UI/UX Resources

[WiT8litZ]

Anyone know of a short course or something similar about UI and UX? I'd like to move a bit away from hardcore coding and more into the design part. Even something to do with product development also.

 

[guest2013-1]

UI design as in pretty pictures? or layout and functionality and how to make it easy for the end user to operate software?

 

[WiT8litZ]

More functionality based stuff, but both form and function. I don't want to be a photoshop expert (yet)

 

[guest2013-1]

More functionality based stuff, but both form and function. I don't want to be a photoshop expert (yet)

Well in that case I'd ask you the following questions:

"Are you lazy?"
"Do you have common sense?"

If your answer is "YES!" then you don't need a course. The design of the program you'll write will be that of simplicity and ease of use because you're lazy and have common sense to not make it too complicated

I've seen a guy write something as simple as a webserver "pinger" to check if his servers are online (he administrated several hundred)

Now instead of just having the program load from a CSV and then checking and saving the results. He had this elaborate system where you have to create a list of servers (you just imported anyway) you'd like to check and give it a name and description for this "subset" and then get the program to check this subset and report back to you (which is just a printout of the grid he had on there)

And I'm like... "File...Import...Start Checking"

3 or 4 clicks and you're checking several hundred servers... he takes half an hour to an hour setting up all his subsets before he can commence checking...

ANYWAY... you learn a lot if you're directly involved with customers as well. Especially hearing their idiotic ideas of how they think the system can function better in terms of UI, and then hearing their "oh" when I tell them why it's been done like it has and how much faster it is anyway because of it

 

[dequadin]

Well in that case I'd ask you the following questions:

"Are you lazy?"
"Do you have common sense?"

If your answer is "YES!" then you don't need a course. The design of the program you'll write will be that of simplicity and ease of use because you're lazy and have common sense to not make it too complicated

That's not entirely true. There's is a whole field of computer science called HCI, so there is some "science" behind this stuff....

 

[FarligOpptreden]

That's not entirely true. There's is a whole field of computer science called HCI, so there is some "science" behind this stuff....

Oh yes... You are SO correct. I never specialized in HCI myself, but I try to study the trends and best practices. Our software has been labelled intuitive and user friendly numerous of times - it's often the deciding factor over our competitors.

 

[dequadin]

Oh yes... You are SO correct. I never specialized in HCI myself, but I try to study the trends and best practices. Our software has been labelled intuitive and user friendly numerous of times - it's often the deciding factor over our competitors.

IMO that the keyword right there. Acid seems to put more emphasis on work-flow, but for me the user should just "know" how to interact with your software.

 

[WiT8litZ]

Yep that's the kind of stuff I am talking about.

I had an HCI course in my honors year at UP but sadly the lecturer killed off all enthusiasm and subsequent oppurtunities to gain knowledge.

 

[dequadin]

Yep that's the kind of stuff I am talking about.

I had an HCI course in my honors year at UP but sadly the lecturer killed off all enthusiasm and subsequent oppurtunities to gain knowledge.

Well if that's the case I doubt you'll find any short courses on that kind of stuff.

One good way is to browse ComSci faculty websites and get the study guides for their HCI courses. Then you can get the name their prescribed text book and just order it off the internet. Browse for White Papers on the topic, and get read some blogs, Jeff Atwood has some good usability articles on his blog.

 

[guest2013-1]

Of course my **** is intuitive... who the hell wants to support software and answer questions like "how do I do xyz?"

not me...