Human-Computer Interaction Seminar (Seminar on People, Computers, and Design) is a Stanford University course that features weekly speakers on topics related to human-computer interaction design. The seminar is organized by the Stanford HCI Group, which works across disciplines to understand the intersection between humans and computers.
Tags: Bill Buxton, Bill Moggridge, communication, Crowdsourcing, Culture, Design, Donald Norman, HCI, Human communication, Human-computer interaction, Interaction design, Social psychology, Stanford, Stanford HCI Group, Stanford University, Usability
The truly worldwide reach of the Web has brought with it a new realisation among computer scientists and industry professionals of the enormous importance of usability and user interface design. In the last ten years, much has become understood about what works in user interfaces from a usability perspective, and what does not.
Tags: Chris Connors, communication, David Travis, Design, Ellen Beldner, Human communication, Human-computer interaction, Human–computer interaction, Interaction design, Jenifer Tidwell, Joe Clarke Dive, John Kolko, John M. Carroll, Judith Reitman Olson, Justin Petro, Mark Pilgrim, Marti A. Hearst, Social psychology, Technical communication, Uday Gajendar, Usability, User experience design, User interface, User Interface Design, User-centered design, web accessibility, Web Accessibility Just Ask, Web Standards
Dieter Rams is a German industrial designer closely associated with the consumer products company Braun and the Functionalist school of industrial design. Many of Rams’ designs — coffee makers, calculators, radios, audio/visual equipment, consumer appliances and office products — have found a permanent home at many museums over the world, including MoMA in New York.
Tags: aesthetic design, Apple, Architectural design, Braun, Design, designed products, designer, Dieter Rams, environmentally friendly, Industrial design, industrial designer, innovative, Jonathan Ive, less is more, longevity, products, The Design Museum, understandable, unobtrusive, Usability, useful, Vitsœ
These are ten general principles for user interface design suggested by Jakob Nielsen. They are called “heuristics” because they are more in the nature of rules of thumb than specific usability guidelines.
Tags: Heuristic evaluation, heuristics, Human-computer interaction, Information Architecture, Interaction design, Jakob Nielsen, principles, Usability, User Interface Design, User-centered design
IDEO’s Human Centered Design Toolkit is a free innovation guide for NGOs and social enterprises. Human-Centered Design (HCD) is a process used for decades to create new solutions for companies and organisations. HCD can help you enhance the lives of people. This process has been specially-adapted for organisations like that work with people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. HCD will help you hear people’s needs in new ways, create innovative solutions to meet these needs, and deliver solutions with financial sustainability in mind.
Tags: Africa, Asia, Aspirations cards, Create guide, Deliver guide, Field guide, HCD, Hear guide, Human Centered Design, IDEO, Information Architecture, Interaction design, Latin America, NGO, non-governmental organisations, toolkit, UCD, Usability, User Interface Design, User-centered design
Published in the “Ergonomics in Design” journal in 1997, Arnie Lund collected and created this list of 34 rules-of-thumb that were found particularly useful during the design process by colleagues working in the human-computer interaction (HCI) design field.
Tags: ergonomics, Ergonomics in Design, HCI, Human-computer interaction, IA, Information Architecture, Interaction design, Lund, rules of thumb, UCD, Usability, User-centered design, UX, UxD
Emotional Design is both the title of a book by Donald Norman and of the concept it represents. The main issue is that emotions have a crucial role in the human ability to understand the world, and how they learn new things. For example, aesthetically pleasing objects appear to the user to be more effective, by virtue of their sensual appeal. This is due to the affinity the user feels for an object that appeals to them, due to the formation of an emotional connection [with the object].
Tags: Aesthetics, Affect, Behavioural sciences, Don Norman, Donald Norman, Emotion, Emotional Design, Human-computer interaction, Industrial design, Interaction design, Psychology, User-centered design
Personas are fictional characters created to represent the different user types within a targeted demographic that might use a site or product. Personas are useful in considering the goals, desires, and limitations of the users in order to help to guide decisions about a product, such as features, interactions, and visual design. Personas are most often used as part of a user-centered design process for designing software and are also considered a part of interaction design.
Tags: Alan Cooper, communication, HCI, Human-computer interaction, Interaction design, IxD, Labelling, Lene Nielsen, Persona, personas, Process, Scenario, situation, UCD, Usability, User-centered design
An accessibility statement makes a good addition to all web sites. It is not only a place to demonstrate that you are taking accessibility seriously, but more importantly, it should provide extra information for visitors to your site — particularly for those people with disabilities who need to know about the accessibility of the information and services you provide — and a mechanism to receive feedback on accessibility.
Tags: Accessibility, assistive technology, diabetes, Digital Web, Digital Web Magazine, Disability Discrimination Act 1995, e.g. device, epilepsy, heart disease, RNIB, Royal National Institute for the Blind, statement, Usability, W3C, WAI, wcag, Web, web accessibility, Web Accessibility Initiative, Web Accessibility Statement An accessibility statement, web content accessibility guidlines, Web Magazine, Web Standards, website
I’m not a big fan of the BBC’s recent website redesign! While I believe that a few structural and hierarchical elements could have been addressed better, the overall result of this redesign is too “Facebook” and Web 2.0 for my liking; exactly what an online news site does not need. Who are the BBC trying to appeal to? They have gone from being content centric to design and technology centric. This in itself isn’t a bad thing, but I don’t understand the BBCs motivation for doing so.
Tags: AJAX, bbc, facebook, homepage, iGoogle, Industry, My Yahoo, PHP, The Web, Usability, User Interface Design, Web 2.0, Web Portal, Windows Live