This weekend I was reminded of an anecdote told to me by a colleague many years ago about his experiences on a long journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway. As many of you know, the Trans-Siberian Railway (or Транссибирская магистраль, Транссиб in Russian) is the 9,288 km long railway network that runs through [...]
On productivity environments, one of the key points that interaction designers need to manage is the balance between ease of use and efficiency. As a general rule, facilitating the learning curve of a system tends to impair the efficiency of advanced users and vice versa. Explanations, guidelines and assistive items are a must, but occupy a [...]
If you are a designer, this situation will be familiar to you: a colleague in the office gets up for coffee and when he passes behind your chair, he stands behind you and stares at your monitor. “Oh, I'm sorry to bother you, but it just seems like magic to me what you're doing”. Magic (from the Latin magia, derived from [...]
The default options and decision architecture influence our choices; designing them with transparency improves the experience and respects the user.