Tapping on arm allows users to scroll through menus and select options
Touchscreens may be popular both in science fiction and real life as the symbol of next-gen technology, but an innovation called Skinput suggests the true interface of the future might be us.
Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University unveiled Skinput recently, showing how it can turn your own body into a touchscreen interface. Read more »
Touch Screens that Touch Back
Forget putting your phone on vibrate. A novel “high-definition” touch-feedback display can give a touch screen the feel of a textured surface. The technology was developed for mobile devices by the San Jose CA-based company Immersion, and is a step toward mimicking the feel of physical buttons on flat screens. Read more »
Color in design is very subjective. What evokes one reaction in one person may evoke a very different reaction in someone else. Sometimes this is due to personal preference, and other times due to cultural background. Color theory is a science in itself. Studying how colors affect different people, either individually or as a group, is something some people build their careers on. And there’s a lot to it. Something as simple as changing the exact hue or saturation of a color can evoke a completely different feeling. Cultural differences mean that something that’s happy and uplifting in one country can be depressing in another.
The history of the visual design of user interfaces can be described as a gradual change towards more realism. As computers have become faster, designers have added increasingly realistic details such as color, 3D effects, shadows, translucency, and even simple physics. Some of these changes have helped usability. Shadows behind windows help us see which window is active. The physicality of the iPhone’s user interface makes the device more natural to use.
In other areas, the improvements are questionable at best. Graphical user interfaces are typically full of symbols. Most graphical elements you see on your screen are meant to stand for ideas or concepts. The little house on your desktop isn’t a little house, it’s «home». The eye isn’t an actual eye, it means «look at the selected element». The cog isn’t a cog, it means «click me to see available commands».
Read more »
This list of ten features should be embraced by game designers
Steve Krug argues in his book Don’t Make Me Think! that a good program or product should let users accomplish their intended tasks as easily and directly as possible. The less time it takes a person to complete a desired task (even if only by a few seconds), the more satisfying it becomes. When that happens, people are more likely to use a product in greater frequency and return for more. So in the spirit of improved usability, here are ten standard features every videogame designer should embrace. Read more »
From: Score One for Quality! Using Games to Improve Product Quality
by Joshua Williams and Ross Smith
Abstract:
In this paper we describe how using a game can improve both the quality of a product, but the quality of life of the employees as well. We call this kind of game a “Productivity Game.” Read more »
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is concerned with helping to raise your website on a list of returned results when people perform a search for your business. In other words, when customers search on Google for a business like yours, how far down the list will your business appear? The closer to the top, the more likely potential customers are to visit your website. Read more »
In the virtual reality game, the player’s avatar mirrors the player’s actions. Credit: Tedjokusumo, et al. ©2009 IEEE.
(PhysOrg.com) — With a new immersive multiplayer game system, researchers are further blurring the line between gaming and the real world. Using a mouse and keyboard sounds kind of quaint compared to the system developed and tested by Jefry Tedjokusumo, Steven ZhiYing Zhou, and Stefan Winkler of the National University of Singapore (Winkler is currently with Symmetricom in San Jose, California). Read more »
Small companies should consider outsourcing the facilitation of their usability testing projects. On the surface, it makes sense to have a designer/developer who has a deep understanding of the project be in charge of usability testing, but in fact this can cause serious problems. Read more »
If you ask most Web developers about Section 508 they will respond with something about their site being accessible to the blind. Most people don’t realize that 508-accessibility is not just about making Web sites accessible to the blind. Section 508 is about removing barriers and making Web site information accessible and usable to all. Read more »
A user’s perception of a Web site can evoke a wide range of emotions and attitudes. These emotions and perceptions impact the user’s attitude towards the Web site’s content, advertised products, company, credibility and site usability.
The design and presentation of a Web site is strongly visual and users are known to make aesthetic judgments of a site very quickly. As the Web site likeability and credibility increases so does the likelihood of purchasing from the site. Since the site’s aesthetics can influence brand perception and credibility, the importance of design and color treatments must be considered. Read more »
Everyone would agree that usability is an important aspect of Web design. Whether you’re working on a portfolio website, online store or Web app, making your pages easy and enjoyable for your visitors to use is key. Many studies have been done over the years on various aspects of Web and interface design, and the findings are valuable in helping us improve our work. Here are 10 useful usability findings and guidelines that may help you improve the user experience on your websites. Read more »
Lynn Marentette has just reported, hot off the press from Microsoft’s Applied Sciences Group at UIST 2009.
MS presents novel input devices that combine the standard capabilities of a computer mouse with multi-touch sensing. The goal is to make multi-touch interaction more widely available and applicable to the desktop environment. To chart the design space, they present five different multi-touch mouse implementations. Each explores a different touch sensing strategy, which leads to differing form-factors and hence interactive possibilities.
The following video is courtesy of Microsoft’s Applied Sciences Group:
Your website is designed, the CMS works, content has been added and the client is happy. It’s time to take the website live. Or is it? When launching a website, you can often forget a number of things in your eagerness to make it live, so it’s useful to have a checklist to look through as you make your final touches and before you announce your website to the world.
This article reviews some important and necessary checks that web-sites should be checked against before the official launch — little details are often forgotten or ignored, but – if done in time – may sum up to an overall greater user experience and avoid unnecessary costs after the official site release. Read more »
Matthew Sharritt, President of Situated Research, recently created a brochure giving an overview of our video game user-experience research:
Situated Research: Video Game User-Experience Analysis (PDF)
Please feel free to download, view, print, and redistribute this brochure to others! We have a unique talent to help game developers create better games, and we need your help getting the message out there so people know about us. Read more »
Last week, we saw that order of presentation of a small number of products dramatically affects consumer preference. (See Order Effect Affects Orders.) But how do our brains cope when choices number in the hundreds or thousands, and how do websites best match products or services to their visitors? Read more »
Steve Ballmer discusses some of Microsoft’s new technologies and the future of computing: cloud computing and revolutionary user-interfaces to support content on multiple devices. Read more »
Usability is an integral part of software development and has been so for the past 20 years. For one reason or another, usability has not gained similar popularity in game development. This, however, is about to change.
Greetings! Today we’re happy to offer a guest post by Ross Smith, Director of Test, Windows Security, at Microsoft, and one of the authors of The Practical Guide to Defect Prevention (Microsoft Press, 2007). Read more »
Summary: Social networking sites have quickly become one of the most popular means of online communication. Users can quickly share photos, videos, and communicate to friends, family, and colleagues via a social networking site. This study evaluated the usability of three of the most popular social networking sites (MySpace, Facebook, and Orkut) with first-time users. Results revealed issues related to confusing terminology, inadequate feedback and error messages, and improper link location impacted user performance and satisfaction. Read more »
Video by: Vimeo
Posted By: Situated Research, LLC
Users should not have to think too hard when they are using your website. They should not have to refer to help screens and they shouldn’t be made to feel stupid. Simply by observing your customers you can avoid this. Read more »
