Monthly Archives: June 2012

Communicating your mental model to the user: Design models and the system image

As a user interface designer, you’ll have a conceptual mental model in your mind of how the application works. In order for a user to be able to operate the application effectively, she will have to have a similar mental … Continue reading

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Understanding the process of user interface design

Designing a user interface for a non-trivial product is a complex task. One traditional approach to designing and building software products was the waterfall model, where requirements are first gathered and written up in specifications documents. These are then handed … Continue reading

Posted in Product Management, Project Management, Requirements Engineering, Usability Testing, User-Centered Design | Leave a comment

Donald Norman’s design principles for usability

Donald Norman, in his book The Design of Everyday Things, introduced several basic user interface design principles and concepts that are now considered critical for understanding why some designs are more usable and learnable than others: Consistency One of the … Continue reading

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How do users perform tasks, do work, and learn how to use software applications?

Users interact with software by performing physical actions with input devices such as keyboards, mice, touchscreens, and microphones. Graphical user interfaces present controls like buttons, sliders, and drop-down boxes, and the user performs actions on these controls, either directly by … Continue reading

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Understanding the technology framework for building your product’s user interface

If you are designing the user interface for an application, you will likely begin with rough conceptual sketches, but at a certain point, in order to create detailed designs and high-fidelity prototypes, you will need to know what software framework … Continue reading

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An introduction to data models and UML class diagrams for user interface designers

In the previous post, we argued that the ability to read and interpret data model diagrams is an important skill for user interface designers working on business information systems or other applications that involve a lot of structured data. In … Continue reading

Posted in Information Architecture, Requirements Engineering, Usability, User Experience Design | Leave a comment