uidesign.net is about Practical Interaction Design.

Focus

At uidesign.net, we want to study the processes, the strategies, the patterns and the aesthetics of Interaction Design and Interface Implementation. We want to raise UI Design to a more sophisticated level than it has been before. This site wants to be above field alignment problems, above action-object, object-action debates, above metaphor. We want to move things to a new, more practical level. We want to put some science and some repeatability into User Interface Design. To lift practical User Interface Design from the realms of "Black Magic" into a well understood discipline. To make the chance of a good UI Design so much higher.

How many software products have you seen or developed which you can truly say are usable and functional? How many can you list that have good UI Design? How shameful are the answers? Let's face it - the UI on most software technology is awful.

WE HATE SO MANY TECHNOLOGY PRODUCTS. Why?

Because the UI is awful. Let's try to make it better!

Content

This site will feature a regular news and magazine style editorial. It will also feature White Papers covering work that We've been doing in Interaction Design and Interface Implementation. It works for us, so why not take the time to read it and try it?

At uidesign.net, the focus will be on positive articles, describing ways to do things well. There are some great sites which describe and detail the negative aspects of current UI Design such as the Interface Hall of Shame. They hope to create improvements by pointing out current deficiencies. That is all very well, but it leaves open the possibility that more and more bad designs will be created and added to the list. So, uidesign.net is about emphasising the positive; helping each other out.

As an example from another field, a top golfing coach said, something like this, " I watch a lot of golfers and often when they make a bad shot, they take another swing - the what I should have done swing. If you watch my golfers, they don't do that. I teach them to take another swing after they play a good shot. Emphasise the positive. Forget the negative. Learn to get better."

Off-focus

What this site is not about is Usability Engineering as a discipline. Naturally we believe in Usability. I also believe that a good design should lead to Usability. However, we see Usability Engineering as a specialist area best left to the experts. My expertise is in software and interaction design. We will design, the Usability Experts can test those designs with proven Usability Engineering techniques and tell me how usable they are. To learn more about Usability, take a look at Jakob Nielsen's site.

 

This site is also not particularly about development of software, though it will come up. After all, there is no point in being the greatest designer, if your designs are never realised in code.

Participation

We would encourage you to participate in the development of this site. E-mail us. Send in your ideas for the Monthly columns. Send in your comments - positive or negative. Send in your links to related sites. Tell us about books you've read. The best of the reader Feedback will be published each month. Full credit will always be given to contributions.

We need your help to make software products better. We want to start here. We hope you will join us in the effort.

David Anderson,
Editor-in-Chief