tx - Log

Visual activation of negative areas of white space in these exhibits illustrates the endlessly contextual and interactive nature of visual elements. This idea is captured in a fundamental principle of information design: 1 + 1 = 3 or more. In the simplest case, when we draw two black lines, a third visual activity results, a bright white path between the lines ... Most of the time, that surplus visual activity is non-information, noise, and clutter.
Envisioning Information by Edward R.Tufte p.61

weight: 0 c: 02/2022

Gentle Advice Deck
interface design

Mooers’s law

An information retrieval system will tend not to be used whenever it is more painful and troublesome for a customer to have information than for him not to have it.

weight: 0 c: 06/2018 m: 09/2019

Gentle Advice Deck
interface design

Dark Pattern

A trick of interface design to make a user buy or our sign up for something they didn't mean to.

weight: 0 c: 06/2018 m: 07/2019

Gentle Advice Deck
interface design
Nielsen and Molich's 10 User Interface Design Guidelines

Help and documentation

Ideally, we want users to navigate the system without having to resort to documentation. However, depending on the type of solution, documentation may be necessary. When users require help, ensure it is easily located, specific to the task at hand and worded in a way that will guide them through the necessary steps towards a solution to the issue they are facing.

weight: 10 c: 03/2018

Gentle Advice Deck
interface design
Nielsen and Molich's 10 User Interface Design Guidelines

Help users recognize, diagnose and recover from errors

Designers should assume users are unable to understand technical terminology, therefore, error messages should almost always be expressed in plain language to ensure nothing gets lost in translation.

weight: 9 c: 03/2018

Gentle Advice Deck
interface design
Nielsen and Molich's 10 User Interface Design Guidelines

Aesthetic and minimalist design

Keep clutter to a minimum. All unnecessary information competes for the user's limited attentional resources, which could inhibit user’s memory retrieval of relevant information. Therefore, the display must be reduced to only the necessary components for the current tasks, whilst providing clearly visible and unambiguous means of navigating to other content.

weight: 8 c: 03/2018 m: 03/2018

Gentle Advice Deck
interface design
Nielsen and Molich's 10 User Interface Design Guidelines

Flexibility and efficiency of use

With increased use comes the demand for less interactions that allow faster navigation. This can be achieved by using abbreviations, function keys, hidden commands and macro facilities. Users should be able to customize or tailor the interface to suit their needs so that frequent actions can be achieved through more convenient means.

weight: 7 c: 03/2018 m: 03/2018

Gentle Advice Deck
interface design
Nielsen and Molich's 10 User Interface Design Guidelines

Recognition rather than recall

Minimize cognitive load by maintaining task-relevant information within the display while users explore the interface. Human attention is limited and we are only capable of maintaining around five items in our short-term memory at one time. Due to the limitations of short-term memory, designers should ensure users can simply employ recognition instead of recalling information across parts of the dialogue. Recognizing something is always easier than recall because recognition involves perceiving cues that help us reach into our vast memory and allowing relevant information to surface. For example, we often find the format of multiple choice questions easier than short answer questions on a test because it only requires us to recognize the answer rather than recall it from our memory.

weight: 6 c: 03/2018

Gentle Advice Deck
interface design
Nielsen and Molich's 10 User Interface Design Guidelines

Error prevention

Whenever possible, design systems so that potential errors are kept to a minimum. Users do not like being called upon to detect and remedy problems, which may on occasion be beyond their level of expertise. Eliminating or flagging actions that may result in errors are two possible means of achieving error prevention.

weight: 5 c: 03/2018

Gentle Advice Deck
interface design
Nielsen and Molich's 10 User Interface Design Guidelines

Consistency and standards

Interface designers should ensure that both the graphic elements and terminology are maintained across similar platforms. For example, an icon that represents one category or concept should not represent a different concept when used on a different screen.

weight: 4 c: 03/2018

Gentle Advice Deck
interface design
Nielsen and Molich's 10 User Interface Design Guidelines

User control and freedom

Offer users a digital space where backward steps are possible, including undoing and redoing previous actions.

weight: 3 c: 03/2018

Gentle Advice Deck
interface design
Nielsen and Molich's 10 User Interface Design Guidelines

Match between system and the real world

Designers should endeavor to mirror the language and concepts users would find in the real world based on who their target users are. Presenting information in logical order and piggybacking on user’s expectations derived from their real-world experiences will reduce cognitive strain and make systems easier to use.

weight: 2 c: 03/2018 m: 03/2018

Gentle Advice Deck
interface design
Nielsen and Molich's 10 User Interface Design Guidelines

Visibility of system status

Users should always be informed of system operations with easy to understand and highly visible status displayed on the screen within a reasonable amount of time.

weight: 1 c: 03/2018 m: 03/2018

Gentle Advice Deck
interface design

Tesler’s law

Tesler’s Law, also known as The Law of Conservation of Complexity, states that for any system there is a certain amount of complexity which cannot be reduced.

weight: 0 c: 01/2018 m: 05/2018

Gentle Advice Deck
interface design

Law of Proximity

Objects that are near, or proximate to each other, tend to be grouped together.

weight: 0 c: 01/2018

Gentle Advice Deck
interface design

Jakob’s law

Users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know.

weight: 0 c: 01/2018 m: 03/2018

Gentle Advice Deck
interface design

Fitts’s law

The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target.

weight: 0 c: 01/2018 m: 03/2018