My article about User Experience of iPhone Apps under the title of “UI Does Matter” is published in iPhone Life Magazine Spring 2009 issue, it is available at your Newsstand or you can check it out the digital version at Zinio, it’s on Page 49.
UI Does Matter!
Until next time!
BonGeek
For last couple of days I was asking on Twitter that how should I get started in Information Architect, Interaction Design & User Experience arena, it all about the “Art & Science of Human Behavior”, whether it is related to creating a website or designing an iPod or a door knob. It is nothing more than understand the Human behavior toward any product usage and usability. I think I was not so lucky to get some response.
During my commute from Fremont, CA to San Francisco, CA in BART, I usually read books either on my iPhone or a classic way … the paper-backs.
These days I am completing one of my favorite book Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks by Luke Wroblewski, while reading about some topic, I came to know about Jack Moffett, at that momet, I try my luck and ask him the same question
“How a person can get basic training in to the Interaction Design field of study? Is he should get some online courses or join the University? Or books are the best bet plus a Mentor who time to time give a beginner done advice?”
I think it was my luck day, got his reply right away… Here is what he said and I asked his permission to share with you guys so anyone like me who is seriously thinking to get in to the Interaction Design, Information Architect or User Experience arena can benefit from it:
“You would find that different designers will have different answers to your question. Personally, I feel that the best way to do it is to attend a University. An on-line course won’t give you same benefits that a studio experience will. You learn as much from your fellow students as you do from your professors when you work beside them every day.
That said, there are the financial aspects. Attending a university is expensive, time-consuming, and location-specific. Some people will choose on-line courses for these reasons. You may still get a quality education in this way, but I don’t believe it will be as rich.
Working with a mentor is an excellent way to learn. Some would argue that this is more beneficial than formal education. Mileage will vary depending on your mentor, of course.
You can learn a lot from books, and there are some good ones out there on the subject, but they cannot replace learning by doing with a mentor or professor, either one.
I would also recommend reading the IxDA forums. Many of the best interaction designers in the industry actively participate in the discussions there. You can search the archives for discussions about the very things you are asking me. http://www.ixda.org/index.php”
See, it was that easy! University is the best place to learn the subject, and get along with the Mentor, in any given field we do need a mentor, who help us to start with rolling, crawling to baby-step till we start running and exploring the hidden gems. Second best place is the online-courses, yes there are some draw-backs but if you have mentor at work, would be sufficent.
Thanks to Jack Moffett for his insightful tip. Oh by the way if you are in San Francisco Bay Area, I would be very interested to meet you and the best place as Jack mentioned is a local chapterd of IxDA, email address is follow: sf-local@ixda.org.
Alright folks, next week, I will present you with my findings about a new software that I am evaluating for Wireframe Diagram…Balsamiq Mockups
Till then enjoy the links I usually share on my blog time to time.
Until next time,
Happy Byting!
These are the apps I use more often.
iPhone Apps: There is a big user experience flaw in iPhone App or iPhone Architect. I noticed with almost all the iPhone apps, whenever you tap on “Email This Link” in any given app, you are suddenly jacked-out from the app you are using. Now that’s a big User Experience Flaw. I am hoping this is the issue Apple will certainly take care of it in there next Firmware released.
Web Form Design: if there is only one book you are looking for to read about Form Design, this is it! Written by Luke Wroblewski, foreword by Jared Spool.
What a great weekend it was, especially when you have a baby who just learned to crawl and walk. In the past week great stuff came out of MIX09. It was superb! Some of the highlights were…Silverlight 3, Expression Blend’s SketchFlow, Silverlight Out-of Browser (SLOOB) Experience etc.
The Day 1 Keynote was great, although a few things related to Silverlight 3.0 we already knew, as the .NET Developers around the world were blabbing about it since the Silverlight 2.0 Release. There were a few surprises, which were superb!
As for the Day 2 Keynote-that inpsired me a lot. I loved hearing Deborah Adler’s presentation, including her personal story about what ignited her superb achievement-the ClearRx idea.
After hearing her Keynote of Mix09, I started thinking more about the role of “Information Architects” and “User Experience Experts”: True, very true… It is not always about the “Web App Interface” and “Desktop App Interfaces”, it is about “experience” that a user can gain using certain products. Whether they are bad or good depends on the design, nothing more. What I understand from the Day 2 Keynote that this time Microsoft is truly and sincerely asking Developers to build a better system, and instead of throwing “BSOD” lets throw a nice error like Apple does, or may be even better than that! Because every Operating System has some issues… hey! okay, I am not gonna start the OS War here!!!!
Anyways…as I carry around the “inspiration” I got from Deborah’s Keynote, I noticed something… When I was at Costco with my wife and my 9 month old baby girl, we were looking for her spring clothes, and my wife asked me to look for 12 months size cloths, so I started digging through the pile of clothes on the Baby Clothes Table, which you know is already a mess, things are there but it is hard to find sometimes… Then one idea suddenly struck me… the Color Tagging! They separated the Age-based clothes on the the basis of Color Tagging! Blue is for 12 months old, Red is for 6 months old etc.
Yes!! The Color Rings-we heard about them in the Keynote by Deborah!!! They used the Color Rings to separate the prescription drugs according to the family members. Well the same thing Carter’s does-check this image below:
So I thought that this is not the new idea, it is something already exists, and I think I already read about it, I noticed that Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug already talked about it, and I am sure before him someone else was discussed this issue. For me, Steve’s Don’t Make Think is the “First Step” that I took when I get interested in to the User Experience & Information Architect. Although Steve’s Book talk about Web App Interfaces, but if you really read-in-between-the-line you will certainly realized it is somehow implemented on the everyday products.
I noticed in the above picture and the point that I got inspired from Deborah Adler’s Day 2 Keynote speech is “Color Coding” .. Or I would say “Conventions”… Steve Kurg said somewhere in his book that “Conventions are your friend, use them wisely” and look what Deborah did! although that “Color Rings” is just the part of her whole big idea which is really a good innovation, and I wish Walgreen, and Long Drugs and other retail Pharmacists should implement this, I would highly recommend to watch her Keynote, it is inspiring.
So I think as Software Architect we should remember that by functionatly we are cool, we implement superb and hip algorithm, but we should put our focus more on user-centric approach, and trust me fellas, at the moment on the project I am working we surely putting a very superb-user-centric-approach..hmm sounds like I can make an hip looking abbreviation out that what I said ! SUCA ..ah! Sounds like bad thing! LOL.
Conventions, Natural Interface & Good User Experience. I think they are everywhere from tiny Web Page to the big engine for Space Shuttle, there impact is everywhere. I am hoping that I will successfully transform myself in to the Information Architect / User Experience Arena very soon.
How the Conventions can create the game changing products in any field, take an iPhone for instance.
Alright, I will leave you with that. Until next time.
The Poster that targets specific User. Nice User Experience!
Bookmarks: Here I don’t see the Conventions’ proper usage. I downloaded this iPhone app to manage my Social Bookmarks. Alas! Once again hit by the un-usual convention usage in iPhone App arena.
Well this Login/Logout is really not look like a Button, rather it is like a Textbox.
Clever Uses: Simple User-Interface Trick Makes Your Remotes Idiot Proof
EffectiveUI – Award Winning User Experience Design and Rich Internet Application Development
EffectiveUI – Award Winning User Experience Design and Rich Internet Application Development