Interface and Navigation Design - Articles Archive
from June 3, 2004 to February 11, 2004

"Children play games, chat with friends, tell stories, study history or math, and today this can all be done supported by new technologies. From the Internet to multimedia authoring tools, technology is changing the way children live and learn. As these new technologies become ever more ... read more

Ben Hunt has just released a new interesting online resource devoted to Web design. Called 'Web Design from Scratch', the site gives a refreshing look at designing Web sites with the end user in mind and it provides a great set of simple-to-use resources as basic ... read more

The MIT Information Services and Technologies office provides an excellent starting point for anyone needing to test, evaluate, analyze or assess the effective usability/accessibility of a Web site. In one well organized page, all critical areas of usability and accessibility are covered through a simple guidelines ... read more

"One of the challenges facing the modern web designer is to create sites that appear fresh and new every time a visitor shows up. It's one thing if the site you're designing is a news site, for example, where stories or headlines will be updated on ... read more

"A fascinating thing about watching visitors navigate is recognizing that repeat visitors typically use sites differently than first-time visitors. You might consider changing your navigation based on this, as Amazon.com changes the tabs displayed based on purchase and browsing patterns. As Don Norman of the Nielsen ... read more

"It is not enough to make computers easier to use; they must become transparent to drive order of magnitude growth in adoption of new technology-enabled devices. In effect, technology will not become fully pervasive until it becomes fully invisible. Today, technology is a barrier as much ... read more

"Use cases are widely used in large projects to capture the functional requirements of software systems. In the hands of interaction designers, use cases can serve as a powerful tool for brainstorming workflows and bridging the gaps between design and development." ... read more

Guidebook is a fast-growing online resource dedicated to preservation and showcase of all the major Graphical User Interfaces utilized to this day on personal computers. At Guidebook you can find all of the interface elements of Windows 386, System 6 for the Mac or any other ... read more

An excellent paper covering the application of Minimalist principles to interface design, UI optimization and other HCI-related work. In this presentation, the four basic principles of minimalism are introduced, (1. Choose an action-oriented approach, 2. Anchor the tool in the task domain, 3. Support error recognition ... read more

News, links and other useful stuff for the blog designer. BlogDSNG is a great online resource offering selected information to selected resources, directories and tools relating to bloggers, RSS newsmasters and independent publishers. This is a new well organized resource to which you can directly contribute ... read more

Find out what interaction designers, information architects and multimedia producers think Experience Design really is. Excerpted and carefully picked from an ongoing exchange started yesterday on the AIGA YahooGroup Discussion List, this is a great collection of contributions facilitating greater understanding of ED for both the ... read more

Technorati, one of the must-stop points for anyone publishing a weblog or having an RSS feed out there, has just launched a new version of the interface which appears, brighter, more informative and easier to use. Technorati is a free online service that provides a unique ... read more

A dated (1999) article that stands well the test of time. What are the key steps to organize a good interface design project? If you are responsible for interface design issues this one page article from Microsoft is for you. "The most important step toward good ... read more

WebSpeed Simulator helps you design more efficient web pages by previewing your Web page at the speed of real world dial-up connections. You can avoid designing pages that look great on your LAN but are too slow for the real internet. If you use Flash or ... read more

Before embarking on any intranet or website design project, it is important to understand the needs of your users. It is then possible to identify the features and functionality that will make the intranet or website a success, and how the design can support users with ... read more

Search engine promotion is important: most visitors use a search engine to find your site. But once they arrive, they have to be able to actually use the site and understand the content. Otherwise, your site is a waste of their time. A well prepared, organized ... read more

Imagine a future where you have instant access to all data you need, in a worldwide collaborative environment, where tools can developed independently but still cooperate as a single application. The Uni-Verse project started at Feb 1, 2004 with 1.9 Million Euro in funding from the European Commission. ... read more

Within most corporations, taking ownership of an intranet is an unglamorous, exhausting, and thankless job for a new intranet manager. Many corporate intranets lack thoughtful, focused, and disciplined design and are often extremely large and unwieldy. Fixing these intranets can seem an impossible and futile task. ... read more

Have you ever asked questions like "Where can I use icons in my application? Where shall I place the header and detail data? Should I provide collapsible screen areas? How will users search? What about inserting new lines in a table? How to...?" while developing the ... read more

An interesting interview with Elaine Bontempi covering the strategies and methods utilized to complement online training courses with effective graphics, visuals and interface design elements. Sound instructional design, accessibility and ease of use remain key pillars for effective design of elearning interfaces. ... read more