User Interface News & Articles

Remember Metro, the tile-based interface in Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8? Well, that name may already be extinct.

So what do we think of the new Metro (oops ... we can’t use that word anymore, can we? It is now "Windows 8 style UI") stylings in SharePoint 2013? Like it? Love it? I’ll be honest, I’m not sure. I’m not sure end users are going to enjoy it.

Turn Sharepoint into a data dashboard without writing code. That’s the goal of the new NetAdvantage for SharePoint 2012 Volume 1, announced by design and user experience software company Infragistics.

Windows 8 is a big complicated product, but one that Microsoft hopes will be simple and fun for users to work with. Trying to get that message across has seen several new posts from the company's Windows 8 blog.

Last week O’Reilly Media hosted an online webinar about effective user interfaces. The online seminar featured John McRee, User Experience Architect and author of the book, Effective UI: The Art of Building Great User Experience in Software.

A few weeks ago we took a look at the free tools available for conducting usability testing. While free is always welcome, using free products or services can have limitations. When looking at paid options, however, making a decision can be complicated. Recently we had the opportunity to talk with Clicktale, one of the major players in the usability game, about their product, its features and how it can help companies improve their site’s design and user experience.

Usability expert, Jakob Nielsen has finally reviewed the iPad and offered his perspective of the magical tablet’s usability.

Although he immediately acknowledges that “from an interaction design perspective, an iPad user interface shouldn't be a scaled-up iPhone UI,” Nielsen compares its functionality to the iPhone and talks about what focus groups are saying.

One day the mobile interface will influence everything from the way we collaborate, communicate and design. According to Gartner’s five social software predictions for 2010 and beyond, the mobile web will change the way we think about user engagement, work spaces and the PC-based web.

As long as there’s been an Internet, the discussion between user experience and usability has been explored. Although they are conceptually linked, taken separately, they highlight different elements of the human-computer interaction.

Yet in these days of advanced user interfaces, from mobile devices to e-readers to tablets, has the line between user experience and usability blurred? And if so, what does it mean for web standards and design? We examine their distinctions, roles and implications in an effort to answer these questions.

Why can’t people just get along? And even more importantly, why can’t everyone just see things MY way?

Of course I jest (no, really) — but in the Web world, disagreements in the enterprise often arise from subjective intuition; that is, one’s visceral reaction to that not-so-lovely green on the homepage, or to serif fonts, for example.