Question everything generally thought to be obvious - Dieter Rams I think Google Chrome has one of the most elegant interfaces. When it was launched, I didn’t understand the need for another web browser. But as I started using the new browser, it changed me as user and as a designer. It showed that minimal does [...]
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Pie charts are not a good choice to communicate a group of numbers, because humans can’t compare area as good as length. Even if comparing values is not important, I think there are layout and readability problems with pie charts. There are two ways to add legends to a pie chart. One method is to list each [...]
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Should labels and messages in an user interface be in first person or third person voice? For example, in an email client should the contacts be called “My Contacts”, or “Your Contacts”? Of course we can call it just contacts. But the point is if the UI has to refer to the user should it [...]
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I have been working on icons recently. This is the first time I’m responsible for designing icons. So I have been learning design principles related icons. In the last post, I wrote about the three types of icons/signs and theory of semiotics. This helped me to identify what to use as the icon. The next step [...]
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Icons are visual representation of actions, objects or concepts in an user interface. They make use of our ability to quickly recognize visual patterns and memorize them. It is not possible for us to not recognize a visual pattern that is stored in our memory.Icon is an commonly used term in user interface design field; [...]
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Purpose of presenting information is to help the decision making process. Information presenters should have the spirit of whatever it takes to help the process. This was the premise of Edward Tufte’s workshop I attended in San Francisco on Dec 9. Here are my notes from the workshop: Data analysis Information overload is caused by [...]
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I joined Moody’s Analytics as a User Experience Designer a month ago. Moody’s Analytics is a division of Moody’s that provides credit and risk analysis solutions to corporations. In simpler terms the company provides software and research services in the financial sector. I am working in the San Francisco office of Moody’s. I am enjoying [...]
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I’m reading Sketching User Experience by Bill Buxton. It is a interesting book, just the title convinced me to read the book. In a chapter the author refers to the prototyping of the bifocal display (YouTube Video of the original prototype) which displays receding text above and below the user’s field of vision. This allows [...]
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I came across an interesting service Tipjoy. to simplify the hard problem of co-ordinating a monetary transaction. Exchanging money is a very strong social signal. When we communicate with others we are exchanging only attention, other costs associated with communicating are almost zero. Internet and mobile technologies have made attention very scarce resource. I would [...]
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Tagged: money "social transation"