interfaces
An open platform is essential
Web trails
gridless.design
AÂ Website by Donnie D'Amatoget rid of the grid
Blasphemy, I need structure and order!"
The web is good at these things, just not in the ways that designers have been accustomed to working. We'll take a look at how we got here and how we might change our perspective. Let's think outside of the grid and allow other guidelines to provide a comprehensive layout.
Web Design is 95% Typography
An Article by Oliver Reichenstein95% of the information on the web is written language. It is only logical to say that a web designer should get good training in the main discipline of shaping written information, in other words: Typography.
Why Do All Websites Look the Same?
An Article by Boris MĂŒllerOn the visual weariness of the web.
Cloudbusting
An Article by Daisy AliotoIt is fun to revisit memories this way, a digital stamp in my weather passport, where everything can be contained in a forecast and Stockholm sits between Vilnius and London by sheer chance. It has also been a way to feel close to people I love while traveling, to know whether it is raining where they are.
As with most technology, this is artistry by committee. There is no Thomas Cole waiting in the wings. But someone has to animate the stars, to decide when to streak one across the screenâto play god in our pockets.
Always Already Programming
An Article by Melanie HoffEveryone who interacts with computers has in important ways always already been programming them.
Every time you make a folder or rename a file on your computer, the actions you take through moving your mouse and clicking on buttons, translate into text-based commands or scripts which eventually translate into binary.
Why are the common conceptions of what a programmer and user is so divorced from each other? The distinction between programmer and user is reinforced and maintained by a tech industry that benefits from a population rendered computationally passive. If we accept and adopt the role of less agency, we then make it harder for ourselves to come into more agency.
The Finish Fetish Artists
An EssayFor others, perhaps especially those artists who worked with light and transparency and were involved in the birth of the Light and Space Movement, an immaculate surface is a prerequisite. Helen Pashgian explained this very clearly:
âOn any of these works, if there is a scratch... thatâs all you see. The point of it is not the finish at all â the point is being able to interact with the piece, whether it is inside or outside, to see into it, to see through it, to relate to it in those ways. But thatâs why we need to deal with the finish, so we can deal with the piece on a much deeper levelâ.
The importance of a pristine surface calls for a very low tolerance to damage by the artists. The feeling is shared by Larry Bell:
âI donât want you to see stains on the glass. I donât want you to see fingerprints on the glass... I donât want you to see anything except the light thatâs reflected, absorbed, or transmittedâ
Spatial Software
An Article by John PalmerSpatial Interfaces
An Essay by John PalmerSoftware applications can utilize spatial interfaces to afford users powerful ways of thinking and interacting. Though often associated with gaming, spatial interfaces can be useful in any kind of software, even in less obvious domains like productivity tools or work applications. We will see spatial interfaces move into all verticals, starting with game-like interfaces for all kinds of social use-cases.
- ââThere is no app that replicates a deck of cardsââ
- ââHumans are spatial creaturesââ
- ââWeb trailsââ
- ââMakespace.funââ
- ââNototoââ
- ââSpatial Softwareââ
- ââSpatial Web Browsingââ
Spatial Web Browsing
An Article by Maggie AppletonThere are some new apps appearing that offer alternative ways of browsing the web...This canvas-based approach adds spatial dimension to the web browsing experience; they allow us to arrange browser windows above, below, to the left, and right of other browser windows.
The same way we're able to put an open book next to a piece of paper and below a row of sticky notes in meatspace. Arranging objects in space to create groupings, indicate relationships, and build hierarchies is one of those classical human skills that never goes out of style.
- ââSpatial Interfacesââ
- ââSpatial Softwareââ
How I Build
An Article by Pirijan KetheswaranIn 2014, I wrote about my belief that design and engineering are best when tightly woven together. Thatâs truer now than ever.
If Iâm feeling confident, Iâll jump right into my text editorâŠFrom here, more functionality is added and the code is tweaked until the feature looks and feels right to me. Whether itâs something simple like this, or prototyping a new interaction like multi-connect, thereâs no substitute for designing with real code.
In rare cases when I have ideas or plans that Iâm less confident about, itâs time to break out the paper, pens, and markers,
Because the Kinopio interface elements and aesthetic are full-grown, I almost never use traditional design software anymore.
In search of visual texture
An Article by Rachel PruddenIâm now more inclined to attribute Looseleafâs power to its visual texture than to some cognitive media-style abstraction. And the visual texture owes more to the beauty (yes, beauty!) of the original pdfs from the Vasulka Archive. Perhaps the demo is best understood not as a prototype generic tool, but as a specific curated experience in its own right, with form and content claiming equal importance in its overall success.
Even so, I think there are some general lessons that can be drawn from this demo:
- Content is not inert
- Visual texture lets content breathe
- Visual texture lets the eye wander without losing itself
- ââLooseleafââ
Menus, Metaphors and Materials: Milestones of User Interface Design
An Article by Boris MĂŒllerStudents traditionally learn art and design by studying the masters, analyzing, sketching and interpreting the grand visions of the past. In doing this, they get to understand the ideas, concepts and motivations behind the visual form.
In user interface design, this practice is curiously absent.
- ââInterface design is ephemeralââ
- ââXerox Starââ
- ââMagic Capââ
- ââInformation Landscapesââ
- ââBeOS Iconsââ
press.stripe.com
AÂ WebsiteStripe partners with millions of the worldâs most innovative businesses. These businesses are the result of many different inputs. Perhaps the most important ingredient is âideas.â
Stripe Press highlights ideas that we think can be broadly useful. Some books contain entirely new material, some are collections of existing work reimagined, and others are republications of previous works that have remained relevant over time or have renewed relevance today.
Embracing Asymmetrical Design
An Article by Ben NadelHumans love symmetry. We find symmetry to be very attractive. Our brains may even be hard-wired through evolution to process symmetrical data more efficiently. So, it's no surprise that, as designers, we try to build symmetry into our product interfaces and layouts. It makes them feel very pleasant to look at.
Unfortunately, data is not symmetricalâŠOnce you release a product into "the real world", and users start to enter "real world data" into it, you immediately see that asymmetrical data, shoe-horned into a symmetrical design, can start to look terrible.
To fix this, we need to lean into an asymmetric reality. We need to embrace the fact that data is asymmetric and we need to design user interfaces that can expand and contract to work with the asymmetry, not against it. To borrow from Bruce Lee, we need to build user interfaces that act more like water:
âYou must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.â â Bruce Lee
Changing Our Development Mindset
AÂ Fragment by Michelle BarkerWe simply can no longer design and develop only for âoptimalâ content or browsing conditions. Instead, we must embrace the inherent flexibility and unpredictability of the web, and build resilient components. Static mockups cannot cater to every scenario, so many design decisions fall to developers at build time. Like it or not, if youâre a UI developer, you are a designer â even if you donât consider yourself one!
...Sometimes interpreting a design means asking the designer to further elaborate on their ideas (or even re-evaluate them). Other times, it means making design decisions on the fly or making recommendations based on our knowledge and experience.
AJDVIV
AÂ WebsiteThe Fidelity Curve
An Article by Ryan SingerHow do we choose which level of fidelity is appropriate for a project?
I think about it like this: The purpose of making sketches and mockups before coding is to gain confidence in what we plan to do. Iâm trying to remove risk from the decision to build something by somehow âpreviewingâ it in a cheaper form. Thereâs a trade-off here. The higher the fidelity of the mockup, the more confidence it gives me. But the longer it takes to create that mockup, the more time Iâve wasted on an intermediate step before building the real thing.
I like to look at that trade-off economically. Each method reduces risk by letting me preview the outcome at lower fidelity, at the cost of time spent on it. The cost/benefit of each type of mockup is going to vary depending on the fidelity of the simulation and the work involved in building the real thing.
What UI really is (and how UX confuses matters)
An Article by Ryan SingerPeople mix the terms UI and UX together. UX is tricky because it doesnât refer to any one thing. Interface design, visual styling, code performance, uptime, and feature set all contribute to the userâs âexperience.â Books on UX further complicate matters by including research methods and development methodologies. All of this makes the field confusing for people who want to understand the fundamentals.
Thatâs why I avoid teaching the term âUX.â It means too many things to too many different people. Instead I focus on individual skills. Once you understand the individual skills, you can assemble them into a composite system without blurring them together. For software design, the core skill among all user-facing concerns is user interface design.
User Inyerface
AÂ WebsiteA worst-practice UI experiment.
Beyond Artboards
An Essay by Chuånqà SunThe Pursuit of Lossless Design-Development Handoffs.
Intelligent arrows
AÂ Fragment by Chris CoyierReminds me of a little feature I like in Notion where if you type dash-arrow (like ->) it turns into â â but intelligently â like it doesnât do that with inline code or a code block.
- ââUnicode Arrowsââ
Safari 15 isn't bad, just misunderstood
An Article by Jeff KirvinWhat I see in Safari 15 is the first steps into a new design language for iOS, one prioritizing adaptive, contextual interfaces. Ever since the move to the new âall screenâ iPhone X design, content has been king on iOS, and Apple has been removing more and more user chrome. This is the next step on that journey.
The Nine States of Design
An Article by Vince Speelman- Nothing
- Loading
- None
- One
- Some
- Too Many
- Incorrect
- Correct
- Done
State of the Windows
An ArticleHow many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?
Weâve all heard this riddle: if you dig down deep enough in Windows 10, youâll find elements that date from Windows 3.x days. But is it actually true? In this article weâll discover just how many UI layers are in Windows and when they were first introduced.
narrowdesign.com
AÂ Website by Nick JonesDesign
Prototype
CodeGuidebook: Graphical User Interface Gallery
AÂ WebsiteGuidebook is a website dedicated to preserving and showcasing Graphical User Interfaces, as well as various materials related to them.
It's all just geek talk
AÂ Fragment by Riccardo MoriIâm finding that many people not only have lowered their standards with regard to the user interface, but more and more often when I bring up the subject, they seem to consider it a somewhat secondary aspect, something thatâs only good for âgeek talkâ. The same kind of amused reaction laymen have to wine or coffee connoisseurs when they describe flavours and characteristics using specific lingo. Something that makes sense only to wine or coffee geeks but has little to no meaning or impact for the regular person.
The problem is that if an increasing number of people start viewing user interface design as an afterthought, or something that isnât fundamental to the design of a product or experience â itâs all just âgeek talkâ â then there is a reduced incentive to care about it on the part of the maker of the product.
Pictures of Websites
An Article by Matthew StrömWhen I was a product designer, people would ask what I did for a living, and sometimes Iâd answer âI draw pictures of websites.â
Sure, I could just say âI design websites.â Thatâs true. The end result of my work is (hopefully) that a website looks better, works better, or results in better outcomes.
But most of my day isnât spent looking at the website, or working on the code of the website, or manipulating the website directly in some way. Itâs spent in Figma or Sketch, drawing pictures of how I think the website should look and work.
Through some kind of alchemy, the pictures I draw have an impact on the finished website. But theyâre not all the same.
The User Interface of URLs
AÂ Research PaperURLs (Uniform Resource Locators) have rapidly become the standard method for specifying how to access information on the Internet. Although mostly used on the World Wide Web, URLs are also becoming more common for specifying locations for other distributed Internet services such as Gopher and anonymous FTP. Internet users see URLs both online and in print, and therefore URLs have visual interfaces. This paper gives an overview of many of the issues that concern the visual and user interfaces of URLs.
Web History Chapter 6: Web Design
AÂ Chapter by Jay HoffmannAfter the first websites demonstrate the commercial and aesthetic potential of the web, the media industry floods the web with a surge of new content. Amateur webzines â which define and voice and tone unique to the web â are soon joined by traditional publishers. By the mid to late 90âs, most major companies will have a website, and the popularity of the web will begin to explore. Search engines emerge as one solution to cataloging the expanding universe of websites, but even they struggle to keep up. Brands soon begin to look for a way to stand out.
Unobtrusive feedback
An Article by Jeremy KeithThe text 'added' and 'removed' drifts upwards from the toggle button and fades away.
So we all know Super Mario, right? And if you think about when youâre collecting coins in Super Mario, it doesnât stop the game and pop up an alert dialogue and say, âYou have just collected ten points, OK, Cancelâ, right? It just does it. It does it in the background, but it does provide you with a feedback mechanism.
The feedback you get in Super Mario is about the number of points youâve just gained. When you collect an item that gives you more points, the number of points youâve gained appears where the item was âŠand then drifts upwards as it disappears. Itâs unobtrusive enough that it wonât distract you from the gameplay youâre concentrating on but it gives you the reassurance that, yes, you have just gained points.
The Mother of All Demos
AÂ Lecture by Douglas EngelbartA name retroactively applied to a landmark computer demonstration, presented by Douglas Engelbart on December 9, 1968. The 90-minute presentation essentially demonstrated almost all the fundamental elements of modern personal computing:
- windows,
- hypertext,
- graphics,
- efficient navigation and command input,
- video conferencing,
- the computer mouse,
- word processing,
- dynamic file linking,
- revision control,
- and a collaborative real-time editor
The UX of Lego Interface Panels
An Article by George CaveTwo studs wide and angled at 45°, the ubiquitous â2x2 decorated slopeâ is a LEGO minifigureâs interface to the world. These iconic, low-resolution designs are the perfect tool to learn the basics of physical interface design.
Like, just a post complaining that screens should be better
An Article by Matt WebbItâs been 19 years since Pixar released Monsters, Inc. with all that CGI hair. Where are my hairy icons? Ones that get all long and knotted as the notifications number goes up.
Why canât I feel my phone? I found that paper from 2010 (when I was complaining about keyboards) about using precision electrostatics to make artificial textures on touchscreens.
I should be able to run my thumb over my phone while itâs in my pocket and feel bumps for apps that want my attention. Touching an active element should feel rough. A scrollbar should *slip. Imagine the accessibility gains. But honestly I donât even care if itâs useful: 1.5 billion smartphone screens are manufactured every year. For that number, I expect bells. I expect whistles.
- ââA Brief Rantââ
Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview
- ââOn Valueââ
- ââOn Businessââ
- ââOn Programmingââ
- ââOn Successââ
- ââOn Processââ
On Value
It was clear that [Hewlett-Packard] recognized that its true value was in its employees.
On Business
How do you learn to run a company at 21 with no business experience?
Throughout the years in business I found something, which is, Iâd always ask why you do things, and the answers you invariably get are âoh thatâs just the way itâs done.â Nobody knows why they do what they do, nobody thinks about things very deeply in business. Thatâs what I found.
Iâll give you an example. When we were building our Apple Is in the garage we knew exactly what they cost. When we got into a factory in the Apple II days, accounting had this notion of a âstandard cost.â Where youâd kind of set a standard cost and then at the end of the quarter youâd adjust it with a variance. And I kept asking, âwhy do we do this?â And the answer was just âwell thatâs the way itâs done.â And after about 6 months of digging into this what I realized was the reason you do it is because you donât really have good enough controls to know how much it costs, so you guess, and then you fix your guess at the end of the quarter. And the reason you donât know how much it costs is because your information systems arenât good enough.
But nobody said it that way. And so later on when we designed this automated factory for Macintosh we were able to get rid of a lot of these antiquated concepts, and know exactly what something costs, to the cent. And so in business a lot of things are what I would call âfolklore.â Theyâre done that way because they were done that way yesterday. And so if youâre willing to ask a lot of questions about things and work hard you can learn business pretty fast. Itâs not the hardest thing in the world. Itâs not rocket science.
On Programming
I think everyone in this country should learn a computer language because it teaches you how to think. Itâs like going to law school â I donât think anyone should be a lawyer, but going to law school could be useful because it teaches you how to think in a certain way. So I view computer science as a liberal art.
On Success
The technology crashed and burned at Xerox.
What happens is, like with John Sculley, John came from PepsiCo, and they at most would change their product maybe once every ten years. To them a new product was like a new size bottle. So if you were a product person you couldnât change the course of that company very much. So who influenced the success of PepsiCo? The sales and marketing people. Therefore they were the ones that got promoted and they were the ones that ran the company.
Well, for PepsiCo that might have been ok, but it turns out the same thing can happen in technology companies that get monopolies, like IBM and Xerox.
If you were a product person at IBM, or Xerox, so you make a better copier or a better computer? So what? When you have a monopoly market share, the company isnât any more successful. So the people that can make the company more successful are sales and marketing people, and they end up running the companies. And the product people end up getting driven out of the decision marking forums. And the companies forget what it means to make great products. The product sensibilities and the product genius that brought them to that monopolistic position gets rotted out by people running these companies who have no conception of a good product vs. a bad product. They have no conception of the craftsmanship thatâs required to take a good idea and turn it into a good product. And they really have no feeling in their hearts, usually, about wanting to really help the customers.
So thatâs what happened at Xerox.
On Process
People get confused, companies get confused. When they start getting bigger, they want to replicate their initial success, and a lot of them think that somehow thereâs some magic in the process that theyâve created. And so they start to institutionalize process across the company. And before very long people get very confused that the process is the content.
In my career Iâve found that the best people are the ones who really understand the content. And theyâre a pain in the butt to manage. But you put up with it because theyâre so great at the content. And thatâs what makes great products. Itâs not process, itâs content.
On Greatness
Whatâs important to you in the development of a product?
One of the things that really hurt Apple was that after I left John Sculley got a very serious disease. And that disease â Iâve seen other people get it too â itâs the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90% of the work, and if you just tell all these other people âhereâs this great idea,â then of course they can just go off and make it happen.
The problem with that is that thereâs just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product. And as you evolve that great idea it changes and grows. It never comes out like it starts, because you learn a lot more as you get into the subtleties of it, and you also find there are tremendous tradeoffs you have to make, there are just certain things you canât make electrons do, there are certain things you canât make plastic, or glass, or factories, or robots do. And as you get into all these things, you find that designing a product is keeping 5,000 things in your brain, these concepts, and just fitting them all together and continuing to push to fit them together in new and different ways to get what you want. And every day you discover a new problem or a new opportunity to do it a little differently. And itâs that process that is the magic.
On Teamwork
What Iâve always felt that a team of people doing something they really believe in is like, is like when I was a young kid, there was a widowed man that lived up the street. He was in his 80âs, and a little scary looking, and I got to know him a little bit â I think he paid me to cut his lawn or something â and one day he told me, âcome into my garage, I want to show you something.â
And he pulled out this dusty old rock tumbler. It was a motor and a coffee can and a band between them. And he said âcome out here with me,â so we went out to the back and we got some rocks, just some regular old ugly rocks and we put them in the can with a little bit of liquid and a little bit of grit powder, and he turned the motor on and said âcome back tomorrow,â as the tumbler was turning and making a racket.
So I came back the next day and what we took out were these amazingly beautiful and polished rocks. The same common stones that had gone in â through rubbing against each other, creating a little bit of friction, creating a little bit of noise â had come out as these beautiful polished rocks.
And thatâs always been my metaphor for a team working really hard on something theyâre passionate about. Itâs that through the team, through that group of incredibly talented people bumping up against each other, having arguments, having fights sometimes, making some noise, and working together, they polish each other, and they polish their ideas. And what comes out are these really beautiful stones.
On Criticism
People are being counted on to do specific pieces of the puzzle. And the most important thing I think you can do for somebody whoâs really good and whoâs really being counted on is to point out to them when their work isnât good enough, and to do it very clearly, and to articulate why, and to get them back on track. And you need to do that in a way that does not call into question your confidence in their abilities, but leaves not much room for interpretation.
On Help
Microsoftâs orbit was made possible by a Saturn V booster called IBM.
On Taste
The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste, and what that means is â and I donât mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way â in the sense that they donât think of original ideas, and they donât bring much culture into their product. And you say âwell why is that important?â Well, you know, proportionally spaced fonts come from typesetting and beautiful books, so thatâs where one gets the idea. And if it werenât for the Mac they would never have that in their products.
And so I guess I am saddened, not by Microsoft's success â I have no problem with their success. They have earned their success â I have a problem with the fact that they just make really third-rate products. Their products have no spirit to them, no spirit of enlightenment about them. They are very pedestrian. And the sad part is that most customers donât have that spirit either. But the way that weâre going to ratchet up our species is to take the best and to spread it around to everybody so that everybody grows up with better things, and starts to understand the subtlety of these better things. And Microsoft is McDonaldâs.
So thatâs what saddens me â not that Microsoft has won, but that Microsoftâs products donât display more insight and more creativity.
On Technology
As we look back 10 years from now, the web is going to be the defining technology, the defining social moment for our generation.
I think itâs going to be huge.
On Tools
I read an article when I was very young in Scientific America. It measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet â you know, for bears and chimpanzees and raccoons and birds and fish â how many kilocalories per kilometer did they spend to move? And humans were measured too. And the condor won, it was the most efficient. And mankind, the crown of creation, came in with rather an unimpressive showing about a third of the way down the list.
But somebody there had the brilliance to test a human riding a bicycle, and it blew away the condor, all the way off the charts. And I remember this really had an impact on me, I remember thinking that humans are tool builders, and we build tools that can dramatically amplify our innate human abilities.
And to me â we actually ran an ad like this, very early at Apple â the personal computer is the bicycle of the mind. And I believe that with every bone in my body, that of all the inventions of humans, the computer is going to rank near if not at the top as history unfolds and we look back. It is the most awesome tool that we have ever invented, and I feel incredibly lucky to be at exactly the right place in Silicon Valley, at exactly the right time where this invention has taken form.
On Theft
How do we know whatâs the right direction [for computers to take]?
Ultimately it comes down to taste. It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done, and then trying to bring those things in to what youâre doing.
Picasso had a saying: âGood artists copy, great artists steal.â And we (at Apple) have always been shameless about stealing great ideas. And I think part of what made Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists and zoologists and historians who also happened to have been the best computer scientists in the world. But if it hasnât been for computer science, these people would all be doing amazing things in life in other fields. And they brought with them â we all brought to this effort â a very liberal arts air, a very liberal arts attitude, that we wanted to pull in the best we saw in these other fields into ours.
On Expression
There was a germ of something there. And itâs the same thing that causes people to want to be poets instead of bankers. I think thatâs a wonderful thing, and I think that same spirit can be put into products, and those products can be manufactured and given to people and they can sense that spirit. If you talk to people that use the Macintosh, they love it. I mean you donât hear people loving products very often. But you could feel it, there was something really wonderful there.
So I donât think that most of the really best people that Iâve worked with have worked with computers for the sake of working with computers. They work with computers because they are the medium that is best capable of transmitting some feeling that you have that you want to share with other people. And before they invented these things, all these people would have done other things. But computers were invented, and they did come along, and all these people did get interested in them, either in school or before school, and said âHey, this is the medium that I think I can say something in."
On Talent
I observed something fairly early on at Apple, which I didnât know how to explain then, but Iâve thought a lot about it since. Most things in life have a dynamic range in which [the ratio of] âaverageâ to âbestâ is at most 2:1.
For example, if you go to New York City and get an average taxi cab driver, versus the best taxi cab driver, youâll probably get to your destination with the best taxi driver 30% faster. And an automobile; whatâs the difference between the average car and the best? Maybe 20%? The best CD player versus the average CD player? Maybe 20%? So 2:1 is a big dynamic range for most things in life.
Now, in software, and it used to be the case in hardware, the difference between the average software developer and the best is 50:1; maybe even 100:1. Very few things in life are like this, but what I was lucky enough to spend my life doing, which is software, is like this.
So Iâve built a lot of my success on finding these truly gifted people, and not settling for âBâ and âCâ players, but really going for the âAâ players. And I found something⊠I found that when you get enough âAâ players together, when you go through the incredible work to find these âAâ players, they really like working with each other. Because most have never had the chance to do that before. And they donât work with âBâ and âCâ players, so itâs self-policing. They only want to hire âAâ players. So you build these pockets of âAâ players and it just propagates.