September 08
SimpleSend.com – a unique online email marketing solution– has chosen Rossul Design to create an intuitive UI that allows users to interact with the service simply and easily.
UI Design & Web Usability Blog
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Sep 23rd, 2008
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Sep 12th, 2008
iTunes 8 and mysterious absence of song rating keyboard shortcut
I love iTunes. Have been using it since version 1 (or 2 – can’t remember) but certainly for a long time. At the beginning I hesitated to switch to it completely - my pal for a long time was Panic’s Audion. iTunes won. Since then it’s been my jukebox of choice. It keeps getting better and better. If sometimes I forget why I like it one look at MS Video Player gets me back on track.
But there is one absolutely mysterious question I can’t find an answer to. There is no keyboard shortcut for song rating. I can pump up volume using keyboard. I can even put the iTunes window in the Dock (Command-M), I can turn the visualizer on or off, I can do lots of very useful and not so useful things using keyboard shortcuts. I can even mute the sound while it keeps playing (!) - something which probably only a real iTune Pro would need. ….. But I can’t rate a song! Instead I have catch my mouse, aim at the song, right click and then chose rating from a menu.
I rate songs 10-15 times a day (well, I buy lot of music). I never even wondered what might be a shortcut for muting a song while it is playing…
I purchased CoverSutra ($22!!!) for this single feature. The app does many other not-so-needed tricks. It provides a descent user experience modestly sitting in the top bar and puts a nice CD cover image on my desktop.
So, I’m not upset. I rather curious why Apple, a company that spends so much efforts designing user experience and is a pioneer of user centered GUI design, would ignore this extremely useful feature?
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Sep 3rd, 2008
September 08
Rossul Design has partnered with Prescient Digital to create a new UI for PNC Bank – Personal Banking, a highly diversified and growing financial services organization spanning the retail, business and corporate markets.
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Sep 2nd, 2008
Adobe Creative Suite 4 (CS4) Usability
I have to say I’m very satisfied with Adobe presentation of new CS4. Here is few main reasons from usability standpoint:
- Adobe focused on workflow and user experience.
- They kept most of great Macromedia GUI innovations and greatly developed some of them further.
- FireWorks has become a full member of CS family.
- PDF workflow is greatly improved and has become really usable comparing to previous versions.
- Unified interfaces.
- Great improvements usability of AI and ID tools. Now there is no need to go through few windows to change opacity or gradient for instance.
- I generally like updates. Fresh wave in daily routine or interaction with the computer.
