“I had the realization its not the money its about what does it take to engineer a machine that becomes invisible to the to the experience and that kinda blew my mind. So when you are designing anything its like you’re designing an experience. The engineering should get the fuck out of the way.” – Reggie Watts
Tag: design
A clean Design
Originally uploaded by TomC.
I really like the design of this truck. GE it appears thought of the out side of the truck as an opportunity to create a useful interface. The warning is right at eye level, and the driving comment number is clear and easy to read. The truck also does not carry an information that is time sensitive, like campaigns or advertising slogans. Well Done GE.
In the past I have listed the things that build a continuity of experience but I have not given a Formal (read Dictionary) definition. So here it goes:
con·ti·nu·i·ty of ex·pe·ri·ence
a coherent whole understanding of an object, thought, or emotion through the senses or mind.
Via American Heritage dictionary
I did some work on putting together a new interface design for an application. So, I thought I would provide my guiding principles.
- “Information becomes the interface”, Edward Tufte in Visual Explanations p.142.
- “OODA Loop” (Observation, Orientation, Decision, Action) By Col John Boyd, USAF (Ret).
- Information displays should strive to be no wider than 16 choices and 2 levels deep.
- Base change on real observed behavior. The qualitative can not eliminate the quantitative
- To some degree the interface has to be stupid simple. The antithesis to this principle is demonstrated by some large ERP software vendors.
- Do as much work beyond view of the customer as possible.
- Icons are Iconic or they are not valuable.
- Visual oriented communication occurs a faster rate and results in increased short term retention
- Make help always available and obvious
- Continuity Continuity Continuity
- Empathy
I have put together a screen cast of web sites that are moving to increase the continuity of experience for their users. As the web continues to mature, the lines between local applications and web applications are going to slowly disappear. Companies Like Google, Amazon, Yahoo, and others are making it clear that web applications are no longer going to be the lesser cousin to desktop applications. Enjoy.
Tom The Architect 