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.

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?

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.

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:

1. Adobe focused on workflow and user experience.
2. They kept most of great Macromedia GUI innovations and greatly developed some of them further.
3. FireWorks has become a full member of CS family.
4. PDF workflow is greatly improved and has become really usable comparing to previous versions.
5. Unified interfaces.
6. 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.
7. I generally like updates. Fresh wave in daily routine or interaction with the computer.