Jan 27th, 2010
Computer load-time, pop-ups, new apps installation, new user interrelations, lack of intuitiveness, search for drivers, frozen system, reboots, etc. – these are just a few of the things that most of us face on daily basis. Dealing with all these issues takes users up to 30 minutes a day according to Telegraph UK. Read More
Nov 10th, 2009
I really admire good design, a tasteful colour palette and the fine finish of all UI elements. But Google pays no attention to any of it. Their design is completely data driven and they are known for things like testing 64 shades of blue for few months before deciding on the colour of the box boarder. And still I find myself dumping the beautiful Apple Mail for Gmail. I bought Things – a most eye-catching app that scored Apple Design Award and yet find myself using Gmail Tasks. Beautifully designed iCal is also an app I rarely open, opting for Google Calendar instead.
What’s the reason? Usability I guess. Google is an adept in making usable apps. All their apps are highly intuitive and usable, albeit ugly. I save great deal of time when I have all apps in one window talking to each other. The ugliness of design elements does bother me but the usability pays me back in time saved.
I guess to justify Google’s approach to UI, they need to think about every bite going through their server with the amount of data they process. To a certain degree they comply with a basic rule of design: Take out everything that is not necessary until you can’t anymore and then you have a well designed product. (Michelangelo used to joke that his trade is very easy. Take a rock and cut off everything unnecessary).
Nov 10th, 2009
TweetBoard makes Twitter available right on your website. The window is dynamic and doesn’t get in the way. It seems to be very cool and usable way to facilitate your marketing efforts and may be even communicate with your customers. We are awaiting alfa testing approval and will let you know about integration process and usability of the product.
Tweetboard
Nov 10th, 2009
MagicMouse is a great a very well designed device. I got it on the first date they were available and spent about 10 days using it. The mouse is great. Very responsive and precise. Still runs on the original batteries with about 40% charge left which means it will go for about about 3 weeks.
The gestures work great. Very usable . Especially swiping back though web pages. Scroll with momentum works and feels exactly as one in iPhone, which is very intuitive and beats Logitec’s Hyper-fast scrolling feature.
Apple's MagicMouse
The only 2 things bother me so far and they are really minor. First is that the thumb is positioned over 2 movable parts which creates a strange feeling that took me few days to get used to. The other thing is that if your hand are wet for any the fingers won’t “swipe” over mouse plastic making gestures almost impossible.
So if you live in a hot place with high humidity without an air conditioning MagicMouse not may be a mouse of choice for you. In any other case – highly recommended.
Nov 9th, 2009
Here is a good example of what design should do for us making our everyday life a bit easier. Art Lebedev – a russian design studio that come up few years back Optimus Keyboard (1257.14€) is back with a useful concept that does solve a real problem in hand. Rozetkus 3D looks like any other socket but with a push of the button above, it pops our giving you access to additional sockets. Smartly done concept and seems to be simple in production.
Art Lebedev's Rozetkus 3D socket concept
Nov 4th, 2009
Floating windows are most annoying kind of internet advertisement according to Russian internet statistic agency.
Only 3.4% of users are actually order something using advertisement links.
Nov 4th, 2009
Surveys shows that average users still prefer blue text links over other colours even if they are consistent across the site. This probably doesn’t apply to web apps such as intranet site, gmail, etc that users use on daily basis.
Nov 4th, 2009
A survey recently conducted (France, Germany and the UK) showed 38% were planning to get a touchscreen on their next mobile phone while only 47% of people who already owned a touchscreen said they would get another one. In other words, less than half of touchscreen owners thought they’d stick with the technology on their next purchase. Apple has a high customer satisfaction rate and since iPhone is the only available device iphone users don’t really have a choice.
As a designer I can’t help but love the idea of one surface that becomes what one needs it to be at the moment. I’m not moving back to physical keyboard. At least on my phone.
I don’t play many games on my iPhone and when I do tactile feedback is not something I miss.
The possibility of tactile feedback was mentioned in the original iPhone patent application and last year Apple filled “Keystroke tacility arrangement on a smooth touch surface” patent. It desscribes various tactile feedbacks on a smooth sureface keyboard such as:
We may see it implemented in rumoured Apple Tablet Mac that supposedly should surface in next few months. So it looks like touchscreen are going to become smarter and more “user-freiendly”.
Nov 2nd, 2009
I came across few useful text editing shortcuts for Mac OS X @ www.ss64.com – a site dedicated to all kinds of applications/os syntax…
Editing Text (email, TextEdit, Pages, etc)
⌥ ← Move one word left ⌥ → Move one word right ⌘ ← Beginning of line ⌘ → End of lineScroll one page up (cursor retains position)
Scroll one page down (cursor retains position) ⌥
Scroll to beginning of document ⌘ ↓ or
Scroll to end of document Add shift key ⇧ to the above to also SELECT the text. ⌥ ⌫ Delete word ⌥ Del Delete next word ⌥ Scrollbar Jump to exact scrollbar location ⌥ Scrollbar arrows Scroll page at a time (page up/down) ⌥ Volume up/down Open Sound preferences ⌥ Brightness up/down Open Display preferences
Oct 27th, 2009
Intelligent Design has came up with a handcrafted Bluetooth laser mouse. “Grade 1 titanium, high quality plastic resin, a neodymium scroll wheel and impressive design for those who demand perfection at their fingerprints”, and are and willing to pay for it. The price tag is $1200. Well, perfection has never been cheap.
I guess the term “design” is referring solely to its look. Judging by the specs the mouse can do no more than any other mouse on the market for $30.
To me, Apple’s Magic Mouse that supports gestures is far more intelligent and far more sanely priced ($69)
Intelligent Mouse vs. Magic Mouse
Oct 25th, 2009
Sep 12th, 2008
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?
Sep 2nd, 2008
I have to say I’m very satisfied with Adobe presentation of new CS4. Here is few main reasons from usability standpoint:
