Category: Design

  • I Need Some Spacing

    Way back in June over on Subtraction, Khoi presented a tweaked version of the Gmail interface (and then a follow-up article regarding the feedback on the first), improving spacing and alignment by making a few small but significant changes overall:

    “…by normalizing the space between like elements, aligning elements along similar spatial planes, moderately increasing the space between stacked items and paying attention to how elements are framed by negative space, we can get what is, in my opinion, a significantly more attractive Gmail interface.” Khoi Vinh

    This is something I’ve wanted to see for a while in Gmail, and in fact had presented a few examples last year (July 2007) as part of my interview process at Google (I really must write about my series of amazing job interviews last summer, but I’ll leave that for another time). After reading—and commenting—on Khoi’s post, I had intended to publish my variation on Google’s mid-2007 interface, but as the dedication to blogging continues to elude me, this too fell a few pages back in the Moleskine to-do list—until now.

    The Setup

    I took a slightly different approach than Khoi, though my goals were similar:

    • Give all elements more room to breathe
    • Make it easier to target navigation and oft-used links
    • Normalize alignment of text and other elements
    • Do it all without drastically altering the appearance of the interface

    That last goal was important and acted as a guide to the rest: I wanted to present improvements that could be made right away without causing a negative reaction among Gmail users.

    Rather than adjust the line height of the main message area, I decided to bring as many of the other elements in line with that as I could. You’ll notice spacing improvements within each line however, reclaiming some poorly used horizontal space. Like Khoi, I felt the message lines were a bit crowded, so to give the impression of more room in those lines, I removed the grey horizontal lines between each item and allowed the background color to bleed through (all they need is some separation—further emphasis on those lines just adds weight). The result is that it feels like there’s a bit more space, without actually adding any.

    The main navigation lost its underlines (again, removing unnecessary visual weight—the “this is a link” cue is superfluous here) and gained space (matching the baseline of the message list). The “Compose Mail” link got an extra highlight by way of a background; the extra padding makes it the only navigation item that doesn’t align with the baseline, but that also gives it a little more contrast vertically, thus it stands out more without having to scream for attention. Less important text links within the message area were made slightly smaller (but kept their underlines), and “Mark as read” was pulled out of the drop-down menu and given its own button: I had spent a week or so watching people use Gmail before doing this exercise, and that was the second most frequent action users needed (right behind “Delete”) but was hidden in the drop-down.

    Finally, all rounded corners were cleaned up a bit, footer text was aligned to the baseline, and the message list was enclosed on the right side (maybe it’s just me, but it’s always bugged me how those lines just run right to the edge).

    Reveal Already!

    I’m still happy with how this turned out a year later, and it was well received by the Google interview crew. Compare the before and after images, and you’ll also notice that the improved spacing in this example actually reduces the overall height of the page, allowing two additional message lines to fit in the space of the original.

    Both Khoi’s and my realign leave almost all the original elements of the interface intact—this is very important when making changes (even if only suggested ones) to such a popular application, and the same goes for any product, publication or web site that is part of a person’s daily routine.

    Whether Gmail incorporates any of these suggestions is out of our hands, but it’s still nice to have the chance to compare.

    Note: many changes have already been made to the Gmail interface over the last year, and even in the last few months since Khoi posted his example. Not all are improvements, but at least someone’s making an attempt.

  • Apples and Oranges

    My second column, entitled “Apples
    and Oranges
    ,” was published over at Digital
    Web Magazine
    , while being asleep. This time around I take a shot at understanding
    the relation between the fields of usability and design and why, more often than
    not, they collide. Yup, that topic — again. Both fields are mandatory and
    I think the web at large, as well as high technology in general, will benefit
    greatly from a (better) mutual understanding. Digital Web Magazine now features
    the possibility to comment on articles, so consequently comments on this entry
    are closed, but
    speak out
    !

    This column would not have been half as good if it wasn’t for the valuable
    feedback of Donna
    Driscoll
    . Who? Yup, Donna! Remember her name because there’s a lot
    this lady has to let know — mark my words (the pressure is on!) Additionally
    you can read Donna’s
    bio
    for more background information on her professional experience. Coincidentally
    Donna is married to the Michael Moore of design, none other than my friend Andrei
    Herasimchuk. Both are currently enjoying their honeymoon on the wonderful Greek
    island of Santorini. I just came back from Greece (Crete) and I already want
    to return. Enjoy your time in Greece, both of you, you deserve it, and keep
    those superb
    photographs
    coming.

  • Contrasting Vision

    In one of my previous posts I encouraged people to abandon #000 as copy text colour in favour of lighter shades such as #333 or even #666, for example. In retrospect there are two things wrong with that post. First, I should not tell people what, or what not to do, even if my words were meant as a somewhat ironic, very much tongue-in-cheek statement. It is never my intention to communicate with such an attitude. Second, I wasn’t joking — even if ironic, I was somewhat serious. But was I right to make such a statement?

    (more…)

  • Design Eye for the Usability Guy

    If you have to name one usability guru out there that is in desperate need of
    a design makeover, who would you name? But of course, none other than Jakob
    Nielsen
    . Therefor, in the spirit of sharing, Andrei Herasimchuk decided to
    gather up some knowledgeable designers and help Nielsen with a little bit of design
    advice. The Design Fab Five.

    What a team we make: Andrei Herasimchuk,
    D. Keith Robinson, Cameron
    Moll
    , Greg Storey and myself. My role?
    Illustration and graphics. Time to spice up that content a little. But that’s
    not all — we’ve done the impossible: combine Nielsen and Flash (it
    even feels odd putting those two in the same sentence.) But what am I waffling?
    Take a look yourself and read
    this most entertaining and useful piece
    .

  • When Black Is Not Black

    Stop using black for copy text. Just stop. It hurts my eyes. All you contrast freaks, stop telling me that default black (#000) text is a necessity on white backgrounds. It is not, I repeat, it is not. I will stop reading blogs and web sites that insist on defying common sense rules of design, legibility and style. More contrast does not result in de facto better readability.

    If you use black (#000) for body text, think again. Think for crying out loud! Change it to #333 right now. Honestly, any value between #666 and #333 is so much better than #000. Oh, and while you’re editing your stylesheet anyway, do Andrei a favour and remove any instance of Trebuchet, especially as copy font. Do I agree with him that Trebuchet must die? No. Do I think it’s not the best font around? Probably. If nothing else I admire his effort to sacrifice for the greater good of Design (yes, that’s spelled with a capital “D”).

    But, misrepresenting your own wife. Ouch. Good luck fellow.

    On another note I’d like to take the time to congratulate Dan on his wonderful template design for Blogger. Actually, let me just congratulate everyone who worked on the Blogger redesign, especially the folks at Adaptive Path and the talented Douglas Bowman of Stopdesign. Slick job guys! To close off the festivities I’ll point you to Dave Shea’s new corporate home. Sweet stuff, dude!

    As it seems, it’s also the day to share a list of people that have influenced one’s design style or thoughts on design. So here we go, in no particular order: Philippe Starck, Rem Koolhaas, Donald Norman, Hillman Curtis, Joshua Davis, Douglas Bowman, Jason Fried, Todd Dominey and Andrei Herasimchuk (yeah, you just made the list, boy). But wait, my list would not be complete without mentioning Dan Rubin, specifically. Actually, I’m sure I forgot to include a bunch of people. Nevermind. Better luck next year. Anyway, I’ll be away for a few days, catch you later.