Topics: Design: User Interface Design

Designing systems or interfaces to help users achieve goals. Information architecture, user experience design, interaction design, graphic design, widgets, wireframes. Evaluating user interface design, usability testing. (45 articles)

Deafness and the User Experience

by Lisa Herrod

Issue 265August 12, 2008

Because of limited awareness around Deafness and accessibility in the web community, it seems plausible to many of us that good captioning will fix it all. It won’t.

Writing an Interface Style Guide

by Jina Bolton

Issue 260June 03, 2008

The design style guide provides a reference in which developers can describe the way the interface is intended to look, and helps designers to be consistent as the interface is updated so that, in turn, the interface continues to feel consistent.

Sign Up Forms Must Die

by Luke Wroblewski

Issue 255March 25, 2008

When planning a customer’s initial experience for your web service, think about how you can avoid sign-up forms in favor of gradual engagement. Show potential customers how they can use your service and why they should care.

Designing For Flow

by Jim Ramsey

Issue 250December 04, 2007

Flow, as a mental state, is characterized by a distorted sense of time, a lack of self-consciousness, and complete engagement in the task at hand. For designers, it’s exactly the feeling we hope to promote in the people who use our sites.

Understanding Web Design

by Jeffrey Zeldman

Issue 249November 20, 2007

Web design, like a typeface, is an environment for someone else’s expression. Stick around and I’ll tell you which site design is like Helvetica.

Put Your Content in my Pocket, Part II

by Craig Hockenberry

Issue 245September 11, 2007

“Mobile Safari—unlike other browsers—does not maintain a constant size for content viewing. Because of the small screen, the content area is constantly adjusted to maximize the space available for the task at hand.”

Never Use a Warning When you Mean Undo

by Aza Raskin

Issue 241July 13, 2007

Does the way we design our web apps cause people to lose their work? Raskin’s simple, foolproof rule solves the problem.

Quick CSS Mockups with Photoshop

by Casper Voogt

Issue 231January 23, 2007

Create quick design mockups in clean XHTML and CSS, using code generated by Photoshop. No, really.

Paper Prototyping

by Shawn Medero

Issue 231January 23, 2007

With interfaces becoming more complex, and development schedules growing shorter the best prototyping tools may be simpler than you think.

Where Am I?

by Derek Powazek

Issue 221August 08, 2006

We’ve got web standards. We’ve got Ajax. We’ve got content. So why are we still messing up global navigation? Derek Powazek gets back to basics and offers a few simple guidelines for getting it right.

Calling All Designers: Learn to Write!

by Derek Powazek

Issue 216May 09, 2006

”...when it comes to experience on the web, there’s no better way to create it than to write, and write well.”

Flywheels, Kinetic Energy, and Friction

by Nick Usborne

Issue 213March 07, 2006

”...of the people who arrived at the subscription offer page, we increased the number who actually signed up by over 500%.”

Home Page Goals

by Derek Powazek

Issue 211January 30, 2006

”...home pages are anxiety-inducing for companies. The home page is your first impression. And like the old saying goes, you only get one chance. So home pages themselves have a unique set of design goals.”

In Search of the Holy Grail

by Matthew Levine

Issue 211January 30, 2006

“Many articles have been written on the grail, and several good templates exist. However, all the existing solutions involve sacrifices: proper source order, full-width footers, and lean markup are the usual compromises made in pursuit of this elusive layout.”

Sensible Forms: A Form Usability Checklist

by Brian Crescimanno

Issue 209December 19, 2005

”...we can make our users’ lives easier by thinking about the way people interact with our websites, providing clear direction, and then putting the burden of sorting out the details in the hands of the computers—not the users.”

Thinking Outside the Grid

by Molly E. Holzschlag

Issue 209December 19, 2005

“There is a new kid on the block, and her name is ‘I’ve never designed with a table in my career.’”

Power to the People

by D. Keith Robinson

Issue 208November 28, 2005

Relentlessly simple solutions to complex design problems can be the difference between an average experience and a great one. D. Keith Robinson reminds web designers and developers that ease of use is more important than technological sophistication.

Ambient Findability: Findability Hacks

by Peter Morville

Issue 205October 10, 2005

“Findability defies classification. It flows across the borders between design, engineering, and marketing. Everybody is responsible, and so we run the risk that nobody is accountable.”

High-Resolution Image Printing

by Ross Howard

Issue 202September 05, 2005

Your client looks up and says, “Why does our logo look funny when we print the pages?” Do you sigh dramatically, or learn about Ross Howard’s technique for printing high-resolution images via CSS? We vote for option B.

Invasion of the Body Switchers

by Andy Clarke, James Edwards

Issue 189November 19, 2004

Wouldn’t it be great if we could update the classic ALA style switcher to accommodate multiple users and devices, including some that aren’t even traditional browsers, all from a single JavaScript and CSS file? Well, now we can! Enter the Body Switcher.

Dynamically Conjuring Drop-Down Navigation

by Christian Heilmann

Issue 183June 15, 2004

Got content? Got pages and pages of content? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could offer your readers a drop-down menu providing instant access to any page, without having to sit down and program the darned thing? By marrying a seemingly forgotten XHTML element to simple, drop-in JavaScript, Christian Heilmann shows how to do just that. There’s even a PHP backup for those whose browsers lack access to JavaScript. Turn on, tune in, drop-down.

Designing for Context with CSS

by Joshua Porter

Issue 171February 20, 2004

The medium is the message: Imagine providing unique information exclusively for people who read your site via a web-enabled cell phone — then crafting a different message for those who are reading a printout instead of the screen. Let your context guide your content. All it takes is some user-centric marketing savvy and a dash of CSS.

Night of the Image Map

by Stuart Robertson

Issue 166December 12, 2003

CSS design from beyond the grave: all the secret ingredients you’ll need to resurrect the image map using CSS and structurally sensible XHTML.

JavaScript Image Replacement

by Christian Heilmann

Issue 164November 21, 2003

Perhaps it’s time to consider the ups and downs of a JavaScript-based alternative to the Fahrner Image Replacement technique. This version uses plain vanilla XHTML with no special IDs or CSS tricks.

Suckerfish Dropdowns

by Patrick Griffiths, Dan Webb

Issue 162November 07, 2003

Teach your smart little menus to do the DHTML dropdown dance without sacrificing semantics, accessibility, or standards compliance or writing clunky code.

Keeping Navigation Current With PHP

by Jason Pearce

Issue 162November 07, 2003

Turning unordered lists into elegant navigational menus has become a new favorite pastime for many web designers. A dash of PHP can add intelligence to your CSS-styled menu.

Sliding Doors of CSS, Part II

by Douglas Bowman

Issue 161October 30, 2003

In Sliding Doors of CSS Part I, Douglas Bowman introduced a new technique for creating visually stunning interface elements with simple, text-based, semantic markup. In Part II, he pushes the technique even further with rollovers, a fix for IE/Win’s CSS bugs, and lots more.

Sliding Doors of CSS

by Douglas Bowman

Issue 160October 20, 2003

Image-driven, visually compelling user interfaces. Text-based, semantic markup. Now you can have both! Douglas Bowman’s sliding doors method of CSS design offers sophisticated graphics that squash and stretch while delivering meaningful XHTML text. Have your cake and eat it, too!

Build a PHP Switcher

by Chris Clark

Issue 152October 13, 2002

ALA’s open source style sheet switchers are swell as long as your visitors use compliant browsers and have JavaScript turned on. But what if they don’t? Perhaps, this: Chris Clark tells how to build a cross-browser, backward-compatible, forward-compatible, standards-compliant style sheet switcher in just five lines of code.

CSS Design: Mo’ Betta Rollovers

by Tim Murtaugh

Issue 140March 08, 2002

Design smarter, faster, better rollovers with CSS.

Reading Design

by Dean Allen

Issue 128November 23, 2001

With so many specialists working so hard at their craft, why are so many pages so hard to read? Unabashed text enthusiast Dean Allen thinks designers would benefit from approaching their work as being written rather than assembled.

The Flash Aesthetic

by Ross Olson

Issue 123October 12, 2001

Scaling, 2-D style, cycle-free motion, and heavy strokes. They’re not just web design trends any more. Join Olson on a cultural scavenger hunt as he tracks the ways Flash design techniques have crept into non-web media.

All the Access Money Can Buy

by Joe Clark

Issue 115July 22, 2001

Just when you think online multimedia will never be truly access, someone proves you wrong. In BMW Films, Clark sees a tantalizing glimpse of a better web.

Game Design in Flash 5, Part II: Heroes & Villains

by Peter Balogh

Issue 113June 08, 2001

Flash artists and ActionScripters, roll up your sleeves for Part Two of Peter Balogh’s well-written tutorial on Game Design in Flash 5. Thrills! Chills! Math skills!

Beyond Usability and Design: The Narrative Web

by Mark Bernstein

Issue 106April 20, 2001

Crafting a narrative web: To succeed profoundly, Bernstein says, websites must go beyond usability and design, deeply engaging readers by turning their journeys through the site into rich, memorable, narrative experiences.

A Failure to Communicate

by George Olsen

Issue 103March 30, 2001

It’s ironic that, as professionals dedicated to clear communication, information architects and user interface designers are having such trouble communicating with each other. Information designer George Olsen digs up the roots of communication breakdown and explores the three aspects of web design.

SMIL When You Play That

by Jeffrey Zeldman

Issue 101March 16, 2001

A gentle introduction to the SVG and SMIL standards for programmable vector graphics and accessible rich media.

The Curse of Information Design

by Scott Jason Cohen

Issue 96January 27, 2001

With the rise of information architecture, user experience consultants, and usability experts, the fate of a website is no longer left to chance, and its design is no longer a function of organic processes. That may be good for business, but is it really good for the web? Scott Cohen has his doubts.

The Ins and Outs of Intranets

by Dave Linabury

Issue 88November 10, 2000

Sooner or later, most web designers will be called upon to create an internal site. And will quickly learn that one’s own company can be tougher to deal with than any client. Dave Linabury offers tips on surviving the process (and building something good in spite of it).

Experience Design

by Bob Jacobson

Issue 77August 18, 2000

It’s time for web designers to peek over the cubicle and start sharing ideas with their peers in related design disciplines. Jacobson suggests one way to do that in this overview of the emerging Experience Design paradigm.

A Design Method

by Ross Olson

Issue 71July 07, 2000

In a high-powered production environment like the web, a design method can help you get more done faster … and provide you with rules to break. New ALA writer Ross Olson shares his company’s game plan.

Bridging the Gap

by Robert Miller

Issue 66June 02, 2000

How can we work together if we don’t understand each other? Systems administrator Robert Miller describes the view from his side of the cubicle, and attempts to break down the barriers between “creative” and systems professionals.

Walking Backwards: Supporting Non-Western Languages on the Web

by Shoshannah L. Forbes

Issue 65May 26, 2000

And you think you?ve got problems. Try building web sites in a bi-directional language like Hebrew or Arabic. Israeli web developer Shoshannah L. Forbes discusses the mind-boggling hardships involved, and looks at what the latest browsers are doing about it.

Fragments (of Time)

by Pär Almqvist

Issue 64May 19, 2000

The best web interfaces take time – the one asset that seems to be in perpetually short supply. Leading Scandinavian web developer Pär Almqvist presents a time-based perspective on web interfaces and the network economy.

Much Ado About 5K

by Jeffrey Zeldman

Issue 63May 12, 2000

A full-fledged website under 5K? Some of the brightest people in the industry swore it could not be done. Yet hundreds of developers not only came in under the 5K budget, they built great sites in the process. Zeldman explores how the 5K Awards rocked the web.

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