This link has been bookmarked by 357 people . It was first bookmarked on 31 Mar 2007, by Dizzle Dorf.
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19 Apr 12
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01 Mar 12
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Unless it is enjoyable or educational in and of itself, interaction is an essentially negative aspect of information software.
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interactivity is actually a curse for users and a crutch for designers, and users’ goals can be better satisfied through other means.
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interactivity is actually a curse for users and a crutch for designers, and users’ goals can be better satisfied through other means.
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I argue that interactivity is actually a curse for users and a crutch for designers, and users’ goals can be better satisfied through other means.
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I argue that interactivity is actually a curse for users and a crutch for designers, and users’ goals can be better satisfied through other means.
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I argue that interactivity is actually a curse for users and a crutch for designers, and users’ goals can be better satisfied through other means.
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28 Feb 12
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27 Feb 12
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17 Jan 12
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15 Nov 11
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11 Nov 11
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10 Nov 11
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When the software designer defines the interactive aspects of her program, when she places these pseudo-mechanical affordances and describes their behavior, she is doing a virtual form of industrial design. Whether she realizes it or not.
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- To learn.
- To create.
- To communicate.
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Good information software encourages the user to ask and answer questions, make comparisons, and draw conclusions.
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The foremost concern should be appearance—what and how information is presented. The designer should ask: What is relevant information? What questions will the viewer ask? What situations will she want to compare? What decision is she trying to make? How can the data be presented most effectively? How can the visual vocabulary and techniques of graphic design be employed to direct the user’s eyes to the solution? The designer must start by considering what the software looks like, because the user is using it to learn, and she learns by looking at it.
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03 Nov 11
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28 Sep 11
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27 Sep 11
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30 Aug 11
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nformation software design can be seen as the design of context-sensitive information graphics.
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easoning that the cure for unfriendly software is to make software friendlier, they have rallied under the banner of “interaction design,” spreading the gospel of friendly, usable interactivity to all who would listen.
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Most relevant to software is a branch that Edward Tufte calls information design—the use of pictures to express knowledge of interest to the reader.** Edward Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (2001). Some products of conventional information graphic design include bus schedules, telephone books, newspapers, maps, and shopping catalogs.
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A good graphic designer understands how to arrange information on the page so the reader can ask and answer questions, make comparisons, and draw conclusions.
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People are encouraged to consider software a machine—when a button is pressed, invisible gears grind and whir, and some internal or external state is changed. Manipulation of machines is the domain of industrial design.
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When the software designer defines the interactive aspects of her program, when she places these pseudo-mechanical affordances and describes their behavior, she is doing a virtual form of industrial design.
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Most of the time, a person sits down at her personal computer not to create, but to read, observe, study, explore, make cognitive connections, and ultimately come to an understanding.
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This person is not seeking to make her mark upon the world, but to rearrange her own neurons. The computer becomes a medium for asking questions, making comparisons, and drawing conclusions—that is, for learning.
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They no longer sit on the porch speculating about the weather—they ask software.
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My goal in using calendar software to ask and answer questions about what to do when, compare my options, and come to a decision.
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Graphical train timetables date from the late 1800s. For the origin of this and other classic graphical forms, see Howard Wainer’s book Graphic Discovery (2005).
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The designer should ask: What is relevant information? What questions will the viewer ask? What situations will she want to compare? What decision is she trying to make? How can the data be presented most effectively? How can the visual vocabulary and techniques of graphic design be employed to direct the user’s eyes to the solution? The designer must start by considering what the software looks like, because the user is using it to learn, and she learns by looking at it.
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Raph Koster’s Theory of Fun for Game Design (2004) and James Paul Gee’s What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (2003) deal directly with games as learning tools. Salen and Zimmerman’s Rules of Play (2003) and Chris Crawford’s Art of Interactive Design (2003) and Chris Crawford on Game Design (2003) discuss learning through play in a broader context.
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For example, by asking their users to rate each movie they return, Netflix is able to infer some enormously valuable context—each user’s taste. This allows them to winnow an enormous dataset (their catalog of movies) down to a dozen data points (movies the user hasn’t seen, which were enjoyed by people with similar taste), which can be presented in a single, navigation-free graphic. The winnowing is impressively on-target—two-thirds of users’ selections come from recommendations.
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Except in games where the goal is to navigate successfully through a maze of obstacles, navigation through software does not meet user goals, needs, or desires. Unnecessary or difficult navigation thus becomes a major frustration to users.
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he user has to already know what she wants in order to ask for it. Software that infers from history and the environment can proactively offer potentially relevant information that the user wouldn’t otherwise know to ask for. Purely interactive software forces the user to make the first move.
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The user has to know how to ask
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And as long as “speaking” is constrained to awkwardly pushing metaphors with a mouse, interaction should be the last resort.
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Because the child’s “telling” skills are underdeveloped, he communicates complex concepts through showing
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Much current software is interaction-heavy and information-weak. I can think of a few reasons for this.
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Thus, it knew little of its environment beyond the date and time, and memory was too precious to record significant history. Interaction was all it had, so that’s what its designers used.
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After ten versions, the software can grow into a monstrosity, with the user spending more time pulling down menus than studying and learning information.
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most of the “user experience” is represented by the picture above. That is, this software is normally “used” by simply looking at it, with no interaction whatsoever.
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In contradiction to the premise of interaction design, this software is at its best when acting non-interactively.
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Good information software reflects how humans, not computers, deal with information.
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Good design makes people happy, but feature count makes people pay.
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Explicitly informed of the benefits, people gradually came to demand, then expect, such conscientious design in their everyday products.
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Today, software consumers demand technological features because software marketing presents features.
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Consumers ignore design because marketing ignores design.
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production process: researching the needs of the target markets; sketching ideas and proposals; drawing detailed renderings; designing virtual 3D models; constructing physical models out of clay, plastic, and fiberglass; constructing a functional mechanical solution; designing logos and retail packaging. They learn to devise artistic solutions to problems, to think creatively and think critically, to invent concepts and critique those of others.
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“programming by demonstration” (PBD) or “programming by example.”** See Allen Cypher (ed.), Watch What I Do (1993, available online) and Henry Lieberman (ed.), Your Wish Is My Command (2001). Both are compendia of research projects, not textbooks. This field is concerned with teaching behavior to a computer implicitly, through a series of examples, rather than with explicit instructions.
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Also, the components of integrated systems tend to be of lower quality than their dedicated counterparts. You could chop your vegetables and assemble your furniture with a Swiss Army knife, but you probably don’t.
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The email program and the map will be designed by two different software providers, oblivious to one another. The programs must somehow exchange information without knowing anything about each other—without even knowing the other exists.
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The lesson is that, even today, we are designing for tomorrow’s technology. Cultural inertia will carry today’s design choices to whatever technology comes next. In a world where science can outpace science fiction, predicting future technology can be a Nostradamean challenge, but the responsible designer has no choice. A successful design will outlive the world it was designed for.
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With what artifact will the people of tomorrow learn information? I believe that in order for a personal information device to be viable in the long term, it must satisfy two conflicting criteria: portability and readability.
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Portability.
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This implies light weight and small volume.
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Readability.
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Although technology miniaturizes, the human eyespan remains a fundamental constant.
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To resolve these contrasting size constraints, I predict a computer the size and thickness of a sheet of paper. Like paper, its entire surface is a graphical display. When in use, it is rigid; when not in use, it collapses and can be folded or rolled up (or crumpled!) and tucked into a pocket or purse.
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Dynamic graphics with print resolution
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device will be able to sense an enormous amount of information from the environment—geographical location, physical surroundings (streets, stores, transportation options, entertainment options), social surroundings (friends, strangers with interests in common, strangers who can serve a need), and more. The device will have a far better sense of the user’s environment than the user herself.
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Touch or motion-based manipulation
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Eye-tracking and speech
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he principles of information software and context-sensitive information graphics will become critical as technology improves.
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The future will be context-sensitive. The future will not be interactive.
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designers whose creations anticipate, not obey.
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03 Aug 11
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23 Jul 11
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27 Jun 11
Axel GraffRevisiting Bret Victor's "Magic Ink" paper on UI design. There's a lot of gold in there: http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/
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31 May 11
Olifante *"Information software design is graphic design"
graphic_design software_design usability software visualization graphics ui
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Information software serves the human urge to learn.
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Most software is information software
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Information software design is graphic design
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20 May 11
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18 May 11
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14 May 11
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- Is the book appropriate? That is, what is it about, and do I care?
- Is the book good? That is, what did other people think of it, and do I trust them?
However, the most egregious problem is simply that there is not enough information to make any sort of decision.
#The user’s goal is to find the best book about some particular topic. Given that the books shown are presumably related to this topic, what questions does the user have?
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he standard 5-star rating system is information-weak—it gives only an average. It can be enhanced with whiskers underneath that indicate the distribution of ratings. This allows the viewer to differentiate between a book that was unanimously judged middling
and one that was loved and hated 
—these are both 3-star ratings, but have very different meanings. The viewer can also see whether a highly-rated book got any bad reviews; in a sea of praise, criticism often makes enlightening reading. -
Text weight and color is used to emphasize important information and call it out when skimming. Text in grey can be read when focused upon, but disappears as background texture when skimming. All critical information is contained in a column with the width of an eyespan, with a picture to the left and supplementary information to the right. The viewer can thus run her eye vertically down this column; when she spots something interesting, she will slow down and explore horizontally.
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Unfortunately, most software graphics are arranged to maximize aesthetics, not to bring out useful relationships in the data.
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This demonstration and the previous one have attempted to illustrate the power of approaching information software as graphic design, instead of as styling the regurgitation of a database
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These drop-down menus are awkward and uninformative. Geographical locations belong on maps, and dates belong on calendars. Consider this redesign:
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In terms of Crawford’s conversation metaphor, the software is failing to speak back—she is shouting into the wind.
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consider the possibilities suggested by Ben Fry’s zipdecode applet. (First click “zoom” in the lower-right, then type in numbers.) Imagine honing in on familiar areas simply by typing the first few digits of a zip code—type “9” to immediately zoom into the US west coast, followed by “4” to zoom into the SF bay area and then “5” for the east bay. Because of the immediate feedback, the user can stop typing when she gets close enough, and use relative navigation from there.
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Even software that starts out information-rich and interaction-simple tends to accumulate wasteful manipulation as features are added over successive versions.
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It’s easier on both the designer and the programmer to plug in another menu item and dialog box than to redesign a dynamic graphic, and sometimes it’s justified as a less jarring change for the user. After ten versions, the software can grow into a monstrosity, with the user spending more time pulling down menus than studying and learning information.
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The mechanism’s labeling is intentionally vague, so the user will click approximately in the right area, and then continue to drag left or right until the correct information is displayed on the chart of train schedules. This forces the user to keep her eyes on the information graphic, instead of wasting effort precisely manipulating the navigation mechanism.** This is the same concept suggested by the Google Maps prediction list above. Instead of precise, tedious absolute navigation, offer quick ballpark navigation, followed by relative navigation in a tight feedback loop.
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As with the map, once the information graphic is established, manipulation can be incorporated. In this case, some words are colored red, and the user can click on these words to change them.** Numerical and time parameters transform into edit controls when clicked—the idea for this was inspired by Jeremy Ruston’s wonderful TiddlyWiki.
#The user always sees the software presenting information, instead of herself instructing the software. If the information presented is wrong, the user corrects it in place. There is no “OK” or confirmation button—the sentence always represents the current configuration. The graphic fades out when the mouse is clicked outside of it or the mouse leaves the widget.
#This approach scales well to more complex configuration.
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29 Apr 11
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08 Feb 11
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23 Jan 11
Phillip LongThe ubiquity of frustrating, unhelpful software interfaces has motivated decades of research into “Human-Computer Interaction.” In this paper, I suggest that the long-standing focus on “interaction” may be misguided. For a majority subset of software, called “information software,” I argue that interactivity is actually a curse for users and a crutch for designers, and users’ goals can be better satisfied through other means.
design usability interface software ui visualization graphics
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12 Nov 10
Chris ZThe ubiquity of frustrating, unhelpful software interfaces has motivated decades of research into “Human-Computer Interaction.”
In this paper, I suggest that the long-standing focus on “interaction” may be misguided. For a majority subset of software, called “information software,” I argue that interactivity is actually a curse for users and a crutch for designers, and users’ goals can be better satisfied through other means.computer software gui webdesign design usability development future top ideas
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In this paper, I suggest that the long-standing focus on “interaction” may be misguided. For a majority subset of software, called “information software,” I argue that interactivity is actually a curse for users and a crutch for designers, and users’ goals can be better satisfied through other means.
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context-sensitive information graphics
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graphic design
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Context-sensitive
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environment
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history
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only as a last resort
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industrial design
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That is, this software is normally “used” by simply looking at it, with no interaction whatsoever.
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Accordingly, all interactive mechanisms—the buttons and bookmarks list—are hidden when the mouse pointer is outside the widget. Unless the user deliberately wants to interact with it, the widget appears as a pure information graphic with no manipulative clutter.*
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The mechanism’s labeling is intentionally vague
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Sentence-based configuration scales so well because parameters are given meaning by the surrounding textual context, which can itself consist of other parameters.
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Ironically, the BART widget appears so fresh because its underlying ideas are so old.
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Twenty-five years from now, no one will be clicking on drop-down menus, but everyone will still be pointing at maps and correcting each others’ sentences. It’s fundamental. Good information software reflects how humans, not computers, deal with information.
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Before we can expect better airline websites, we may need to change a worldview.
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CSS, a language for specifying visual appearance on the web, is a particularly egregious example.
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Would we have any of our great works of art if the creators had to work with “rectangle.width = 17” instead of visible brushstrokes?
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In a sense, this is a tool for “drawing information software.”
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The computer science discipline devoted to this subject is called “machine learning” or “learning systems,” and several decades of research have produced a variety of algorithms for modeling and predicting behavior.*
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Prediction.
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In conclusion, it appears that this algorithm would successfully be able to infer the context of a regular user, allowing relevant information to be presented with little or no interaction.
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However, the best learning algorithms are considerably more complex than this one.
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Learning magic must be packaged.
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Until machine learning is as accessible and effortless as typing the word “learn,” it will never become widespread.
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information ecosystem
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An ecosystem is a network of individual components which consume nutrients and translate them to an enriched form consumed by others, autonomously and with no knowledge of the system as a whole.
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Thus, we have the remarkable emergent behavior of being able to look up pizza places simply by typing the word “pizza” anywhere on the computer.
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backpropagation of feedback
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Twenty years later, despite thousand-fold improvements along every technological dimension, the concepts behind today’s interfaces are almost identical to those in the initial Mac.
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Like a wallet and keys, the computer will be dropped into the pocket or purse before leaving the house.
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Although technology miniaturizes, the human eyespan remains a fundamental constant.
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tomorrow’s information device must provide a book-sized surface area
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The future will be context-sensitive.
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The future will not be interactive.
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Context can be inferred
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Learning predictors exist and are effective.
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I made the resolution that I would never again solve an isolated problem except as characteristic of a class.
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09 Nov 10
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15 Sep 10
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n-Computer Interaction.” In this paper, I suggest that the long-standing focus on “interaction” may be misguided. For a majority subset of software, called “information software,” I argue that interactivity i
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15 Jul 10
Tom McLeodThe future will be context-sensitive. The future will not be interactive.
# Are we preparing for this future? I look around, and see a generation of bright, inventive designers wasting their lives shoehorning obsolete interaction models onto crippled, impotent platforms. I see a generation of engineers wasting their lives mastering the carelessly-designed nuances of these dead-end platforms, and carelessly adding more. I see a generation of users wasting their lives pointing, clicking, dragging, typing, as gigahertz processors spin idly and gigabyte memories remember nothing. -
11 Jul 10
Carla CasilliInformation software design can be seen as the design of context-sensitive information graphics. I demonstrate the crucial role of information graphic design, and present three approaches to context-sensitivity, of which interactivity is the last resort.
accessibility architecture interaction interface programming reference research software theory ui usability ux web webdesign webdev graphics hci information inspiration design development Delicious
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oh_cripesEssay on how interaction is often a crutch of the designer and a burden on the user when viewing infoz.
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Christopher Burde-based configuration scales so well because parameters are given meaning by the surrounding textual context, which can itself consist of other parameters. A typical configuration dialog box attempts to express each parameter in isolation, resulting in in
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07 Apr 10
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02 Jan 10
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13 Nov 09
justin_knollThe ubiquity of frustrating, unhelpful software interfaces has motivated decades of research into “Human-Computer Interaction.” In this paper, I suggest that the long-standing focus on “interaction” may be misguided.
design graphics visualization architecture interface development software gui interaction fromdelicious
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09 Nov 09
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16 Aug 09
kerberusGraphic representation of data
design usability software programming graphics webdesign visualization information interface
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29 Jun 09
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14 Jun 09
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31 May 09
sundaryourfriendA new look at interface design in software
programming ui graphics interface webdesign usability interaction ux toread software
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22 May 09
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24 Mar 09
Juho MakkonenJohdatusta kontekstikeskeiseen suunnitteluun.
location webdesign programming visualization design article usability ui context
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23 Mar 09
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12 Mar 09
Aliza Goldthis was used a lot in garret dimon's slidedeck for webvisions 2007, improving interface design - plenty of cool ideas and food for thought in here - must read
WebDesign software design usability ux readsoon graphics de.licio.us
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11 Feb 09
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10 Jan 09
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08 Dec 08
Pete VilterA magnum opus on software design. Wow.
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ne se
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little inter-program communication
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Apple’s Interface Builder, for example, makes it simple to place buttons, sliders, and blocks of text. Dynamic graphics, the cornerstone of information software, must be tediously programmed with low-level constructs.
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It’s easier on both the designer and the programmer to plug in another menu item and dialog box than to redesign a dynamic graphic
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pulling down menus
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everything the user has ever done and every environment in which she did it
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06 Dec 08
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30 Nov 08
Graham PerrinRecommended reading.
Referred from the OpenOffice.org User Experience list, http://ux.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=discuss&msgNo=2534 -
17 Oct 08
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08 Jul 08
Kate BrighamSome nice examples - esp around trip planning. Also an interesting re-design of amazon.com book content. Author works for Apple.
research design ui visualization datavisualization trip_planning ratings
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01 Jul 08
Antonio WilsonA writer named Bret Victor writes an essay explaining information software and graphical interfaces.
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30 Jun 08
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16 May 08
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