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LukeW | Writings on Digital Product Strategy and Design
Video: Rich & Mobile Form Design
In my Modern Web Form Design presentation at Microsoft's MIX10 conference I outlined rich interactions that can enhance Web forms and mobile form design considerations.In the talk, I discussed dynamic inline (accordion) forms, unnecessary inputs, selection-dependent inputs, and inline validation. Where possible, I included recent research findings for several of these design solutions. The second half focused on mobile form design including field zoom, input types, pop-up and compound menus, an
Published on Fri Mar 19 00:00:00 -0500 2010 by Luke Wroblewski
LukeW | Writings on Digital Product Strategy and Design
MIX10: The Type We Want
Jonathan Snook's The Type We Want presentation at Microsoft's MIX10 conference provided an overview of modern solutions for custom fonts on Web pages and their limitations.The FONT tag allowed you to specify any font someone had on their system for a block of HTML text but it required separate tags for each instance.Images allow you to use any font you want on a Web page rendered as an image. But this approach has maintenance and performance issues (due to many images) and issues. Only practica
Published on Thu Mar 18 00:00:00 -0500 2010 by Luke Wroblewski
LukeW | Writings on Digital Product Strategy and Design
MIX10: Designing & Developing for the Rich Mobile Web
Joe Marini's Designing and Developing for the Rich Mobile Web presentation at Microsoft's MIX10 conference outlined several high-level considerations for mobile Web site design.We’ve come a long way from WML, 160 pixel screens, and numeric keypads. But the mobile Web is still quite different from the desktop. Desktop: full keyboard, accurate pointing device, large screen, Powerful CPU/GPUMobile: limited/virtual keyboard, finger pointing device, small screen (can rotate), less capable CPU/GPUMob
Published on Thu Mar 18 00:00:00 -0500 2010 by Luke Wroblewski
LukeW | Writings on Digital Product Strategy and Design
MIX10: Developing Natural User Interfaces
Joshua Blake's Developing Natural User Interfaces with Microsoft Silverlight and WPF 4 Touch at Microsoft's MIX10 conference provided an overivew of Natural User Interfaces (NUI) and their core building blocks.NUI in terms of input: mutli-touch, voice, motion-tracking, and stylus. Just because we use these input types does not mean it is a NUI application.“NUI exploits skills that we have acquired through a lifetime of living in the World” –Bill Buxton. Skills we have learned in the real world
Published on Thu Mar 18 00:00:00 -0500 2010 by Luke Wroblewski
LukeW | Writings on Digital Product Strategy and Design
MIX10: Internet Explorer 9
Dean Hachamovitch's keynote at Microsoft's MIX10 conference provided an overview of the upcoming Internet Explorer 9 release.Internet Explorer 8 is the most used browser on the Web today but there are a lot of IE6 installs still out there. Help Microsoft kill IE6! Microsoft will continue to support ie6 with security updates but that’s it.HTML5 applications will stress the browser. IE9 will focus on what HTML5 needs not on specific browser features. The goal is to make standard Web patterns run
Published on Wed Mar 17 00:00:00 -0500 2010 by Luke Wroblewski
LukeW | Writings on Digital Product Strategy and Design
MIX10: Doing What Comes Naturally
In his keynote at Microsoft's MIX10 conference, Bill Buxton presented his thoughts on the big picture behind natural user interfaces and Doing What Comes Naturally.We’ve been talking a lot about technology but it’s not really what we do. How do we make sure we make use of these great tools/technologies to make the right design and the design right?Violinists pay $10,000 for the bow to their instrument. This is a huge portion of their income. The violin bow is the equivalent of the mouse for com
Published on Wed Mar 17 00:00:00 -0500 2010 by Luke Wroblewski
LukeW | Writings on Digital Product Strategy and Design
MIX10: Multi-touch Interaction Design in Public Places
In his presentation on Touch in Public: Multi-touch Interaction Design for Kiosks and Architectural Experiences, Jason Brush discussed lessons learned building large-scale digital interactions in public places.Interactive kiosks are handling more tasks in commerce, finance, travel, etc. They take less space, are often more efficient, and potentially faster than the humans they replace.But touch screens in public environments are not just about efficiency. We depend and interact with the things
Published on Wed Mar 17 00:00:00 -0500 2010 by Luke Wroblewski
LukeW | Writings on Digital Product Strategy and Design
MIX10: Designing Bing with Heart & Science
In his Designing Bing: Heart & Science presentation at Microsoft's MIX10 conference, Paul Ray talked about the design process behind Microsoft's new search engine, Bing, including how the team uses data and design principles to make decisions.Microsoft started building their own search engine six years ago. Named MSN Search then Windows Live Search then Live Search (2006-2008) and now Bing (summer 2008)Bing targeted features to “explorers”. Explorers represent 25% of all searchers and 30% of al
Published on Wed Mar 17 00:00:00 -0500 2010 by Luke Wroblewski
LukeW | Writings on Digital Product Strategy and Design
MIX10: The Art, Science & Technology of Reading
Kevin Larson’s The Art, Science & Technology of Reading presentation at Microsoft’s MIX10 conference highlighted research findings relevant to on-screen reading, legibility, and typography.Type designers take the limitations of human perception into account in their type designs. Digital typography can do the same.The typical computer screen is 100 dots/inch. But the printed page is 1,200 dots/inch.ClearType uses red, green, and blue sub-pixels to render smoother fonts on computer screens. The
Published on Tue Mar 16 00:00:00 -0500 2010 by Luke Wroblewski
LukeW | Writings on Digital Product Strategy and Design
MIX10: Windows Phone UI and Design Language
In their Windows Phone UI and Design Language presentation at Microsoft’s MIX10 conference, Albert Shum and Michael Smuga discussed the principles behind the Windows Phone design and how developers can take advantage of the phone’s user interface in their applications.The Windows Phone design team started by looking at what people do in real life. They were really inspired by transportation graphics, which are: grounded in good design that lets people find their way, simaple, and universal. The
Published on Tue Mar 16 00:00:00 -0500 2010 by Luke Wroblewski
LukeW | Writings on Digital Product Strategy and Design
MIX10: Opening Keynote
Scott Guthrie and Joe Belfiore's opening keynote at Microsoft’s MIX10 conference in Las Vegas, NV provided an overview of the Windows Phone Series 7’s capabilities and development tools.Microsoft’s Silverlight platform is now installed on 60% of all Internet connected devices and being used to develop media, rich internet, and (now) phone based applicationsWindows Phone Series7 is designed to anticipate what people want to do with their phones. The live tiles on the phone’s start screen create
Published on Tue Mar 16 00:00:00 -0500 2010 by Luke Wroblewski
LukeW | Writings on Digital Product Strategy and Design
Windows Phone: Input Controls
Microsoft released the Windows Phone UI Design and Interaction Guide (PDF) today which outlines design fundamentals for building on the Windows Phone platform. Here's an overview of the standard input controls available in the Windows Phone Series 7 operating system:Tags: windowsphone, mobile, UI components, interface, forms
Published on Tue Mar 16 00:00:00 -0500 2010 by Luke Wroblewski
LukeW | Writings on Digital Product Strategy and Design
Data Monday: Usage of Mobile Devices
It's clear that usage of mobile devices is growing at a furious pace. But what are people doing with their mobile devices (in the US) and when? Here's some recent statistics that attempt to answer these questions.63.5% of U.S. mobile subscribers use text messaging on their mobile device. (source)28.6% of U.S. mobile subscribers use the Web browser on their mobile phones. (source)21.7% of U.S. mobile subscribers played games on their mobile phones. (source)17.1% of U.S. mobile subscribers acce
Published on Mon Mar 15 00:00:00 -0500 2010 by Luke Wroblewski
Pathfinder Development » User Experience Design
Who values your product and do you value them?
photo credit: victoriapeckham We have reached the most critical point on a project I'm working on. After a few months we think we know enough about the domain and application to build a product road map that will take us to the first public release. The proof of concept is complete. The [...] Pathfinder Development - creating innovative software that builds business value. Who values your product and do you value them? Related posts:Your SDLC or Your Product – You DecideUser Driven P
Published on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:26:26 -0600
LukeW | Writings on Digital Product Strategy and Design
Forms On Mobile Devices: Modern Solutions
My article on Forms On Mobile Devices: Modern Solutions was published on Smashing Magazine this week. In it, I outline how modern mobile operating systems have taken steps to improve the usability of forms. You can read the the full article here.OverviewMobile forms tend to have significantly more constraints than their desktop cousins: screens are smaller; connections are slower; text entry is trickier; the list goes on. So, limiting the number of forms in your mobile applications and websites
Published on Fri Mar 12 00:00:00 -0600 2010 by Luke Wroblewski
LukeW | Writings on Digital Product Strategy and Design
Flexible Credit Card Inputs
When a specific format for input is required, the Web form responsible for gathering that input can do one of three things:Provide some basic help text next to the input field to let people know how they should answer the question: “Use xxx-xxx-xxxx as the format for your answer.”Structure the input fields and their affordances to accept only a specific format: three text boxes of the appropriate length separated by the appropriate punctuation. Provide a flexible input field that uses a simple
Published on Thu Mar 11 00:00:00 -0600 2010 by Luke Wroblewski
Total Experience
Design Thinking in Stereo: Martin and Brown
While read and reviewed by many already, this piece takes a critical look at Tim Brown’s “Change by Design” and Roger Martin’s “The Design of Business” for significant contributions and potential misses. When the topic of “design thinking” had gained enough momentum for BusinessWeek to devote an entire issue to design in 2004, it was a siren song to me. Newly converted, I digested everything I could find. Design thinking seemed to cover most of the experiential clues I’d been
Published on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:35:22 -0600
Pathfinder Development » User Experience Design
Storytelling in Design
Instead of a "loading" animation that we may bail out on, why not tell a story? I was impressed with this technique used by BMW. They are running banner ads on NBC's site which hypes the upcoming Olympic events. You see a car in the banner ad, you expect to click and see more car. [...] Pathfinder Development - creating innovative software that builds business value. Storytelling in Design Related posts:Ajax and DesignArt vs. Design, the Art of Design, or the Design of ArtDesign Doesn