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Tuesday, February 24, 2004 |
Understanding Design applies to Software Development.
Great rant from Dave! What's interesting to me is that if you
substitute 'software developer' for 'designer' and 'software design'
for 'design', you'll find that the article is pertinent to software
development as well.
I think this points to a
universal truth: Great design and great software development have much
in common and the two go hand in hand!
Great software
that's actually used by lots of people will be developed by a very
small team that is composed of software developers who have enough
appreciation of design to know when to defer to designers and designers
who have enough appreciation of software developement to know when to
defer to software developers.
From Dave Shea's Understanding Design
QUOTE It appears that Microsoft promoter extraordinnaire Robert Scoble has sparked a debate about the value of design.
Robert’s claim that readability comes before ‘prettiness’ may be valid
in some cases, but let’s not waste our breaths. Throwing arguments in
favour of design at one with an engineer mindset is as effective as
stapling Jello to the wall; it just won’t stick.
Something that we all need to keep in mind: when it comes to design,
everyone’s a critic. Sure, they’re all allowed opinions, but here’s a
little secret just between us: they’re not always (or even seldom)
right. You’re allowed to walk away from the argument without bringing
them around to your way of thinking, because those who take the time to
argue will rarely be swayed anyway.
Yes, there are basic design principles that every designer needs to
keep in mind; legibility and usability are two very important ones that
sometimes receive less treatment than they deserve. But design is
always about compromising and finding the best fit for the job.
Legibility comes in varying degrees, as does usability. If there was a
one-size-fits-all solution, why we’d all be out of work, wouldn’t we? UNQUOTE [Roland Tanglao's Weblog] 
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UI guidelines for Longhorn (called Aero). Longhorn Aero UI Sampler.
I just ran across this nice set of Longhorn UI related articles, officially titled Aero User Experience Guidelines: Sampler for PDC 2003. Links to the meat are under What's Inside?
heading. Some good ideas, some questionable, but all good looking. I am
starting to get a little sick of all the gradients though and the huge
titlebar seem wasteful. I wonder what usability tests caused them to
make the title bar much bigger?
 [Don Park's Daily Habit]
I won't put too many of these UI guideline shots in here - as Longhorn
will be a reoccurring theme over the next three years - and there's no
reason to go crazy - yet. But folks I'm telling the world underneath us
is shifting.
I can see why Scoble went to work for Microsoft. Longhorn changes everything.
This here is a history of notifications dialog. Below - imagine a file system that expects meta-data.
I get to meet some of the 'People & Groups' folks when I go up
to Microsoft next month. Just gotta make sure they support FOAF!
 [Marc's Voice]
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PLA Conference Program in the Palm of Your Hand. Dean just came in my office and proudly held out his Sony Clie, on which he had downloaded the PLA 2004 Final Conference Program. It's available for Palm OS or PocketPCs. It's sponsored by ProQuest, and it has some nifty features.
For example, when you view information about a particular session,
you can tap on the calendar icon to add it to your PDA's calendar. Same
thing with vendor information - tap the phone icon within an entry and
they are added to your contacts. Here's another cool tip:
"You can create an electronic trip report that includes all of your
notes and the associated item info. Simply open the Guide, tap the
title bar (in the upper left), tap Options and Export All Notes. Tap
OK, Yes. A trip report will be created in the Memo Pad on your device.
When you next synchronize, the summary will be transferred to the Note
Pad on your desktop computer."
The package was put together by NearSpace, a company that's already
done this for a lot of other event organizers. I realize this isn't a
huge deal to those who have attended technology conferences, but it's very cool in libraryland! [The Shifted Librarian]
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Lightweight XML search servers, part 2.
In last month's installment
I showed a simple search service that uses libxslt to reduce a file of
XML content (my weblog writing) to just the elements matching an XPath
expression. This month's challenge was to scale up to a database-backed
implementation using Berkeley DB XML. [Full story at XML.com]
After looking at my implementation, John Merrells, the creator of DB
XML, wrote to ask why I was using the libxml2 XPath feature to search
within documents returned by DB XML XPath queries. Didn't I know that
DB XML offered a document-level XPath query function, as well as a
database-level one? Heh. Actually, I hadn't known. ... [Jon's Radio]
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A new feature on
the Share Your OPML site, an Andrew-Dave collaboration, it lists people
whose subscription lists are most like yours. Think of it as your
personal echo chamber. It's an interesting way to discover new feeds
you aren't subscribed to. [Scripting News]
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John Shirley on The Nader Illusion. John Shirley has some smart things to say about Nader:
The
Nader Illusion is that both major parties are alike. He claims the
Demos and the GOP are just the same, both beholden to special interests
to such a degree that they're essentially paralyzed, no point in
choosing one over the other. This is mostly hogwash. Yes they're
beholden to special interests, but there are limits on that factor, and
in fact there is a very distinct policy difference between the two
parties. It *matters* which one you choose. There's not a chance that
Gore would have supported --or that Kerry will support --a
Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages. Bush will try to
push one through and with a Republican congress he may well succeed.
Gore or Kerry--never happen. And this is a watershed issue, like so
many that distinguish GOP and Dems. Such an amendment erodes the
distinction between church and state, sets a bad precedent, and of
course puts a Constitutional imprimatur on discrimination against a
class of people, gays.
Bush has been a one-man
environmental disaster, weakening the clean air and water acts,
allowing mercury and arsenic pollution to go on. Gore would NOT have
done this. The air will be dirtier because Bush was elected.
Gore
would have encouraged an increase in the minimum wage; Bush is against
it. People will be paid less because Bush was elected.
Too
many special interests? Yes and that needs to be changed. But it
matters which party you choose. Nader's preaching a fantasy.
Link [Boing Boing Blog]
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Elmore Leonard's 10 rules for writing. Elmore Leonard's ten rule for writers. Brilliant.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he's writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character's head, and the reader either knows what the guy's thinking or doesn't care. I'll bet you don't skip dialogue.
(this is my third link from Teresa Nielsen Hayden in one day, which has to be some kind of record)
Link
(via Making Light) [Boing Boing Blog]
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© Copyright 2004 William J. Maya.
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