links for 2007-01-12
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Forum on plumbing in Roca Cistern
links for 2007-01-10
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Holloway Road Odeon
Design for use not necessarily the user
The design focus is on what the users are doing and trying to do in the context of the larger real world activities in which they are involved.
[An element of the design is based on the user - to ensure that the design is appropriate for them - design brand, aesthetic or surface design of the product.]
As designers we can pay too close attention to users and what they say they want which can lead to timid, over conservative design that does little more than repeat the mistakes of the past in a shiny new package.
Activitity modelling and Participation Maps
Human activity can be understood at three levels of analysis: activity, action, and operation. An Activity Map represents how various activities fit together and provides a rich picture of their composition in terms of actions and operations.
Modeling techniques, such as card storming and card clustering, make it possible to quickly construct a rich activity model that inventories and organizes the full range of activities and actions that need to be taken into account in a design.
links for 2007-01-08
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jobs
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user experience design, designing for use rather than users
links for 2007-01-06
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World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools
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w3c css validator
links for 2007-01-04
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Ian Forrester Designer Developer Senior Producer BBC Backstage his personal blog
Gestalt Principles of Perception
Most of this is common sense when it comes to information design.
Gestalt Principles of perception – where similar elements are seen as a single chunk or group. The main focus of the Gestalt theory is the idea of ‘grouping’ how we tend to interpret an image or design in a certain way.
The main factors which influence grouping are:
1) Proximity – elements close to each other appear as groups.
2) Similarity – how items that are similar in some shape or form tend to be grouped.
3) Closure – items are gropued together if they tend to complete a pattern.
4) Simplicity – items organised into figures according to symmetry regularity and smoothness.
Law of symmetry
If an object is assymetrical the learner will waste time trying to find the problem instead of concentrating on the instruction. Chunking or grouping of information should follow logical pattern.