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A Process for Designing UIs

Usability Engineering | October 06, 2004 | 1 comments

Ever feel like designing a GUI should just be left to a graphic artist because you have no artistic talent? What if you could use a simple yet effective process to design your GUI that does not require you to be artistically inclined?

Ryan Singer of 37signals, one of my favorite companies and the creatures of Basecamp, has written a paper titled “An Introduction to Using Patterns in Web Design” where he defines the process he uses to design a web-page. He goes from the requirements of the page to layout with an easy to use process. The paper is written with web-pages in mind but it can also easily be applied to GUI design.

Here is an overview of the steps in his process:

1. List all the information and actions page should support (bits)
2. Package together all related info and actions (chunks)
3. Categorize chunks into one of three priorities
4. Design each chunk separately
5. Put the chunks together
6. Make it real

I recommend you read his paper since he gives a good description of what you should do in each step and walks you through an example to show you how his process works.

Related Links:

• Paper: “An Introduction to Using Patterns in Web Design”
• 37signals
• Basecamp by 37signals

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Comments

October 22, 2004 10:23 AM | ElvisIsGod commented:

The best comments I have seen on UI come from Jef Raskin. Some of his comments can be read here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1331536,00.html

He states: “designing from the interface to the software and hardware, are as vital today as they were then” I will say that MacOS 9 was the best mac GUI. OS X is a mess, it seems that every “update” only add functions that were common in the previous generation of the OS. The problem with a lot of programs and this applies to Linux, Windows and Mac equally is such poor UI. The user experience from small details such as how the mouse moves on screen to user feedback when the computer is doing something are important and often overlooked.

Jef says:”There has been immense progress, primarily in the richness of applications. But all this power is lost on many people, and impedes the utility of it for the rest, because of the unnecessary complexity of using computers.

The quest for CPU power has been largely defeated by bloated software in applications and operating systems. Some programs I wrote in Basic on an Apple II ran faster than when written in a modern language on a G4 Dual-processor Mac with hardware 1,000 times faster.”

And he is right - I don’t know of any software company that has simplified, speed up or really improved it’s products with new releases. Even an old classic such a BBedit feels like bloatware.

When complaining to programmers that their products are not easy to use, they will rebutt that it’s the user that does not know how to use it… They should examine what they have programmed. RTFM only goes so far….

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