation is superior to another. (Posted 8/97, Updated 2/05) |
| GNOME Human Interface Guidelines 2.0 | This document tells you how to create applications that look right, behave properly, and fit into the GNOME user interface as a whole. (Posted 12/04) |
| Task Analysis Grid | "One of the greatest challenges we face in the design field is communicating design decisions to other stakeholders." This grid replaces a requirements document. From Tod Warful (dot)com. (Posted 8/06) |
| Interaction Design Encyclopedia | "A free, open-content, peer-reviewed Encyclopedia covering terms from the disciplines of Interaction Design, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Design, Human Factors, Usability, Information Architecture, and related fields. (Posted 4/05) Via InfoDesign. |
| TechniquesforIA | "There are many ways to arrive at an architecture." Links to discussions of a broad variety of research techniques, conceptual design techniques, organization techniques, design types, and design techniques. (Posted 5/03) |
| Best Practices for PBS Member Station Websites | Thoughtful, well-written considerations for developing a PBS website. Applicable to many others, as well. (Posted 11/04) |
| digimoda project | "A joint effort between the MIT Media Lab and IDEO Product Development to address the human side of wearable computing. Using a scenario-driven conceptualization process, the groups converged on two tales involving very different individuals . . . (and explores) how a single core technology could be utilized and interpreted in various ways."(Posted 10/00) |
| Contextual Enquiry report | An extensive model report in PDF format on the results of a contextual inquiry. Very helpful. Part of a usability toolkit from the Information & Design consultancy. (Posted 4/00, Link updated 2/05) |
| Web Pages that Suck | The principle is: learn good design by looking at bad design. (Posted 11/97) |
| Especially Recommended | |
| I. Alexander and M. Maiden, editors, 2004. Scenarios, Stories, Use Cases: Through the Systems Development Life-Cycle. John Wiley & Sons. (Posted 2/05) | |
| Arlov, L., 1997. GUI Design for Dummies. Foster City, CA: IDG Books. (Posted 11/97) | |
| Arnowitz, J., Berger, N., Arent, N. 2006. Effective Prototyping for Software Makers. Morgan Kaufman. This website supports the book. (Posted 5/07) | |
| Carroll, J.. 2000. Making Use: Scenario-Based Design of Human-Computer Interactions. MIT Press. (Posted 12/02) | |
| Constantine, L. & Lockwood, L., 1999. Software for Use: A Practical Guide to the Models and Methods of Usage-Centered Design. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. (Posted 12/99) | |
| Cooper, A. & Reimann, R. 2003. About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design. Wiley Publishing, Inc. (Posted 6/97, Updated 6/03) | |
| Goto, K. and Kotler, E., 2004. Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow That Works. New Riders. This is the book's website. (Posted 7/06) | |
| Hackos, J. and Redish, J., 1998 User and Task Analysis for Interface Design. New York, John Wiley. (Posted 5/98) | |
| Lynch, P. and Horton, S., 2002. Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites, Second Edition. Yale University Press. The entire guide is available online here. (Posted 8/03) | |
| Pruett, J. and Adlin, T, 2006. The Persona Lifecycle : Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design. Morgan Kaufmann. (Posted 6/06) | |
| Tidwell, J. Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design. Oriental Pub Co. This is the accompanying website. (Posted 5/06) | |
| Snyder, S., 2003. Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Design and Refine User Interfaces. Morgan Kaufmann. (Posted 6/06) | |
| Van Duyne, D., Landay, J., and Hong, J. 2002. The Design of Sites: Patterns, Principles, and Processes for Crafting a Customer-Centered Web Experience. Addison Wesley Professional. The book has a strong website. The online resources page is especially good. (Posted 12/02) | |
| Veen, J., 2000. The Art and Science of Web Design. New Riders. Also available as a free PDF on Jeff's website. (Posted 3/06) | |
| Wixon, D. and Ramey, J., eds. 1996. Field Methods Casebook for Software Design. New York : John Wiley (Posted 9/99) | |
| Young, I. 2008 Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior. Rosenfeld Media. (Posted 7/08) | |
| Fundamentals of Designing User Interaction. Microsoft Press. Out-of-print. Web version available here. (Posted 8/05) | |
| Other Selected Sources | |
| Beyer, H. & Holtzblatt, K., 1998. Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann. (Posted 11/97) | |
| Carroll, J., ed., 1995. Scenario-Based Design: Envisioning Work and Technology in System Development. New York: John Wiley. (Posted 8/97) | |
| Hix, D. & Hartson, H., 1993. Developing User Interfaces: Ensuring Usability Through Product and Process. New York: John Wiley. (Posted 5/97) | |
| Mandel, Theo, 1997. The Elements of User Interface Design. New York: John Wiley. (Posted 11/97) | |
| McGraw, K. & Harbison, K., 1997. User-Centered Requirements: The Scenario-Based Engineering Process . Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. (Posted 8/97) | |
| Shedroff, N. 2001. Experience Design. Indianapolis: New Riders. The supporting site offers these resources and examples. (Posted 8/01) | |
| Tognazzini, B., 1996. Tog on Software Design. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. (Posted 5/97) | |
| Tognazzini, B., 1992. Tog on Interface. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. (Posted 5/97) | |
| Wood, L. & Zeno, R. 1997. User Interface Design: Bridging the Gap From Requirements to Design. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. (Posted 8/97) |
