Blackberry 6, better for users.
After struggling mightily with a Blackberry 8900 over the weekend (seriously, almost every aspect of the OS on that thing is broken - from email to Wifi to Web browsing. What a nightmare!), it’s nice to see that Blackberry is actually attempting to improve their user experience with Blackberry 6.
Sugar for your phone.
Boy that new iOS 4 is pretty snazzy. But it has those super complex textured backgrounds that make reading your icons more difficult than reading anything should be. So without further ado, here’s a lock screen I Need Sugar wallpaper for your iPhone (4, 3G, 3Gs or whatever, it works on’em all) and a matching home screen desktop for your iOS 4 phone that’ll help your icons pop. Enjoy!
Oh, Snow Leopard, you’re so pretty but so broken.
Apple promised a refined, optimized, and elegant release with Snow Leopard. And in many respects they delivered. Here’s what they missed.
UI exploration: Improving date and time entry.
While we’re plugging away on the next update to the Events Calendar, I thought it would be fun to walk through the process we took while designing the new time entry elements used when adding or editing an event in the calendar.
Working towards a better experience.
No matter what type of system you’re building, be it a website, web app or desktop app, user testing is a vital tool that will allow you to identify problems in your system and help you build a better experience for your users.
It’s not necessarily a costly and time consuming endeavor. In fact, a few friends and some food may be all you need to get some great insight on how to improve your system.
Here are some introductory tips to help you get started towards building a better experience for your users with the help of user testing. Note that I’m using the term ‘website’ to describe a project or system, but this process can be applied to any activity that requires user interaction.
Thoughts on the World Wide Web Consortium’s beta site at beta.w3.org.
Wow. There is some chaos going on when you shrink your browser window here http://beta.w3.org. The behaviour actual seems much more correct in Safari 4 Beta than Firefox 3 on the Mac. More on the motivation in this A List Apart article on Fluid grids.
The More You Know, The Better Your Work at flyosity.com.
Mike Rundle has posted a great article on the value of knowing your medium. The article is focused on user experience design for the web, but it applies to all mediums.
In addition to the examples that Mike provides in his article, I’d like to add that a designer who creates printed material knows the constraints of their medium. Print designers need to take into account the size of their canvas - is it a billboard or business card? They need to know technical limitations of the printer - is the process digital or press? Are my images at a sufficient resolution? The list goes on. You can’t effectively design for any medium without an understanding of how it works.
Mike’s article is in response to an article by Lukas Mathis which argues that designers who code (or at least know how to code) can negatively impact the design process. It’s worth a read, though I personally disagree with his theory.
I’d argue that because Lukas is both designer and coder he’s able to identify the issues that arise from being multi disciplinary. He’s not, however, taking into account the issues that arise from knowing too little about your target medium, which presents a host of other issues.
If you only do one thing, do it right, man.
You’re an email management company. That’s all you do, help other companies manage their mailing lists. And you have this great slogan, “powering customer relationships”. Sounds good to me. Strong focus. Should be able to knock it out of the park. So, what’s up with this form I get when I try to manage my relationship with someone’s mailing list?
Community Lend bringing social lending to Canada.
For years Americans have enjoyed the advantages of person to person lending and borrowing, but due to strict regulations here in Canada, loans could only be issued by accredited lenders like banks and credit card companies. Working closely with regulators, CommunityLend will soon be offering Canadian lenders and borrowers alike the opportunity to play in the once tightly-closed $100 Billion industry.
Microsoft Home Magazine strategy and design.
Microsoft Home Magazine is a blog formatted magazine, focused on showing visitors how to get the most out of consumer based Microsoft products. Each day, the editors of the magazine add new articles, videos, or tips for their users.
