Ux
Time for a change
The story of my time as a User Experience designer, and why I turned my back on design in favour of development.
October 15, 2013
I'm no longer a UX designer
After twelve months of radio silence I’m resuming the blog under a new design – and, more importantly, a new focus on development rather than UX.
September 14, 2013
Human Vision for UI Designers
This post was rescued from my old UX blog With rare exception, the interfaces we design rely on graphical output. They use text, colour, layout and motion to communicate messages and respond to user activity. Working with a primarily visual medium, then, it’s vital that we understand the capacities and limitations of human vision.
August 15, 2012
Character count design: some guidelines
This post was rescued from my old UX blog Character limits are ubiquitous on the web, not least in applications that rely on user-generated content. Yet for something so common, character limits are often poorly implemented. Thankfully, by following six simple guidelines about designing length-limited fields and displaying character counters, you can make writing character-restricted text and smooth and painless as possible.
May 30, 2012
Designing in-context editors
This post was rescued from my old UX blog In-context (or ‘in-place’) editors allow users to edit content in the same page or space that they view it, rather than using a separate form or administration area. They establish a strong relationship between content and the tools used to manage it, which makes those tools extremely discoverable, and gives users confidence about the consequences of their activity. However, in-place editors can also pose certain design challenges. I take a look at these issues and offer some ideas on how to ameliorate them.
March 30, 2012
The problem with video help
This post was rescued from my old UX blog Video guides have become enormously popular as a help strategy. They’re attractive to new users, they’re easy to create with today’s tools and they impart a real ‘wow’ factor. But like all tools, video help has its limitations, and needs to be employed carefully – because advanced and long-term users find them tremendously frustrating.
January 31, 2012