Was looking for my notes on a Flash project and rediscovered a 2002 report from nngroup.

I really think the guidelines for designing with Flash are for any project.

Things that popped out at me (and made me nod my head):

• Do good design
• Familiar is good
• Dancing bears is bad (“Don’t show gratuitous motion.”)
• Don’t be annoying with sound/motion
• If your purpose is information, don’t be silly (was re: should I use 5pt font size)
• Be. Meaningful. (Though I think that’s up there with good design is good.)
• Pass the remote (was re: letting users have control)
• KISS and I don’t mean the band (Keep It Simple Stupid)

Also with the report came some excellent examples and a report on usability for those with disabilities. October 2002 was a long time ago, but the information still looks good. I wish I could buy all of their reports. But I (and you) can read his Alertbox for free!

What’s my page look like on a Mac?

Jakob Nielsen is well known for his reports on usability and I really enjoyed his book “Homepage Usability.” I figured that this would be a more in-depth exploration of how to design with the user in mind. Most of the points were on the ball, and very common sense, but nice to see it in writing from someone else. The examples in “Designing Web Usability,” though ancient, fit well with the points.

I kept getting lost, in a way, because I kept getting distracted by the prehistoric examples and data. For example, what do I design for? 640? 770? What is in use today? 1997 was a long time ago in web years. I suppose it’s difficult to have a book with such current data in it, but I’m thinking it’s definitely time for a new version of this book.

There is also a tendency for redundancy. I suppose this is inevitable since whether you’re a search results page or an intranet site, you’re still dealing with the same topics of design.

I do like that even though this book is ancient, it touches on accessibility issues. So many places are only now thinking of that. I also like that testing is mentioned, though again, it is peppered with out-of-date technology which makes all the information seem invalid.

I think this book would be much stronger with new examples, updates here and there to technology and re-released. I think that that was one of the strengths of his other book, “Homepage Usability,” was the freshness of the examples and problems designers are facing. If, and when, there is a new and more concise version of this book, I will buy it.

Everyone seems to post on this sooner or later. My turn.

I have been preaching liquid design for at least a year. Folks can see the information in any resolution.rnrnCommon resolutions are 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×1024, 1400×1050. (Stats). At work, I surf at 1152×864 with the browser fully expanded. I tried higher and it was … whoa. I tried lower and it was … whoa. I didn’t resize my browser window though. Hmm…. I have at least 4 coworkers (customers) that are at either 640×480 or 800×600. I know this because they call when they have to scroll to the right for some of our larger reports.
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Articles on Adaptive Path

‘Nine Pillars of Successful Web Teams
1. User Research
2. Site Strategy
3. Technology Strategy
4. Content Strategy
5. Abstract Design
6. Technology Implementation
7. Content Production
8. Concrete Design
9. Project Management

full article..
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