Jason Santa Maria – Dorm Room Tycoon Can you introduce yourself? I can try, sure. I'm Jason Santa Maria. I am a New York based graphic designer. I guess I can start with the older stuff. Most recently, I am co-founder of A Book Apart. A lot of things. Yes. Today, the theme of this interview is to talk about Editorially, and how you guys have crafted such an elegant product and in particular the UI and the design decisions that went into that, because there's a lot of clarity. Oh, absolutely. How do you get that clarity and focus of knowing what works? I don't know. The biggest things that I knew that we want to have were very, very sparse writing interface, which wasn't going to be too difficult, because it was just, don't put too much stuff on the page, but also, really giving a lot of prominence to the versions that you go through and preserving the history and the conversation around a document as you're writing. When did you guys start prototyping? Oh, I would say early last year. No. There's more room for players. Yes.
CSS Zen Garden: The Beauty of CSS Design 14 Beautiful Content-Heavy Websites for Inspiration Designing a good website that accommodates a lot of content is a tricky balancing act to pull off. Does one attempt to present the user with all the information in a clean, organized manner, or reveal it bit-by-bit, in an effort to create an engaging breadcrumb trail that tugs the user along the road to enlightenment? Get it wrong, and you risk overwhelming your visitors, who’ll then leave without retaining any part of what they just read. Get it right, though, and you’ll have gained a new audience member who not only understands your message, but also might just bring a few friends with them when they return. “Afraid of being exposed, dying to be seen — there’s a dilemma for you.” -Philip Roth, The Human Stain Information overload is a brick wall for website engagement that sets in very quickly – and once it does, it can be very difficult to regain your visitors’ attention. Polygon What is it? Why we like it The Verge What is it? Conde Nast Blik
It's Not UX vs. UI, It's UX & UI How differentiating the two will improve them both Chris Bank of UXPin — the wireframing & prototyping app — compares and contrasts web UI and UX, explains why we sometimes default to building a UI, and how UI shapes UX. For analysis of examples from over 33 companies, feel free to check out Web UI Best Practices. The web user experience (UX) is the abstract feeling people get from using a website. The user interface (UI) is what people interact with as part of that experience. When designing a website, you want your UX to be as positive as possible — you want your users to enjoy being on your website, that’s kind of the whole point. Source: UX is not UI Typically for websites, a company’s design team works on the UI in order to heighten the UX. We’ll start by giving an overview of UI with some examples, explain strategies to help you understand why a good UX depends on a good UI, and dive into why it’s easier (but necessarily correct) to create a UI instead of UX. What Web UI Is… And Isn’t
10 Heuristics for User Interface Design: Article by Jakob Nielsen Download a free poster of Jakob’s 10 Usability Heuristics at the bottom of this article. #1: Visibility of system status The design should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within a reasonable amount of time. When users know the current system status, they learn the outcome of their prior interactions and determine next steps. Predictable interactions create trust in the product as well as the brand. #2: Match between system and the real world The design should speak the users' language. The way you should design depends very much on your specific users. When a design’s controls follow real-world conventions and correspond to desired outcomes (called natural mapping), it’s easier for users to learn and remember how the interface works. #3: User control and freedom Users often perform actions by mistake. When it's easy for people to back out of a process or undo an action, it fosters a sense of freedom and confidence. #4: Consistency and standards
How do I recreate this color overlay layer effect in Photoshop? Original image Add a layer for your color and put it under your image. Then use the blending mode "Luminosity" on that image. Select your image layer, and go in the menu "Image", then select "Adjustment" and then "Desaturate." Add a new layer with a color on top of that image and set it to the blending mode "Color." To add a more dramatic effect, you put the color image on top of these 2 layers and use the "Overlay" blending mode at 60% transparency. Use the color mode "Duotone." Fist set your image to grayscale mode, then Duotone mode in the menu "image/mode." Then in the Duotone menu, you can choose 1-2-3-4 colors and mix them together. If you need to keep this to print in spot colors or Pantone, you can save the image in EPS and leave it in Duotone mode.
7 Rules for Creating Gorgeous UI (Part 2) Rule 5: Make text pop— and un-pop Styling text to look beautiful and appropriate is often a matter of styling it in contrasting ways— for instance, larger but lighter. In my opinion, one of the hardest parts of creating a beautiful UI is styling text— and it’s certainly not for unfamiliarity with the options. Size (bigger or smaller)Color (greater contrast or lesser; bright colors draw the eye)Font weight (bolder or thinner)Capitalization (lowercase, UPPERCASE, and Title Case)ItalicizationLetter spacing (or— fancy term alert— tracking!) There are a few other options that are possible for drawing your attention, but not particularly used or recommended: Underline. In my personal experience, when I find a text element that I can’t seem to find the “right” styling for, it’s not because I forgot to try caps or a darker color— it’s because the best solution is often getting right a combo of “competing” properties. Up-pop and down-pop You can divide all the ways of styling text into two groups:
7 Rules for Creating Gorgeous UI (Part 1) Introduction OK, first things first. This guide is not for everyone. Who is this guide for? Developers who want to be able to design their own good-looking UI in a pinch.UX designers who want their portfolio to look better than a Pentagon PowerPoint. If you went to art school or consider yourself a UI designer already, you will likely find this guide some combination of a.) boring, b.) wrong, and c.) irritating. Let me tell you what you’ll find in this guide. First, I was a UX designer with no UI skills. My portfolio looked like crap, reflecting poorly on my work and thought processMy UX consulting clients would rather buy someone’s skills if their expertise extended to more than just sketching boxes and arrowsDid I want to work for an early-stage startup at some point? I had my excuses. “I majored in engineering — it’s almost a badge ofpride to build something that looks awful.” These “rules” are the lessons from those hours. This article is not theory. This is the Krav Maga of screens.
What an Actual Product Design Process Looks Like Cap Watkins, Design Manager at Etsy shared his and his team’s design process a while ago and I consider it to be one of the most invaluable posts on the topic by far. I came across his 3-part series before reading Etsy Creative Director Randy J. Hunt’s seminal book Product Design for the Web, but revisiting it afterwards really clarified so much for me. Below are a summary of his steps (along with suggested tools), but I highly suggest checking out his entire series because it’s pure gold top to bottom. What are you doing? Create your own document answering these questions then pass it around for everyone to scrutinize and discuss with; once a consensus is reached refer to it frequently throughout the process to constantly remind everyone of the problems and goals to design for. Suggested tools: Any text software eg. Gather products with similar features and flows you’re trying to solve for. Suggested tools: Shameless plug—my suggestion is Bespoke (which is launching soon!). Kudos
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