Tell me more ×
User Experience Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for user experience researchers and experts. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 3 down vote favorite
1

I've recently seen great talk by Aza Raskin - Don't make me Click. It's in the sense of "Best UI is no UI".

Are there any other articles/videos like this one? I'd like to read/watch something further on this topic, I'm especially looking for some inspiration - sometimes, it's just hard to "re-discover" new ways of doing same things. Also, I'd like to avoid "reinventing wheel".

To me, tablets and phone applications (maybe even touch applications in general) are great at this - maybe if there are any guidelines/talks about phone/tablet ux, that could help too.

UPDATE: Another one: Future UIs

share|improve this question
I watched the Aza Raskin video you posted. Correct me if I'm wrong, but did Aza say hearing uses randomized search while vision does linear search? Aza said people hate answering machines because it forces us to linearly listen to all messages. Is it just me or should his statement be reversed? I thought eyes are able to jump around randomly to scan for info and ears cannot cannot do the same. It just defies Physics if ears can seek randomly. Your ears will inevitably pay attention to what's the loudest or closest to you. You have no choice to randomly scan with your ears. – JoJo Jul 2 '11 at 20:20
I didn't noticed that but as far as I understood it, seeing is random while hearing is linear - random is better for "getting" (reading, scanning), while linear is better for entering (voice recognition, typing what you want) – Kamil Tomšík Jul 2 '11 at 20:26
Since you mention tablets: make sure you distinguish "no UI" from "fun UI". The iPad UI is deeply satisfying - it makes us feel in control of cool things. Just like a toddler entertained for an hour by squeezing a rubber mouse to make it squeak. However, making swipe motions 10 hours a day will kill your arm pretty quickly. No UI != Fun UI, and productivity apps need No UI. – peterchen Jul 8 '11 at 7:36
@peterchen have a look on that updated link - that's what I was talking about - "no UI" :) – Kamil Tomšík Jul 18 '11 at 19:27
@jojo perhaps he meant "we can hear multiple things at one time and pick out the bits and pieces we want, but when reading we can only work sequentially". Much as how you can listen to a news broadcast and a sports broadcast, and walk away with most of the details from both (the parts you found pertinent anyways). – jcolebrand Nov 28 '11 at 15:50

3 Answers

up vote 5 down vote accepted

It's worth watching Luke Wroblewski's Mobile First talk ( http://www.lukew.com/presos/ ).

Here he talks about the benefits of designing for the mobile platform before designing for desktop, in that it really forces you to focus and be vigilant about what is important to show, what is important for the user and the ways users interact with the content. I think there's definitely a huge amount to gain by thinking along these lines.

He also mentions about the content being the action. No buttons, no menus, just interact directly with the content. Sometimes that's making use of multi-touch, and gestures, but the concept of direct manipulation is a compelling one and doesn't have to be just for mobile.

share|improve this answer
great! thank you. – Kamil Tomšík Jul 3 '11 at 16:38
up vote 1 down vote

I recommend to read design books at first.

  • Steve Krug, "Don't Make Me Think!"
  • Alan Cooper, "About Face"

And only after them read guidelines for different mobile platforms, it's not hard to find them.

share|improve this answer
Just to be clear, I'm not going to design anything (programmer sitting here), I'm just looking for inspiration - UI has a lot of in common with business logic. But thx, anyway. – Kamil Tomšík Jul 1 '11 at 17:28
up vote 4 down vote

I found Josh Clark's Webstock '11 presentation, Buttons Are A Hack, very inspiring. He's really talking about touch-screen interfaces, but a lot of the general points he's making apply to UI design in general. Hope you enjoy :)

share|improve this answer
+1 for that, great presentation, thanks for sharing – Roger Attrill Jul 2 '11 at 14:23
that's inpiring! – Kamil Tomšík Jul 2 '11 at 15:23

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.