From: Jim Sneeringer [Jim@Sneeringer.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 8:47 PM
To: UserExperience
Subject: UPA Conference Report to Date
Tutorial on Pattern Libraries
a. The main think I learned here is that Sara did a great job of setting up or template.
Attached is the workbook from "Creating a Custom UI Pattern Library"
From: Dean Barker [mailto:dean.barker@humanfactors.com]
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2007 12:49 PM
To: dean.barker@humanfactors.com; aadomenas@alta.com; ken.becker@intermec.com; denise.belling@gmail.com; mcamp@njm.com; elena.cistrunk@aristocrat-inc.com; erik.egbertson@autodesk.com; tony.fagerlund@swedbank.se; david.fine@bowne.com; anestes-fotiades@idexx.com; ngift@mit.edu; cgoings@google.com; ryangossen@yahoo.com; marlah@well.com; robin.k.hanks.ay3v@statefarm.com; whharrison4@yahoo.com; naomih@hiser.com.au; jjanis@progressive.com; kek@dk.ibm.com; lidlbare@yahoo.com; kleppner_andrew@emc.com; f3484134@yahoo.com; kmarshak@earthlink.net; susan.michael@thomas.com; linda_parra@tds.net; peter@half-tide.com; michael.rawlins@opensolutions.com; csossrickes@yahoo.com; jinwise@gmail.com; jill.shinkawa@hp.com; shilpa.shukla@hp.com; allison.smith@thomson.com; jim@sneeringer.com; erik.snell@autodesk.com; mike@lifename.com; darrell.h.taylor@ssa.gov; judi.m.victor@boeing.com; thomas.vollaro@autodesk.com; vutpakdi@acm.org; heather.walker@thomson.com; nancy.wojack@intermec.com
Presenters: Janice (Ginny) Redish, Whitney Quesenbery
Usable content lets users:
[1] Find what they need.
People find what they need when
. links use words they know
. content on information pages is in small pieces with good headings
[2] Understand what they find
People understand information when the content speaks directly to them with
. personal pronouns
. action verbs
. active voice
. words they know
Presenters: Daniel Schwartz, Arin Bhowmick; Oracle
Summary of their experience:
• Specific use case design pattern set = domain abstraction
• Valuable for organizations of any size
• Documentation demands _large_ time commitment!
• Need to create balance, when to reference existing patterns vs. build new
• Critical: properly scope what are pattern vs. product features
• Critical: efficient post-design strategy (just as key as optimal design)
• Design pattern success = documenting best practices for domain + being actually implemented org-wide
Presenters: Laura Mason, Ecora; Gregg Almquist, Experient Interactive and Design
Without Style Guidelines (“The Frankenstein effect”)
. Product was fragmented – page design and language seemed pieced together
. Inconsistency made product harder to use and undermined users’ confidence
. Most important information wasn’t always first on page
. Various synonyms used for the word “enter”
. Tone bounced around from formal legalese to very casual
Presenters: J. Goldberg, Oracle; J. Helfman, Oracle
Recommendations from a usability study of new widescreen page layouts (what users preferred and how they expected such pages to behave):
- Left justify content.
- Make content resize and flow as pages resize.
- Keep page splitters stationary, and let right-side content resize and move in proportion to available page area.
- Have tables always show all columns, unless there's a horizontal scrollbar.
- Make graphs and maps resize with constant aspect ratio, with predefined min/max sizes based on intended tasks.
- Overall: Use a constraint-based liquid layout, rather than redesigning for each display.
Presenters: Timothy Keirnan, Design Critique: Products for People; Sarah Swierenga, Michigan State U., Usability & Accessibility Center
Types of Podcasts
1. Academic: distributes classroom recordings or recordings made outside class from lesson plans.
2. Marketing: corporate services, case studies, methods, testimonials, events.
3. Infotainment: shares user-centered concepts and applications in a fun, non-commercial way.
4. Hobby: promotes anything people like to enjoy outside of work.
Last week I attended the Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA) conference here in Austin; I'll blog soon on the critical sessions I attended.
The conference -- which focuses on real-world practice -- was hugely attended (nearly 800) internationally, with chapter growth exploding in southeast Asia, China, and India.
I've just uploaded the source code and demo videos for the iMIS Mobile application that I demoed at the Innovations conference.
http://www.imiscommunity.com/imis_mobile
I've also setup a live site that anyone can play with using a mobile browser. See it in action here:
http://mobile.imis.com
There are tons of devices out there, and I only have a few that I can get my hands on personally. So, let me know how it looks on your device!
Mark B. mentioned this at our Dev staff meeting.
I recently ran across a very useful tool "WyaWidget - Widget Creator" that allows you to create a widget and place it onto your Google Personalized Homepage (Also, Netvibes & Pageflakes). I'm sure there are other tools out there that are similar but this one caught my attention because it is completely web-based and simple, some of the interface is a bit rough but it is totally usable. Not only can you build a quick widget directly from you Google homepage but they also have a web based tool that allows you to build web apps, modify any you created through Google and also change your data schema ( Similar to BOA ).
