Yesterday David Arno tweeted this:
“Use proper affordances — buttons should look like buttons” Why? How often do ppl press physical buttons compared with hitting touch areas? (source).

David hits the nail on the head. A touch area should look like a touch area – the button term in the “tactile transferred to touchscreen” is redundant. It’s redundant because the tactile button itself is pretty much extinct. Sure, there are physical buttons on kitchen devices etc., but many, many buttons today are placed on a digital interface.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m fresh back from a short trip to the Swiss Alps where I had the privilege of speaking at the gotoAndSki conference.

The conference took place in the little town of Stechelberg in the middle of the Alps, and the scenery was absolutely breathtaking.

Read the rest of this entry »

I love usability testing. There is something extremely rewarding and challenging about interacting with actual users who will show you what works and what doesn’t.

And so, I was very excited to hear the last talk at the Future of Webdesign, the amazing conference I participated in recently. The talk was by Dan Rubin – and it absolutely blew me away. I had never thought to approach usability testing this way, so I’m very excited to share my epiphany with you.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dan Rubin – Blending usability testing with interface design, prototyping and rapid iteration
Dan’s talk was the last one of the conference for me – and he absolutely blew me away. He took us through a project he had been involved with where they had used something called inherent value testing and high fidelity prototypes.
Read the rest of this entry »

Aral Balkan – the art of emotional design
Aral’s energy on stage is contagious, and it was a true delight to hear his talk.
I can’t summarise everything he talked about (because I was busy listening instead of taking notes :), but in short, what Aral said was:
Read the rest of this entry »

Simon Collison – what webdesign will look like in 2012
Simon walked us through his own subjective views on how webdesign will lool in 2 years. His main point were:
Read the rest of this entry »

Paul Boag – 5 new skills every webdesigner must know
Paul’s talk was highly inspirational, fun and provocative.
One of Paul’s statements that I really liked and agreed with was this: For most webdesigners, being a specialist is not an option. You need to be a generalist – because your clients will expect you to help them in many different areas.
Read the rest of this entry »

Sarah Parmenter – 10 tips for iPhone interface design
Sarah gave us a thorough walk through of her 10 tips. Her talk was extremely useful, and I can’t wait to watch it again when I receive the conference video.
Read the rest of this entry »

It’s Friday morning on the 21st May 2010, the day after I returned home from the amazing FOWD conference in London.

I got to hear just about everyone on my Must-see list except for Denise Jacobs and Brad Haynes (because I decided to see Remi Sharp’s and Paul Boag’s talks instead). But the ones I missed I will be able to catch on video when I get home (if you missed the conference, you can buy a full video coverage from FOWD).

On this early, and very beautiful morning, I will give you my roundup on the highs and lows of FOWD. Actually, only the highs, as there really were no lows – Carsonified did a truly awesome :) job on this one.

Read the rest of this entry »

This post is inspired by two tweets made by a former students at The Nordic Multimedia Academy, Maarja Jullinen.

Maarja tweeted:

“of seeing all the “10 tips to better design” articles. Why, fellow designer, can’t you write something else? I’ll read it, I promise!”

“Don’t promise me no tips unless it’s an actual tutorial. While I realize ‘breaking it down’ is a marvelous idea, it does make my eyes bleed.” Read the rest of this entry »