Silly Interaction Designs

I have been reading "About Face 3" and I am about half way through it. It has crystallized some concepts I already have and introducing a few new ones. One of the early points that they made was that software should work (or at least appear to do so to them) how people think it works and not how it actually does. IQ blog has another good example of this, although I have never seen the example he uses in the states.

Another good example is Apple's beloved trash can. This crazy little character has been around since the beginning (history lesson via kernelthread). Initially it was only used to delete files; poof, gone goodbye. Nice, that makes sense and it even works pretty well as a metaphor. Kinda simple & pretty cool.

But wait, someone decided that I should also eject media (cds, disks, mounted drives, etc) by putting it in the trash! Huh? But why would I put the disk that contains the only copy of my dissertation in the trash! I don't want to delete it, I just want to get the physical disk out of my mac take it to the lab to print it out. How on earth does putting something in the trash equal ejecting media?

Via kernelthread:
Since the original Macintosh had no hard disk, and a single floppy drive, it was expected that users will typically use several diskettes while working on the Macintosh. A convenience feature of the system was that it cached (in memory) the list of files on a diskette even after it had been ejected. This was indicated by a grayed-out icon for that diskette on the Desktop, clicking on which would prompt the user to insert the appropriate diskette in the drive. If a user wanted to free-up the memory used by a diskette's cache, he would have to drag the grayed-out icon to the trash.

Thus, even if a user intended to permanently eject a diskette, two actions were required: the eject command, and dragging an icon to the trash. The redundancy was removed by combining these actions to a single action: dragging an "active" (non-grayed-out) icon to the trash caused the disk to be ejected, and its cache to be deleted.

They designed it to help explain the implementation model, simplified it as technology and usage patterns changed, but never bothered to explore a better way. Leaving us with the illogical and strange idea of throwing away things that we want to keep. They have tried to make it better by changing the trash icon into an eject symbol when you drag mounted media, but who is gonna look at the trash for a place to physically eject something. Which brings up another point, why would you think you needed the softwares permission to get your disk back. I can imagine sitting there thingking "okay, how do i get my disk out of this machine." Reminds me of the zoolander bit about files inside the computer.



Don't even get me started on "ctrl alt delete" as a way to lock my computer. I may be considered an expert user because I employ this shortcut, but that doesn't mean that my fingers don't make mistakes. There have been a few times when the only button my finger manages to connect with is the delete key. What usually follows in quick succession is the enter key. In photoshop, in a hurry, "shift alt delete" enter and I just deleted a layer. Talk about dumb. Why would you include delete in that sequence? Talk about "Which one of these things doesn't belong". Should call it bunnies, rainbows, and hellfire missiles.

I can imagine the developer saying; "Awe come on. It's totally safe and easy, they only have to get all three keys right!"

Current Read: About Face 3 - Update

I've been reading this book on the bus, to and from work. I have gotten as far as chapter 5 and I have a few impressions.

Good Things:

• The information is comprehensive and detailed. Cooper & gang include some good real world example cases and anecdotes.
• The authors are obviously seasoned experts and can explain why they advocate the approach they do, because they've tried the other theories and adopted the best parts for themselves.
• Their process is detailed and well documented.
  
  

Bad Things:

• They don't use plain english. Many of the words they use are either new to me or not part of my common vocabulary.
• The author also LOVES to use commas. They create extremely long sentences that group several concepts, subjects, phrases, terms, and methods together, and, that just aint kosher, cool, desirable, or advantageous.

Combine these two things together I have to re-read certain passages several times. Part of the problem seems to come from trying to be too complete and thorough. It isn't so bad that I won't continue but it is very frustrating!

That's all for now. Happy halloween.

Time saver: Fireworks for Rapid Prototyping

Do you ever find yourself wishing for a faster way to create websites. Something that would let you scale buttons, scrollbars, and browser chrome without distortion or complicated and painful area duplication techniques? You can! How you ask? The answer is nine slice scaling, object library, layer styles, and editable vectors. Fireworks does all these things! Download the free trial and check it out.

In my opinion the only thing that fireworks is missing is a better type engine and support for paragraph styles.

The video features a designer for yahoo talking about how they use rapid prototyping in their work.

current read: About Face 3

The third edition from Alan Cooper & gang. This book focuses on interaction design as it relates to the software creation process and how design (in various forms) can influence the "process" for the benefit of those who are supposed to actually use it.

One thing that I'm slowly learning as I progress in my design career. You must never stop learning. This is true for most things really, life, job, relationships; change is the only eternal constant. Add in some technology, and you have a future that requires you to be smaller, faster, and stronger than ever.

Nothing like an interview to bring this piece of reality to your attention. I am going to try reading more and watching soap operas less.

Btw, I noticed the prices from Amazon for this book are really good. I picked mine up from the University Bookstore for $45. Good bookstore, but a little spendy.

Silverlight and Blend

You may have heard about this new product from Microsoft called Silverlight. Silverlight is a cross platform (or soon to be cross platform) media plug-in. Similar to adobe Flash player, this technology can be used to deliver HD video, rich user experiences, and all around good ol' slick sex appeal right in your audiences very own browser. Microsoft Expression Blend is an application that allows you to build content for Silverlight.

Ok, great. Why do I care?

Resume Gold. If a designer seriously plans on looking for a job with anything to do with software or the web, they should consider getting their hands dirty with stuff ASAP. It won't necessarily get you the job, but it will really make you stand out. Not many people have much experience with it but lots of companies are looking for people who do. Need more reasons?

It's not flash. The more technical folks will appreciate the fact that complete experiences can be created with Javascript. That's right, Javascript! The same cool language that you use for your neat css, dhtml widgets can be used with this. Now you don't need to have another language with its own unique syntax and issues floating around in your head.

Competition is good for us; the designers, consumers, computer users. Hopefully, this will drive both companies to continue to innovate in the area of rich interaction tools marketed toward the design crowd. Innovation is good!

Efficiency is the key to a profitable business. Blend is an application that tries to shorten the development time involved in creating the awesome user experiences we strive for. Design the actual interface & elements, hand this very same file off to the developer to add the mechanical bits. Viola, you no longer need countless emails to the dev team that they didn't recreate your design exactly to spec.

If you want to experience this product yourself, you can download a free demo here.