Author: dhilhorst
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The Designer Is Dead, Long Live The Designer!
My first article, The
Designer Is Dead, Long Live The Designer!, went up over at Digital Web today
(or rather yesterday, while I was asleep). This first article is part of a series
of columns entitled Art
of Interaction.Everyone agrees that a good user experience is important but many miss the
fact that design plays an integral role. In current and future columns I will
assess the importance of aesthetic quality (or attractiveness) in user interface
and web design, examining an assortment of topics.In this first publication I discuss why aesthetics is important when it comes
to designing a web site, or any interface for that matter. Some
people on the web have argued
that “making things pretty” is irrelevant. Function and usability
first, design second, so it seems. I disagree. In this column I will go as far
as stating the contrary: design comes first, usability second.It’s about time we put design back on the agenda! Read
more. -
ATM Contingency Design
Everybody needs to use an ATM at some point. Personally I would like all money
to be virtual, no coins, no paper, nothing. Of course there are some reasons
to why that’s not the case, but I will not discuss those here. Rather
I will have a look at an ATM machine I recently used and in my opinion has some
design issues.
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I Lost My Password
How usable is security? It’s a question I’ve been asking myself
lately. One of the courses I attended last semester was about cryptography and
secure design. What got me thinking is the fact that security is just 20% technology—80%
is organizational. Security is about people—about trust.The thing is, the more you try to make a system secure the less usable it becomes—and
as a result, the system actually becomes less secure than its designers intended.
Do you use different passwords for an assortment of accounts you are subscribed
to? Do you change your passwords frequently? I certainly don’t. Security
is always a trade-off between convenience and complexity. People don’t
like complexity, and definitely not at 8:30 in the morning when they need to
log in to start working.If you ask users to memorize too many passwords they will start sticking post-it
notes on their screen to make sure they don’t have to call tech support.
How secure is that? You just spent 6 months and a few million bucks to end up
with bright yellow post-it notes all over the place with confidential information.
That’s why security is about people, not technology. -
Ridiculously Cool Comment Tools
The blogosphere is being all innovative. Way to go! I’ve observed some
very cool comment tools and features over the last couple of days. I’m
supposed to study hard for my last ever exam in my master degree. Oh well, you
know how that goes. Thus it was new blog checking time (so much for effective
time management).Comment Preview
This is a very useful tool not only because it’s user friendly but also
because it’s just plain smart. Less server requests, less load and best
of all — less bullshit. I spotted this cool feature on blogs by Jon
Hicks and Shaun Inman.
These two examples just look so damn lickable™ and are smartly implemented.
You can read how
Jon put this nifty feature on his blog by checking his entry about the whole
process and the code behind it.Comment Textarea
Aren’t tiny textareas a pain in the butt? Whatever, I think they are.
I hate scrolling all the time to see what I typed or make adjustments. But fear
no more, someone thought of a solution. I spotted this new (atleast to me) feature
on Binary Bonsai — blog of a scandinavian
fellow by the name of Michael Heilemann. By the way his website is worth a visit
— not only does he have good taste, his content is worthwhile too!
Pretty cool stuff, eh? I think both these tools dramatically increase user
experience on blogs and make adding comments a breeze. Have you spotted other
cool new features? If so, let me know in the comments.