Adactio: Links

A Digital Tomorrow on Vimeo

A design fiction video depicting technology that helps and hinders in equal measure.

List of pseudo-elements to style form controls by TJ VanToll

Want to style those new HTML5 input types? I hope you like vendor prefixes.

Responsive Nav — Responsive Navigation Plugin

This looks like a handy little bit of JavaScript for progressively enhancing navigation lists to show/hide them on smaller screens. And it’s not a jQuery plug-in!

URLs are for people, not computers

Yes, yes, yes!

datalist experiment

This is wonderful stuff! I’m a big fan of the datalist element but I hadn’t realised how it could be combined with input types like range and date.

So nifty!

Don’t Be Afraid To Teach Interactions by Timoni West

Timoni tackles the tricky topic of teaching taps.

Discoverability can be hard, but that shouldn’t stop us trying out new interactions.

Learning to See on Information Architects

A sweet, beautiful love letter to design, from Oliver.

No to NoUI by Timo Arnall

A well-reasoned and excellently hyperlinked piece from Timo pushing back against the calls for “invisible” design.

To be fair, I’ve only ever heard the “no UI” argument in the context of “sometimes the best UI is no UI at all.”

Still, this is a great explanation of why “seamlessness” in design is by no means a desirable attribute.

Sensory Interfaces (SI) on O Danny Boy

Dan isn’t keen on the term “natural user interface.” Here’s why.

Not click. Not tap. Select. : Cennydd Bowles

Cennydd uses the word “select” as an input-neutral term for what we might be tempted to call clicks or taps. Personally, I like the term “choose”, although that word might have too much intent bundled with it.

Knobfeel - Feels good man!

Reviews based entirely on the feel of the knob.

Carousel interaction stats by Eric Runyon

I’ve never been a fan of carousels on websites, to put it mildy. It seems I am not alone. And if you doubt the data, ask yourself this: when was the last time you, as a user, interacted with a carousel on any website?

The changing face of computers on screen

A look at the depiction of computer hardware and peripherals in sci-fi movies over time.

» Responsive Design for Apps — Part 1 Cloud Four Blog

A great piece by Jason analysing the ever-blurring lines between device classes.

Mind you, there is one question he doesn’t answer which would help clear up his framing of the situation. That question is:

What’s a web app?

Lamps: a design research collaboration with Google Creative Labs, 2011 – Blog – BERG

Beautiful thoughtful work from the BERGians.

Connecting (Full Film) on Vimeo

A short film about interaction design.

LukeW | Mobile Design Details: Hide/Show Passwords

I concur completely with Luke’s assessment here. Most password-masking on the web is just security theatre. Displaying password inputs by default (but with an option to hide) should be the norm.

Solita: This is rude

Let’s be polite. Especially when starting relationships.

New Rule: Every Desktop Design Has To Go Finger-Friendly (Global Moxie)

Josh takes an-depth look at the navigation design implications of touch/keyboard hybrid devices, coming to a similar conclusion as Luke and Jason:

Unfortunately, the top-of-screen navigation and menus of traditional desktop layouts are outright hostile to hybrid ergonomics. Tried-and-true desktop conventions have to change to make room for fingers and thumbs.

Want to test for a hybrid device? Tough luck. Instead, argues Josh, the best you can do is assume that any device visiting your site could be touch-enabled.

LukeW | Responsive Navigation: Optimizing for Touch Across Devices

Luke and Jason have done some excellent research (and put together some demos) into how the placement of navigation could be optimised for touch screens of all sizes. Turns out that the “standard” convention of having navigation along the top is far from ideal on a touch-enabled device.

The best interface is no interface | Cooper Journal

Interaction dissolving into the environment.

Don’t confuse design testing with device testing — Stuff

Andy makes a good point here, point out the difference between device testing and design testing:

When I’m designing, it’s incredibly important for me to quickly gain an affinity with how my design feels when I hold it in my hands.

These are not device testing issues, they are design questions and there’s a huge difference between how an interface feels to use on a smartphone size display and whether the HTML, CSS and Javascript actually works on any particular make or model.

Make it So | Interface Design Lessons from Sci-Fi

Chris and Nathan’s book is finally out. I’m going to enjoy reading through this.

The Computer for the 21st Century

A classic piece of design fiction written by Mark Weiser 21 years ago.

The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.

How to Make Progress Bars Feel Faster to Users - UX Movement

A fascinating insight into the psychological implications of animated progress indicators.

Resizable Displays | Fluid Interfaces

See now, this is why liquid layouts are the way to go.

From Print to iPad: Designing a Reading Experience

Harry’s 15 minute case-study presentation at UX London was excellent. He says the lesson is that we shouldn’t be afraid to make mistakes, but there’s another lesson here too: testing with users will save your ass.

Paperfold CSS | Demo Studio | Mozilla Developer Network

In amongst all the shiny demos on this site, this one could actually be useful.

Screenshots of Despair

Existential ennui delivered through interface copy.

We need a standard show navigation icon for responsive web design | Stuff & Nonsense

Andy documents the kinds of symbols being used to represent revealable navigation on mobile.

CSS3 Pseudo-Classes and HTML5 Forms | HTML5 Doctor

A look at the new pseudo-classes in CSS3 that go hand-in-hand with the form enhancements introduced in HTML5.

Thoughts on Responsive Navigation

Prompted by Brad’s recent post, here are some musings on three methods of handling navigation in responsive sites.

Clear for iPhone (Coming Soon!) on Vimeo

Nik demos the neat interactions in Realmac’s latest piece of iOS software in this cute little video.

Web Intents - Design Push

This looks like it’s going to be a great event on February 25th right here in Brighton: a gathering of minds to brainstorm around web intents. Get there if you can.

Redesigning the Country Selector - Baymard Institute

This looks like a nice progressive enhancement pattern: convert a select element into an auto-completing input element (a country selector in this case).

A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design

The next time you make a sandwich, pay attention to your hands. Seriously! Notice the myriad little tricks your fingers have for manipulating the ingredients and the utensils and all the other objects involved in this enterprise. Then compare your experience to sliding around Pictures Under Glass.

BlackBerry Future Visions 2 - Leaked Video - YouTube

Possibly the least imaginative concept video ever made, this piece commissioned by Blackberry shows a dystopian near-future ruled by security departments run by people with very, very tired arms.

Productivity Future Vision (2011) - YouTube

This vision thing commissioned by Microsoft shows a future-friendly networked world where content flows like water from screen to screen.

Arrivals

A cute glanceable interface onto Foursquare that turns it into your own private railway station.

Registration | Frontend 2011

A nice Huffduffer-style mad libs form gives this registration form a friendly quality.

spin.js

An ingenious loading indicator that uses JavaScript instead of an animated .gif.

Web Actions: Identifying A New Building Block For The Web - Tantek

Tantek’s braindump of research he and Erin have been doing on web actions—verbs for the web, specifically interactions across sites: sharing, liking, and so on. I agree with him that this terminology feels better than “web intents.”

Button Sluts and Web Actions

Erin documents the next step after web intents.

Pretenders: Why mobile Web apps should stop trying to act like native apps « cvil.ly

I agree with this. I like it. I plus one it. So to speak.

New Mobile Safari stuff in iOS5: position:fixed, overflow:scroll, new input type support, web workers, ECMAScript 5 | David B. Calhoun – Developer Blog

A look at some of the new HTML5/JavaScript additions coming in the next version of Mobile Safari.

Push Pop Press: Al Gore’s Our Choice

This looks like a beautiful way to present information, although it seems a real shame that the information is locked to just one class of device.

Developing the OAuth user experience at Twitter

Ben documents the improvements in Twitter’s OAuth flow. Maybe this will help to stop people blindly giving permission to dodgy third-party sites to update their Twitter stream.

Access Main Computer File

Well, there goes my afternoon: here’s an endless supply of computer interfaces from films.

YouTube - A Day Made of Glass… Made possible by Corning.

There are two things I’d like to see after watching this video:

A slew of parodies to highlight the unintended consequences of this marketeer’s panopticon,
The Paleofuture blog post in 100 years looking back at this.

3quarksdaily

An argument against skeuomorphic design. The Windows Mobile 7 design vocabulary is rightly praised for its no-nonsense beauty.

Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop on Vimeo

One potential nightmare vision of the future …that looks kind of cool.

Bug 578967 – Remove feed/RSS button from top-level GUI for Firefox 4 (move to bookmarks menu)

A heated discussion around the decision in Firefox 4 to remove the RSS icon from the address bar.

Seth's Blog: The inevitable decline due to clutter

I firmly believe that this is very relevant to visual design on the web.

Ben the Bodyguard. Coming soon to iPhone® and iPod touch®

An interesting way of using scrolling to tell a story.

Draggables

Watch this space. Glenn has a really interesting idea (and implementation) for exchanging structured data between browser windows using drag'n'drop.

Kitchen Interfaces Suck; Let's Break Down Why | Co.Design

Aza Raskin on the UI failings of kitchens.

UI Stencils - Welcome

I like this idea: stencils for common interface elements to be used with good ol' pen and paper.

End hover abuse now : Cennydd Bowles on user experience

An excellent little rant by Cennydd that I agree with 100%: hovering does not demonstrate user intent.

My First Week with the iPhoneBehind the Curtain | Behind the Curtain

An emotionally affecting endorsement of the accessibility features on the iPhone.

Sweet Talking Your Computer - WSJ.com

Personality in software. Pieces of technology are people too.

Non Hover | Trent Walton

A timely reminder: don't hide information behind mouseover events.

Fight the system. « Boagworld

A rip-o...— I mean, another form inspired by Huffduffer.

What Apple needs to do now « Adam Greenfield’s Speedbird

Adam Greenfield is spot-on here, dismantling Apple's "imitate real world objects" design guideline for iPhone and iPad apps.

Cooper Journal: A bit of structure for craigslist posting?

An interesting proposal for a Huffduffer-style mad-libs ad-posting form for Craigslist.

Bulletproof HTML5 <details> fallback using jQuery · Mathias Bynens

A good example of the correct way to approach new interactive elements in HTML5 (the details element in this case): test for native support and then emulate with JavaScript if required.

VaultPress — Apply for Beta

Another Huffduffer-style sign-up form, this time from the good folks at Automattic. Very cute.

Color Picker — Raphaël

A very nice colour picker from the brilliant Dmitry Baranovskiy.

ignore the code: Realism in UI Design

Finding the sweet spot between realism and abstraction in interface elements.

Designing Devices | Controls are Choices

Balancing complexity and control.

FUI Fantasy User Interfaces | Mark Coleran Visual Designer

A portfolio of imaginary interfaces as seen in the movies.

What deux yeux have teux deux teuxday?

A very nice take on the to-do list app.

Aza’s Thoughts » Identity in the Browser (Firefox)

Aza Raskin share's some mockups of ideas for incorporating identity management into the browser.

HTML5 Elements and Attributes

A very handy interface for browsing the contents of the HTML5 spec.

Venn Diagrams as UI Tools « optional.is/required

A very in-depth article on visually representing Boolean logic in an interface. Stick with it; it's worth it.

My first experience using an accessible touch screen device « Marco’s accessibility blog

A hands-on account of the new accessibility features in the iPhone. Sounds like a great experience.

Contact Us « Kellan Studios

Nice Huffduffer-style contact form.

arc90 lab : experiments : HashMask - Another (More Secure!) Experiment in Password Masking

Here's an interesting idea: generating a sparkline when you input a password ...familiarity with the generated sparkline acts as a visual aid to the user.

Moof

The sign up process is using the Huffduffer model. Good to see more human forms in the wild.

Persuading Microsoft to Implement Canvas « Processing.js Blog

The 26 step process required to add +1 to a feature request in IE. Franz Kafka is alive and well and living in Redmond.

Visible Tweets – Twitter Visualisations. Now with added prettiness!

A visualisation of Twitter messages designed for display in public spaces. From the mad genius that is Cameron Adams.

BBC NEWS | Programmes | Click | Stevie Wonder interview

Stevie Wonder talks about assistive technology. I think this finally proves that yes, accessibility *is* sexy!

Cooper Journal: One free interaction

Small interactions that serve no useful purpose but are nonetheless satisfying. "Design this interaction such that: It's “free,” i.e. having no significance to the task or content, It's discoverable in ordinary use of the product, It's quick and repeatable (Less than half a second.), It's pleasant"

Tags: interface

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