Are you are wondering about the origins of the sample size controversy in the usability profession? This article provides an annotated timeline of the major events and papers which continue to shape this topic.
Measuring Usability provides a Brief History of the Magic Number 5 in Usability Testing
Apple has released a detailed account of its “App Store Review Guidelines.”
Apple also claim to be relaxing restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need.
It’s too early to tell what this might mean for Flash on the iPhone and iPad.
You can view the guidelines in the Apple Developer Center if you’ve got access, otherwise there are some sites that are making it available as a PDF, and it’s also on Scribd.
This article from The UX Bookmark is a snapshot of the psychologist’s view of UX Design.
Psychologist, Dr. Susan Weinschenk takes research and knowledge about the brain, the visual system, memory, and motivation and extrapolates UX principles:
If you’re new to the field of user experience design, welcome! There’s plenty to see and do around here. And although many brilliant contributors have come before us, there’s actually not too much to catch up on—if you know where to look.
In this article, Luke Wroblewski assesses several resources and discovers that text input can be tough. When it comes to text input on mobile devices the conventional design wisdom is: “avoid it. it’s hard.” Yet the volume of text messages sent across the globe seems to suggest otherwise…
Read the full article over at Luke’s website Functioning Form.
Lately, Apple Keynote has been gaining popularity among designers as a wireframing and prototyping tool. Features like multiple slide masters, styles, grouping, animation and hyperlinks make it ideal for crafting interactive prototypes and UI narratives.
Smashing Magazine’s freebie, Keynotopia, is a free set of interface elements for Keynote that makes it possible for anyone to create these prototypes in minutes. All elements are hand-crafted in Apple Keynote, and organised in nested groups for easier manipulation and customisation. The templates can be used in Keynote 09 and 08 and are designed by Amir Khella.
This is the first version of an OmniGraffle template for designing iPad apps from Information Architects. It’s not complete as they’re planning to update it as they continue to work on their own designs but it sure is a hell of a starter pack!
At first glance, this looks like it could be incredibly useful for all UX professionals out there. Download the OmniGraffle stencil direct from Information Architects.
Much like the Web during the 1990s, mobile is the new domain at the forefront of innovation. Users are discovering new capabilities, integrating them with their daily lives, and experiencing new interaction models.
This post from UXmatters discusses the Usability of mobile devices and the effect that they have (for better or worse) on our daily lives.
Prototyping tools can be a huge benefit to design workflow. However, it seems to me that the most common wireframing applications (Visio, OmniGraffle, Axure RP) whilst fine for producing low-fidelity mock-ups, are a barrier when taking the finished design through to production… Honestly, how many web designers, web developers, user experience professionals or otherwise really want to commit to re-working, re-drawing and re-coding a final design once the final design decisions have already been made?
…And so in steps Adobe Fireworks.
Ok, ok, so I agree that the idea of “re-work” is a slightly heavily weighted if not clumsy argument and there is no such thing as a tool for all seasons, one-stop shop. Of course, I’m not suggesting that Firework’s CSS and HTML export functionality is anything more than a handy rapid prototying and user testing feature. Nor do I think Photoshop should take a back seat when dealing with web (subtle cough) “photography”. I do believe however that as part of an iterative workflow, Adobe Fireworks really stands out.
In a nutshell, Firework is a hybrid imaging application that includes powerful vector tools to create non-destructive scalable elements and tools to optimize graphics for the web by using the native PNG format to keep layered file sizes low. Interestingly, one of the original goals of the Fireworks development team was to create a program in which users could do all their work without ever having to jump to another application. Having said that, integration with other Adobe (previously Macromedia) products is seamless. With the advent of Rich Internet Application and Adobe’s commitment to Flex, Fireworks CS4 allows Flex components to be inserted into a design making it ideal for the design development of Flex (and Flash) based web applications. For those still not content with Fireworks out of the box, it can also be extended by those who are familiar with JavaScript or Flash.
Whilst long time users of Adobe Photoshop may find it difficult to migrate their workflow to Fireworks since Photoshop has been the web design tool for many over a decade, Fireworks CS4 now has improved support for import of PSD files and preserving all slices made in Photoshop.
In the end, yes, it is about choice. However, Adobe really has succeeded in creating a tool that can be integrated into your existing workflow, and enhances your productivity by functioning as both prototyping and design applications.
Useful stuff:
This video does a great job of demonstrating the wireframing process from lo-fi to hi-fi wireframes.
